Elaborate the poem daffodils
Answers
Stanza 1
The poet was travelling aimlessly just like a cloud over the hills and valleys of the mountainous Lake District in England. At that time, suddenly he came across a large number of golden daffodils beside the lake and under the trees. The flowers were ‘fluttering and dancing’ in the breeze.
The poet directly compares himself to a cloud, as he was wandering without aim, just like the clouds. This is an example of simile (Simile is a figure of speech where two things are compared using ‘as’ or ‘like’. Read more about figures of speech). He also uses the expressions like ‘crowd’ and ‘host’ to mean that he saw a large area covered with a whole lot of daffodils. In the last line, the poet personifies the flowers by saying that they were fluttering (like birds or butterflies) and dancing (like human beings). There is also an indication that it was a breezy day. So we get an overall idea of the landscape which includes the valleys and hills, the lake, the trees, the flowers beneath them and the breezy atmosphere.
Stanza 2
Here is another Simile. The flowers are compared to the stars. They stretched in a continuous line just like the stars in a galaxy like the Milky Way. Moreover, the daffodils were shining (as they were golden in colour) and twinkling (as they were fluttering in the breeze) as the stars. This comparison with the stars may have a greater implication in indicating that the flowers are heavenly as the stars.
The flowers were visible as far as the poet could see along the shore-line of a bay. That is why he uses the phrase “never-ending line”. Here ‘continuous’ and ‘never-ending’ may also suggest that the flowers left an everlasting impact on him.
Wordsworth exaggerates the number of flowers by saying “Ten thousand saw I at a glance”. That indicates that the poet has never seen so many daffodils at once. So he is just overjoyed. This type of exaggeration is called hyperbole (exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally).
The poet also says that the daffodils were tossing their heads as if they were dancing in happiness. Actually the poet was amazed at the beauty of the flowers. So, he found everything around him joyful. All these references of dancing and tossing heads are parts of his personification of the flowers.
Stanza 3
The waves in the bay were dancing and looking gleeful at the atmosphere. But the flowers outshone the lively waves in their happiness. Having such cheerful companion like the daffodils, a poet like Wordsworth cannot help being happy. So he was gazing constantly at the flowers and enjoying their beauty. The word ‘gazed’ is used twice to indicate how moved or charmed the poet was. So he gazed at them for a long time, forgetting his surroundings.
At that time, he did not think much about the ‘wealth’ that the flowers had brought to him. The poet realized that later, may be, after a few days. This ‘wealth’ is the happiness and the pleasant memory that he enjoyed for a long time since the day.
Stanza 4
By starting this stanza with ‘For’, the poet continues his reasoning for saying that the flowers had brought him ‘wealth’. He clarifies why the sight of the flowers was so important in his life. Whenever he lies on his bed in a vacant or thoughtful mood, the daffodils flash upon his inner-eye, i.e., his imagination. The daffodils have become an everlasting memory for the poet, whenever he is lonely. So, he calls it ‘a bliss of solitude’, a blessing of staying alone.
And whenever he sees the flowers in his imagination, his heart fills with pleasure and his mind dances with the dancing daffodils.
This shows the poet’s intense feelings. The poet has been able to depict the landscape and express his mind so vividly in so simple language and form, that really draws one’s attention. And that is why this poem has been one of the most read and mentioned subjective poems in the history of English literature.
Answer:
DAFFODILS
Explanation:
The speaker says that, wandering like a cloud floating above hills and valleys, he encountered a field of daffodils beside a lake. The dancing, fluttering flowers stretched endlessly along the shore, and though the waves of the lake danced beside the flowers, the daffodils outdid the water in glee. The speaker says that a poet could not help but be happy in such a joyful company of flowers. He says that he stared and stared, but did not realize what wealth the scene would bring him. For now, whenever he feels “vacant” or “pensive,” the memory flashes upon “that inward eye / That is the bliss of solitude,” and his heart fills with pleasure, “and dances with the daffodils.”
Form
The four six-line stanzas of this poem follow a quatrain-couplet rhyme scheme: ABABCC. Each line is metered in iambic tetrameter.
Commentary
This simple poem, one of the loveliest and most famous in the Wordsworth canon, revisits the familiar subjects of nature and memory, this time with a particularly (simple) spare, musical eloquence. The plot is extremely simple, depicting the poet’s wandering and his discovery of a field of daffodils by a lake, the memory of which pleases him and comforts him when he is lonely, bored, or restless. The characterization of the sudden occurrence of a memory—the daffodils “flash upon the inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude”—is psychologically acute, but the poem’s main brilliance lies in the reverse personification of its early stanzas. The speaker is metaphorically compared to a natural object, a cloud—“I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high...”, and the daffodils are continually personified as human beings, dancing and “tossing their heads” in “a crowd, a host.” This technique implies an inherent unity between man and nature, making it one of Wordsworth’s most basic and effective methods for instilling in the reader the feeling the poet so often describes himself as experiencing.
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