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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” appears to be a straightforward description of the natural world, but in the fourth stanza the speaker tells us that his memory has conjured up the scene before us. Nature has stirred his imagination, prompting him to set down his feelings.
There are clues to this in the first three stanzas of the poem, since the speaker does not describe nature minutely; rather, he focuses on a handful of details that provoke passion in him. The first two lines tell us that he does not walk through the landscape observing every little detail; instead, he is distracted, possibly lost in thought. It is when nature corresponds to an impulse within him that he pays attention to it.
The dancing daffodils and waves evoke a feeling of joy and liberation, and it is these feelings he remembers later, when he is in an uninspiring setting.
The poem seems to suggest that scientific objectivity would tell us little about nature, but the power of the imagination evokes its magnificence. The poem is as much about this congruence between nature and the mind as it is about nature itself.
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