William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud - While wandering along, the narrator came upon a field of daffodils dancing in the breeze beside a lake. The flowers stretched as far as the eye could see along the lake. The water in the lake was sparkling, but the beauty of the flowers overshadowed the water. The narrator could be nothing but happy in the midst of the cheerful flowers, and as he stared at them, he could not imagine the future rewards that the image would bring to him. Now when he is alone, in a bad mood or feeling empty, he remembers the flowers and again feels the same pleasure he felt that day and his heart “dances with the daffodils” (pg. 283).

I wandered lonely as a cloud reminds me of Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey in which the narrator revisited a scene along a river, this time with his sister, and described how his memories of this place had comforted him and influenced him to be a better person. He felt joy when he realized that he would be brought more fond memories in the future, and memories would also provide comfort to his sister who was seeing the scene for the first time. The theme in both poems focuses on the power that exists in nature.

In The world is too much with us, the focus is again on the power of nature, but this time the narrator is annoyed at the way the world has grown out of touch with nature and has become too interested in material things. The narrator criticizes the world for taking the sea, the moon, and the winds for granted and being too focused on “getting and spending” (pg. 234).

In our first chat session, Dr. Glance mentioned that the sentiment felt during this period was comparable to the viewpoint and attitudes of the 1960s that centered on peace, love, and communing with nature. Wordsworth’s poems are reminiscent of the mindset of the hippies in the 1960s who found happiness by giving up the ways of the world and living together in the peace and comfort they drew from nature.