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William WordsworthA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” was written at a time of great uncertainty, both social and political. Factories drew people to the big cities, but the human cost was obvious. A lot of people were poor, hungry, and exploited, and children were forced into labor.
Against this backdrop, Wordworth’s poem seems naïve, even untouched by the reality of the newly industrialized country. But it demonstrates how we depend on the natural world for clean air, freedom of movement, and inspiration.
Like other Romantics writers, Wordsworth revered nature for its beauty and its ability to renew itself. He believed that human beings are sustained by nature, both physically and emotionally. This short lyric poem sets out his thoughts about the importance of nature, which we frequently take for granted.
The choice of the lyric is significant, since this formal yet spontaneous vehicle not only exploited the melodic potential of language; it also allowed the poet to speak freely, enthusiastically, and directly to an assumed reader.
The initial tone of the poem is rather solemn. In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker—who could be the poet himself, as he speaks in the first person—expresses his somewhat melancholy
By William Wordsworth
A Complaint
A Complaint
William Wordsworth
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
William Wordsworth
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
William Wordsworth
Daffodils
Daffodils
William Wordsworth
Tintern Abbey
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey ...
William Wordsworth
London, 1802
London, 1802
William Wordsworth
Lyrical Ballads
Lyrical Ballads
William Wordsworth
My Heart Leaps Up
My Heart Leaps Up
William Wordsworth
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
William Wordsworth
Preface to Lyrical Ballads
Preface to Lyrical Ballads
William Wordsworth
She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways
She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways
William Wordsworth
She Was a Phantom of Delight
She Was a Phantom of Delight
William Wordsworth
The Prelude
The Prelude
William Wordsworth
The Solitary Reaper
The Solitary Reaper
William Wordsworth
The World Is Too Much with Us
The World Is Too Much with Us
William Wordsworth
To the Skylark
To the Skylark
William Wordsworth
We Are Seven
We Are Seven
William Wordsworth