Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

- I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud - By, William Wadsworth - How author uses figurative language...

Good Essays
421 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
- I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud - By, William Wadsworth - How author uses figurative language...
People can be very imaginative and picture the wildest scenes in their heads. A poem that supports this is "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," by William Wordsworth. This poem is written from the first person view of the person lying on a couch in the house, using a pleasant and calming tone. The person pictures two main scenes: (1) nature with trees, daffodils, and hills, and (2) space with stars and the Milky Way. William Wordsworth uses figurative language such as personification through out the whole poem to bring the nouns to life. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" shows how people can doze off easily have no limits to how far their imagination can go.

The poet starts off with "I wandered lonely as a cloud," showing that the narrator is dozing off. This shows how easily one's mind can become off track and dream about something else that is more interesting to the person. Then the poet writes that the cloud "floats on high o'er vales and hills" giving the narrator a view of nature from above. The narrator sees many things such as "...a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils, beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze." The first stanza itself shows that there are no limits to imagination and how easily one can doze off into dreamland.

To add on to the imagination, the poet uses figurative language to help the poem to be more exciting and to give the poem life. For example, "golden daffodils" or "sprightly dance" are some figurative language that is in the poem. One very good example of a personification that is used in the poem is "And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils," which tells the reader that the joyous heart of the narrator is dancing with the daffodils. These are just a few figurative speeches that William Wordsworth used to make the poem livelier and pleasant.

The poem "I wandered lonely as a cloud" is a poem that describes the imagination of people and that there are no limits to imagination. In this poem, the narrator first starts off in earth's nature, then zooms out to the Milky Way in the universe. All of this imagination occurs on the couch of the narrator's house. To add on to the imagination, William Wordsworth used figurative language to spice up or make the poem livelier. In conclusion, people can picture the wildest pictures in their heads, with no limits to imagination.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    My Papa's Waltz Summary

    • 267 Words
    • 2 Pages

    There is a lot of imagery in this poem. There are descriptions like, “we romped around until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf. There is imagery in every stanza.…

    • 267 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poets often use figurative language and imagery to appeal to the readers five senses and express an idea. Author Billy Collins use figurative language and imagery in the poem Flames to express an idea or thought.…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Figurative language allows readers to better understand the message that the author is trying to say. Personification allows writers to easily reveal what they are trying to say when descriptions fail them. By including personification, the author can clearly communicate how he felt at a specific time. As a reader, personification allows us to easier relate to the idea or feeling the author is conveying. Wiesel uses personification on page thirty nine, when he says “Remorse began to gnaw at me.” Remorse cannot eat away at a person, but it allows the reader to understand how guilty Elie felt when he did not stand up for his father. A second example of figurative language used in Night is foreshadowing. Foreshadowing allows the author to keep…

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Upon a "certain hour", or sleep, the speaker beckons his soul to fly free, escape the day, and ponder its own themes. The speaker's soul does not necessarily appreciate the day's happenings and thoughts, so it drifts in dreaming to a place where it can think about "night, sleep, death, and the stars." The daytime mind of the speaker, most likely representing a restricted or bound form, thinks about things it is perhaps not naturally inclined to do. This poem is like a snap-shot of the human soul between consciousness and…

    • 900 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When reading “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” I am left with a feeling of delight. Wordsworth used words like “fluttering” “glee” and “bliss” to describe his lonesome walk through a meadow. After leaving the meadow, he thinks of this day when he is sitting at home, engaged in thought, and is still enlightened by the memory of the dancing daffodils. This is shown with his last stanza, “…when on my couch I lie/ they flash upon (me)/then my heart with pleasure fills”. With his enlightening imagery, Wordsworth describes a pleasurable seclusion. His diction and the symbolism of the daffodils and waves dancing in the wind give the concept a carefree and whimsical perspective. Alexie, conversely, creates an isolated feel to this same theme, giving his sonnet an entirely different meaning. His poetry made me feel almost shameful of my interaction with social media, with the phrases, “Let’s undervalue and unmend the present.” and “Let fame and /Shame intertwine.” (Alexie) Essentially, Alexie is saying while using Facebook, we fail to appreciate the present and try to remain significant in the lives of those who are irrelevant to us presently. The shame comes from the mask…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    poem. He makes the poem continuous like the young female’s long hair in line 16, “a cloud…

    • 592 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poem begins with using “melodies” as an image. In the first phrase, “Like melodies draw it to me softly through the mind,” the word “melodies” seems to be symbolic of thoughts or memories. These melodies are like a tune that you cannot get out of your head, a memory that he is unable to forget.…

    • 1548 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poetry is a form many use to express feelings in a more lyrical scene, they often use figurative language to help convey what they are trying to say or to have more of an impact on the reader. The poems “An Afternoon in the Stacks” and “Reading Myself to Sleep” both use forms of figurative language such as similes and personification to convey the idea that books can seem to ,in a way, come to life. “... but the chapters open their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound, words adjusting themselves to their meaning. ”(Strafford 2-3). This author uses personification to give the books traits that a human would have.…

    • 221 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    how setting shapes theme

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This quote describes the setting’s empty landscape. This desolate setting shapes the theme of isolation in the poem. In addition, this cold and empty landscape shapes the theme of hope in the poem by being the “gloom” required in order to have hope:…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Muir And Wordsworth

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is a very descriptive poem about nature and how it connects to his feelings, which allows the readers to imagine what he is feeling through nature. In “I Wandered Lonely as a cloud Wordsworth states directly how he is feeling: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. That floats on high o'er vales and hills.” Wordsworth describes what he sees as he is wandering. Wordsworth is describing many things in these two lines. He is describing his feelings, the weather, his homeland, and an upcoming storm. He is connecting all of these things about nature to his emotions at that moment. Wordsworth states, “A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company:”, which means he is not a happy person but as he is wandering, he can’t help but feel joy with all the beautiful nature around him.”I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is beautiful written poem…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I chose the poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth because I like the imagery in it of dancingdaffodils. Upon closer examination, I realized that most of this imagery is created by the many metaphors and similes Wordsworth uses. In the first line, Wordsworth says "I wandered lonely as a cloud." This is a simile comparing the wondering of a man to a cloud drifting through the sky. I suppose the wandering cloud is lonely because there is nothing up there that high in the sky besides it. It can pass by unnoticed, touching nothing. Also, the image of a cloud brings to mind a light, carefree sort of wandering. The cloud is not bound by any obstacle, but can go wherever the whim of the wind takes it. The next line of poem says "I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils." Here Wordsworth is using a metaphor to compare the daffodils to a crowd of people and a host of angels. The word crowd brings to mind an image of the daffodils chattering amongst one another, leaning their heads near each other in the wind. The word host makes them seem like their golden petals are shimmering like golden halos on angels. It is interesting to note that daffodils do have a circular rim of petals in the middle that could look like a halo. Later in the poem Wordsworth uses another simile, saying the dancing of daffodils in the wind is "continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way." This line creates the image of the wind blowing the tops of random daffodils up and down in a haphazard matter, so they appear to glint momentarily as their faces catch the sun. This goes along with the next metaphor of the daffodils "tossing their heads in sprightly dance." Comparing their movement to a dance also makes me think of swirling, swishing yellow skirts moving in harmony.…

    • 422 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wordsworth begins his extended metaphor in the third line of the poem, with his speaker saying, "I saw a crowd, / a host, of golden daffodils" that were "fluttering and dancing in the breeze." (line 6). The speaker is attributing to these daffodils human qualities: their forming a crowd, and their dancing. That the speaker has "wandered lonely as a cloud" (1) introduces the speaker as one content to be apart from other people. The speaker admits that he enjoys his being apart from other men when he speaks of himself as a peaceful cloud that "floats on high o'er vales and hills" (1). The image of a cloud floating is tranquil, and suggests that the speaker is pleased to be drifting alone. The speaker's satisfaction with his state is reinforced by the triumphant phrase "on high o'er vales and hills", which suggests the speaker is closer to heaven than his fellow men. This speaker, lonely among men, revels in his meeting with the "jocund company" (16) of the daffodils he finds. He shows us the daffodils as they were "tossing their heads in a sprightly dance" (12) -- a liveliness the speaker is apparently unable to find in his solitude as a man. Contrasting the daffodils to the power of the waters of a bay, the speaker says that the flowers "Outdid the sparkling waters in glee" (14). In nature, only the daffodils are of such beauty that the narrator can project onto them the happy feelings he longs to have. When the speaker looks back at his encounter with the daffodils, it is when "on my couch I lie / In vacant or in pensive mood" (19-20). Returned to the industrialized world, the speaker is vacant of the joy he found in nature -- especially the joy he saw in the daffodils. So he recalls the daffodil flowers, "And then my heart with pleasure fills, / And dances with the daffodils." (23-24). The speaker is reunited with the pleasure he finds in nature and cannot gain from…

    • 337 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The language of the “I Wondered as a Cloud” is much more soft and respecting towards the nature. William Wordsworth doesn’t use “my” at all in his poem, because his poem is not so egoistic. It is not a surprise that that this poem’s other title is The Daffodils. The poet shows his great respect towards nature and he uses a rhythmic style that helps him to get our…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For my second test I choose the poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth because I like the imagery in it of the dancing daffodils. After reading the poem many times I had realized that most of this imagery is produced by the many metaphors and similes. In the first line, Wordsworth says "I wandered lonely as a cloud." This is a simile comparing the wondering of a man to a cloud drifting through the sky. I think that the wandering cloud is lonely because there is nothing else that high in the sky besides it. It can pass by unnoticed, touching nothing. Also, the image of a cloud brings to mind a carefree sort of wandering. The cloud is not bound by any barriers and can go wherever the impulse of the wind might take it.…

    • 796 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    It's not about what you say; it's how you say it. Most authors would disagree; it is about what you say. Authors use diction and imagery to convey a message in a work. The subject of "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is seclusion. William Wordsworth expresses this subject thought his deliberate diction and…

    • 55 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays