Critical Appreciation of the Poem Daffodils by Wordsworth.
Wordsworth composed this poem in May 1804 just after his return from a tour in Westmorland. Expressing his views through a letter to his friend, the Dean of Lemon, Wordsworth writes about this poem, " The Daffodils grew and still grow on the margin of Ulswater ( a lake on the border of Cumberland and Westmorland ) and probably may be seen to this day as beautiful in the month of March, nodding their golden heads beside the dancing and foaming waves.
This poem, on the whole, is a perfect piece of poetic art and also remarkable for its simple language and style. While wandering aimlessly like a cloud, the poet suddenly saw a host of golden daffodils on the shore of the lake. Fluttering in the air, they seemed to be dancing happily. They surpassed the waves which were also dancing. The poet felt excessively enchanted by this sight.
Whenever he was alone either in pensive or in thoughtful mood, all of a sudden the beautiful sight of the daffodils began to float in his memory, and his heart, at once filled with joy, the only bliss of solitude, began to frisk and jump like the dancing daffodils. Canzamian writes about Wordsworth: " To Wordsworth, Nature appears as a formative influence superior to any other the educator of senses and mind alike, the shower in our hearts of the deep - laden seeds of our feeling and beliefs.
It speaks to the child in the fleeting emotions of early years and stirs the young poet to ecstasy, the glow of which illuminates all his works and the rest of his life. Nature is a safe guide to wisdom and goodness: it is an instinct with the irradiating presence of the divine: in his adoration of it , Wordsworth's creed as a poet of Nature. That Wordsworth is a high priest of Nature is an acknowledged fact. Wordsworth realized certain power in Nature and corresponding power in his own soul, as is revealed in the following lines of The Prelude,
" For I, me thought, while the sweet breath heaven
Was blowing on my body, felt within
A corresponding breeze that gently moved With quickening virtue ...
Like others, Wordsworth's Nature also includes hills and "
mountains, rivers and springs, lakes and seas, the earth and sky. Winds, woods, trees, plants and flowers, the sun, the moon and stars. But his outlook is certainly different from the outlook of others. Poets like Pope looked at Nature quite objectively. But Wordsworth's view of Nature is colored by his 'hyper-individualism.
" To Wordsworth ", say Mair, " life is a series of impressions and the poet's duty is to recapture these impressions, to isolate them and to brood over them till gradually, as a result of his contemplation, emotion stirs again, and emotion, akin to the authentic thrill that has excited him when the impression is first borne in experience - then, poetry is made, this emotion recollected in tranquillity passing into. enduring verse.
The poem, ' The Daffodils ' expresses this conception of poetry, as held by Wordsworth. Another aspect of Wordsworth's Nature poetry is also revealed by this poem - and that is the poet's wonderful faculty of comparing and that he makes inferior look superior and superior look inferior according to his mood. For instance, the fluttering daffodils compared with waves in dance, are placed superior in the dance competition by the poet.
The waves beside them danced,
But they outdid the sparkling waves in glee.
Here Wordsworth describes the golden-coloured daffodils dancing on the shore of the lake and the waves were also doing the same on the surface of the water, they were also dancing. He means to say that there was a competition between them, the competition of dance. But the daffodils defeated their rival waves in the competition getting such a company of mirth and joy the poet become very happy.
The poet has decorated the poem by beautiful romantic similes. There is a very charming simile in the first line of the poem.
I wandered lonely as a Cloud,
That floats on high over vales and hills...
Again, there is a romantic simile in the second stanza of the poem.
Continuous, as stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way.
The poet establishes a very beautiful comparison between the beautiful flowers of daffodil fluttering in the air with the shining stars in the milky way. Just as small stars clustered together twinkle in the milky way so also the daffodil flowers, fluttering in the air, looked like dances moving their heads in ecstasy.
Like stars, they were spread in a never-ending line. In this way, the use of simile by the poet is quite appropriate and appealing flowers are also personified as they were dancing like living persons. Hutton says, " The great beauty of this poem consists in its wonderful buoyancy, purely objective way of conveying that buoyancy ( power of freshing ), and the extraordinary vividness with which the lonely rapture of lonely mind is stamped upon the whole poem '. " This is a great poem said Swinburne, " It has music. pictures, feelings and thoughts. "
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