19 pages • 38 minutes read
William WordsworthDaffodils
Nonfiction | Poem | Middle Grade | Published in 1973A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“Daffodils” is a lyric poem of 24 lines, divided into four rhyming stanzas with six lines each, known as sestets. The rhyme scheme of each sestet is ABABCC. The lines are written in iambic tetrameter, four groups of stressed followed by unstressed syllables. This creates a gentle, rhythmic sound, an even pace that mimics walking. Yet, what drives the underlying tension of the poem is William Wordsworth’s careful use of verbs. Although the poem begins in first-person past tense, the speaker seems to be actively searching through aimlessness (the “lonely” wanderer of the title). Urgency is achieved by the speaker’s noted surprise at seeing the field of daffodils. The use of gerund phrasing for the action of the daffodils such as “fluttering and dancing” (Line 6) and “tossing” (Line 12), as well as the “sparkling” (Line 14) sea, adds to the feeling of immediacy and amplifies the speaker’s longing to join their “jocund company” (Line 16). The liveliness of the experience is then missed when it’s revealed that it has past: “For oft, […] I lie / in vacant or in pensive mood” (Lines 19-20). Relief comes when the moment is revived and spoken of in the present tense. The daffodils “flash” (Line 21) in the speaker’s memory, and their ”heart with pleasure fills / and dances with the daffodils” (Lines 23-24). The switch in verb tense helps to make the poem feel as if it is unfolding and something is at stake.
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration that is not meant to be taken literally. Wordsworth employs this in his description of the abundance of daffodils that appear along the lake’s edge. At first, he notes that there is a “crowd, / a host, of golden daffodils” (Lines 3-4). However, these vague but realistic one-word descriptions give way to exaggerated amounts. First, the daffodils are compared to the bands of “stars that shine” (Line 7) in galaxies, a definitive embellishment, which, while inaccurate, adds to the beauty of the flowers. The speaker then counts the exact number of daffodils along the bay as “ten thousand” (Line 11). The term “never-ending” is also used to describe the flowers as they populate the curve along the bay. Wordsworth’s speaker uses these instances of magnification, which are deliberate, to show how there are just too many blooms to count, that they seem to be everywhere one looks, and that the sheer amount of them inspires the same awe as celestial bodies. This is all essential to why the daffodils are epic enough to appear in the speaker’s memory later and grant them happiness.
Personification
Wordsworth’s choice to give the daffodils the speaker sees human attributes enhances their desire for communion with them. The speaker’s isolation is such that it causes them to “wander lonely as a cloud” (Line 1). Personifying themselves as a natural element of the air helps to show that they feel distant—apart and above—from the world of earth. They are unmoored and ungrounded. This is then contrasted with the personification of the flowers that appear together in “a crowd, a host” (Lines 3-4) that is “fluttering, and dancing” (Line 6). The reader quickly makes the mental leap of replacing the human-like flowers with actual people. They seem joyous, taking “glee” (Line 14) in what life has to offer. Thus, it makes sense that the speaker feels happy in their “jocund company” (Line 16) and would long to feel a member of this party later. Without the human-like descriptions, the daffodils, while still beautiful, would only represent the pleasure of observation. Giving the flowers human attributes enhances the sense that they are a living collective, with an agenda toward happiness, and that the speaker should be one of their tribe rather than continue onward alone.
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