Monday 29 August 2016

What is the speaker's mood in lines 1-2 and how does it change when the speaker sees the daffodils?

Stanza one of Wordsworth's poem reads:



I wandered lonely as a cloud 


That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 


When all at once I saw a crowd, 


A host, of golden daffodils; 


Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 


Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 



In lines one and two the speaker, or person narrating the poem (not necessarily the author of the poem), explains that he was "wandering lonely." The speaker uses a simile...

Stanza one of Wordsworth's poem reads:



I wandered lonely as a cloud 


That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 


When all at once I saw a crowd, 


A host, of golden daffodils; 


Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 


Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 



In lines one and two the speaker, or person narrating the poem (not necessarily the author of the poem), explains that he was "wandering lonely." The speaker uses a simile to compare their movement to the movement of a cloud floating above rolling hills. At that moment, a transition happens as he suddenly notices a great number, which he describes as a "crowd" of daffodils. This description of the daffodils as a "crowd" or "host" is an example of figurative language. We know that this isn't literally a crowd, like a crowd of people. Yet, we understand that he is implying that there is a large number of flowers clustered in this spot. 



In the first two lines, he describes his mood as "lonely." But when he sees the flowers, he is no longer lonely. Now he is surrounded by a cluster of apparently cheerful flowers, since they are "fluttering and dancing in the breeze." This energetic diction shows the improvement that the flowers made on the speaker's mood. At first he was wandering lonely. The word wandering  implies a slowness of pace; in the same way, clouds usually glide slowly through the sky. However, the flowers are dancing in the wind. This increasing action once more emphasizes the positive progression of the speaker's mood. 

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