William Wordsworth: DAFFODILS

letteratura inglese

William Wordsworth :    DAFFODILS

This poem, written by William Wordsworts in 1804 records the experience of a walk, when the poet is with his sister Dorothy. While he walk, he saw daffodils.

FIRST STANZA

The poem opens with the poet wondering in a state of loneliness. When he says that 929c26j he "wandered lonely as a cloud" ( Line 1), he reminds us of those moods when we are aimless, undirected and not fully related to the world around us. This sense of detachment from experience is strengthened by the description of the cloud which "floats on high" ( Line 2). This mood is suddenly broken by the sight of the daffodils which are seen as a "croud" ( Line 3) but at once he corrects his thought and sees them as "a host". The vividness appears immediately in Line 4 in the heighteining of the colour of the daffodils from yellow to "golden" ( Line 4). Wordsworth spends no words for describe the daffodils, but places them in relationship to the lake and the trees.

SECOND STANZA

The second stanza starts with a simily: the daffodils are compared to the "stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way" ( Line 7). In these lines the poet shows the daffodils as a part of a universal order. The joy exhibited by both the "dancing" flowers and the stars that "twinkle" ( Line 8) is attributed to them by the poet through the use of personification.

THIRD STANZA

The daffodils are then compared with the waves on the lake, which also dance, but not with so much "glee" ( Line 14) as the flowers.

The breeze is important for the poet also as a symbol of his creative activity: in fact the breeze that blows on the lake is the equivalent of the breeze of poetic "glee" which is blowing through the poet's mind. The poet is "gay" ( Line 15) because the sight of the flowers which is a "jocund company" ( Line 16) give himself "wealth".

FOURTH STANZA

In the last stanza there is a tense shift from past to present. In this line is described the poet's capability of recalling experience  at future times. So the experience is not lost but may be recovered when wanted. When the poetic process makes the experience available once again the daffodils "flash upon that inward eye" ( Line 21). In this condition the poet find his hearts dancing with joy, the same joy which he feels when he observed the dance of the daffodils.