INTRODUCTION

William Wordsworth, (born April 7, 1770, Cockermouth, Cumberland, England—died April 23, 1850,
Rydal Mount, Westmorland), English poet whose Lyrical Ballads (1798), written with Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, helped launch the English Romantic movement.

Early life and education

Wordsworth was born in the Lake District of northern England, the second of five children of a modestly
prosperous estate manager. He lost his mother when he was 7 and his father when he was 13, upon
which the orphan boys were sent off by guardian uncles to a grammar school at Hawkshead, a village in
the heart of the Lake District. At Hawkshead Wordsworth received an excellent education in classics,
literature, and mathematics, but the chief advantage to him there was the chance to indulge in the
boyhood pleasures of living and playing in the outdoors.

SYNOPSIS

Daffodils Summary in English

In this article, Daffodils Summary, we will understand the critical analysis of the poet in brief. The
poem is not a result of the poet’s imagination. It is a product of his actual visualization. The poet
expresses his feelings of solitude by saying ‘ I wandered as a lonely cloud’. The reason behind his
feeling of loneliness was the death of a beloved one, his brother. Passing through a field beside the
lake, he comes across a cluster of golden daffodils waving in the breeze. Moreover, they were more
isolated patch or scattered. They were thousands and thousands in number dancing in the breeze.

Furthermore, the dancing, blinking flowers stretched endlessly along the shore. Also, the shining
waves of the lake danced beside the flowers. The daffodils traced the water with their beauty.
Moreover, the poet says, the golden daffodils twinkled and stretched in an endless line like the stars
in the Milky galaxy way. It implies that the flowers seem heavenly as stars. This made the poet very
happy as he has never seen so many daffodils at one sight. He enjoyed the company of flowers.

Analysis of Daffodils
Title and Theme of the Poem
The title, ‘Daffodils’ is a simple word that reminds us of the arrival of spring, when the field is full of
daffodils. Daffodils are yellow flowers, having an amazing shape and beautiful fragrance. A bunch of
daffodils symbolize the joy and happiness of life.
The theme of the poem ‘Daffodils’ is a collection of human emotions inspired by nature that we may
have not noticed enough due to our busy lives. The daffodils imply beginning or rebirth for human
beings, blessed with the grace of nature. The arrival of daffodils in the month of March is welcomed and
it’s an enjoyable time to appreciate them!

VISUAL IMAGERY

In the poem ‘Daffodils’ or ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ the poet has used
several figures of speech to give it a rhetorical effect. Those are elaborated
below.

Simile
Simile is a direct comparison between two different things using ‘as’ or ‘like’.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

In the above line, the poet has compared himself to a cloud using ‘as’. This is
an example of simile.

Continuous as the stars that shine

…margin of a bay

In the above extract the poet has compared the flowers with the shining stars
on the Milky Way.

Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sound at the beginning or in
stressed syllables of nearby words.

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

And dances with the daffodils

The repetition of the sounds ‘b’ and ‘d’ in above lines are examples of
alliteration.
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is an exaggerated statement.

When all at once I saw a crowd,

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

In the two examples above, the poet has used ‘crowd’ and ‘ten thousand’ to
mean a lot of daffodils. But he must not have counted them there at a glance.
This is an obvious exaggeration.

They stretched in never-ending line

Yes, the flowers were stretched in a vast area, but that is surely not ‘never-
ending’. The poet has made an overstatement here.