I wandered lonely as a cloud

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (William Wordsworth)

Romanticism was a literary movement that swept through virtually every country of Europe, the United States, and Latin America that lasted from about 1750 to 1870.
Characteristics of the
Romantic Period:
Freedom of thought and expression
Imagination, Emotions and Intuition. Exaltation of intense feelings.
The absolute uniqueness of every individual.
Instead of working for wealthy bosses, artists were for the first time able to work for themselves
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Born on 7 April 1770
Parents: John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson
Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland
Local Grammar school (Poetry)
St John’s College, Cambridge (B.A. Degree 1791)
And before his final semester, he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry and his political sensibilities
While touring Europe, Wordsworth came into contact with the French Revolution
Daughter Caroline (out of wedlock)
Spouse: Mary Hutchinson
Had 5 children
Equally important in the poetic life of Wordsworth was his 1795 meeting with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was with Coleridge that Wordsworth published the famous Lyrical Ballads in 1798
Wordsworth’s most famous work, The Prelude (1850), the poem was published posthumously
THE POEM- I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Type of Work, Year of Composition, and Year of Publication lyric poem focusing on the poet's response to the beauty of nature
The final version of the poem was first published in Collected Poems in 1815.

Setting and
Background Information
The poem recaptures a moment on April 15, 1802. When Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, were walking near Lake Ullswater in Grasmere, Cambria County, England, and came across a "long belt" of golden daffodils.
Rhyme, Form & Meter
"I wandered lonely as a Cloud" has a fairly simple form that fits its simple and folksy theme and language.
The rhyme scheme is also simple: ABABCC. (Rhymed Stanzas in Iambic Tetrameter ) .
FIGURES OF SPEECH
Hyperbole to express the vastness of the vision, an eternal vastness perhaps: "They stretched in never-ending line."
Line 13 uses personification and comparison. The waves danced too, but they do not produce the glee the daffodils have created.
Alliteration: high o'er vales and Hills (line 2).
Alliteration: Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Personification/Metaphor: Comparison of daffodils to dancing humans (lines 4, 6).
Musical devices
Alliteration: Beside and beneath / high and hills
Consonance: wandered and cloud / that and floats
Assonance : fluttering, dancing / such and jocund
THEMES
1. Nature's beauty uplifts the human spirit.
2. People sometimes fail to appreciate nature's wonders as they go about their daily routines.
3. Nature thrives unattended. The daffodils proliferate in splendor along the shore of the lake without the need for human attention.