Rhyme
The poet makes use of a regular rhyme scheme
throughout the poem. The first line of each stanza
rhymes with the third. The second line rhymes
with the fourth, and then the last two lines
rhyme with each other to form a concluding couplet
to each stanza. The words used in the rhymes
are mostly simple, consisting of one syllable. The
use of rhyme not only supplies an easily identifiable
sense of order and structure to the poem but
adds pleasure to the reader’s experience of it.
Personification
Personification is a poetic technique in which
human emotions and feelings are attributed to
inanimate objects. For example, the poet states
that he is ‘‘as lonely as a cloud,’’ which is a formof
personification by use of a simile (a comparison
of two apparently unlike things in a way that
brings out the similarity between them). The
poet compares his own loneliness to the loneliness
of a single cloud in the sky. A more extended use
of personification occurs in the descriptions of the
daffodils. The poet describes them as a ‘‘crowd,’’
which is a term usually applied to people. Further,
the daffodils are described as dancing, moving
their heads around almost as if they were
human. Dance, however, is a human invention,
proceeding according tomeasured steps. The fact
that the daffodils are presented in this light personifies
them by attributing to them a human
activity. The personification continues when the
daffodils are described as gleeful. Glee, which
means joy, is a human emotion; presumably, daffodils
do not experience joy, and certainly not in
the sense that humans do, but the poet is prepared
to attribute such joy to them because that is howit
seems to him. The personification also has the
effect of creating a subtle link, through the spirit
of joy, between humans and the natural world.
Alliteration
Alliteration refers to the repetition of initial consonants.
Wordsworth does not make much use of
alliteration in this poem, but when he does it is
with great effect. It occurs in the final line, the
repetition of the
d sound in dances and daffodils.The word
dance is a key one in the poem, since itor a variant appears in every stanza. In the first
three stanzas, it refers to the daffodils only; in the
final line of the last stanza, it refers both to the
daffodils and to the heart of the poet. The alliteration
gives a pleasing sense of resolution to the
poem, suggesting the connection between man
and nature that is the theme of the poem.
Themes:
Nature
Perhaps the key term in the poem is ‘‘lonely,’’
which describes the poet’s state of mind as he
walks in nature. He does not say merely that he
was alone. He refers to a specific lack of a sense of
community, or connectedness. He is isolated, and
in the poem he uses the image of a solitary cloud to
convey his mood. He is walking in nature, but he
feels a sense of separation from other living things,
whether human or natural. But then he suddenly
catches sight of the endless line of daffodils, and
this changes his mood completely.What meets his
eye is not merely a static scene. The wind is blowing,
which makes the daffodils seem more than
usually alive as they are blown about in the breeze.
In this scene of great natural beauty, the poet feels
happy and restored to life in a certainway. Before,
he was lonely, but now he feels cheerful, moved by
the beauty of the scene. It seems to him as if
nature, as represented by the daffodils, is alive
with joy, and he is able to share that joy. There is
therefore a connection between the poet and the
daffodils that puts an end to his sense of
separation.
It is perhaps significant that the speaker identifies
himself (in line 15) as a poet, when he states
that such a sight could not fail to make a poet
cheerful. He does not say that just anyone would
have been affected by the scene, or affected in the
same way. ForWordsworth, a poet was a man of
deep sensibilities who was capable of understanding
intuitively the connection between man and
nature. To be cut off from that feeling could only
be experienced by a poet as a painful lack of
something vital. The sudden sight of the daffodils
in motion, stirred by the wind, jolts the poet into
feeling oncemore the same life that flows through
humans and the natural world. It is a moment of
true communionwith the spirit of nature, and this
is why it restores his spirits.
Memory and Imagination
It is important to note that Wordsworth did not
write the poem immediately after seeing the daffodils.
Two years passed between the time he saw
the daffodils and the time he wrote the poem.
What prompted the poem, then, was not so
much the experience of seeing the daffodils but
the memory of it, recreated by the poet’s imagination
at a later date.What this shows is that for
Wordsworth, what he calls in the poem the
‘‘inward eye’’ is in a sense more powerful than
the outward eye with which he saw the daffodils.
The poet says this quite clearly in the last two
lines of stanza 3, which is why the last stanza of
the poem focuses not on the daffodils as an
immediate sense experience but on the memory
of that experience. At the time Wordsworth saw
the daffodils, he enjoyed the sight, as anyone
would, but he did not realize its true significance
until later. In solitude at home, when he is relaxing
and in a reflective mood, the sight of the
daffodils suddenly comes into his mind again,
and once again he experiences a moment of communion
with nature; his heart dances with joy
just as he remembers the daffodils dancing. The
point here is that the really significant moments
come not when he is in nature but when he is
withdrawn from it. He can recreate the experience
for himself without actually going out in
nature and seeking a similar sight. The implication
is that although nature may, in the poem, be
a wonderful sight, the human mind is even more
wonderful, since it can summon the experience
again when no daffodils are in sight. Indeed, the
pleasure afforded by the daffodils, thanks to the
power of memory and imagination, has only
increased over the intervening two years.
- ۹۴/۱۰/۱۹