PCR- Romanticism and The Daffodills
Dear Listeners,
'The Daffodils' by William Wordsworth, from our audio recording of the poem on Storynory.com, is a distinctively Romantic poem.
But what makes it a romantic ?
Wordsworth was a central writer of the Romantic movement in the Victorian era known as English Romanticism.
It is full of key Romantic features in its form, language and themes.
Language:
The poet in the first verse tells us he 'Wandered Lonely as a Cloud'
This simile, of the poet comparing himself to a cloud conveys the image of him floating loftily and dreamily, like someone with romantic ideals.
'The Daffodils' ,the central symbol of the poem are personified i.e given human qualities 'Fluttering and dancing in the breeze' and are what the poet sees as he walks. The daffodils 'Out do the Waves' that also dance, as conveyed in the fifth stanza, coupled with the clouds are all nature personified, that the Victorian romantic poets were fascinated with.
'O'er hills and dales'
The shortening of O'er from Over is what is called Archaic i.e. it is abbreviated: a syntactical feature of language the Romantic poets used a lot and gives it an olden Romantic quality as you read out loud.
The poet is describing what he sees of nature; 'Beside the Lake, beneath the tree's' and the Romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge were well known for walking to help stimulate idea's for their poetry, which we see in the last stanza when the poet, remembers recalls the Daffodils in his mind:
'For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye'
The simile of comparing the Daffodils,
to being as continuous as
the 'Stars that shine' and 'Twinkle on the
milky way' supports the metaphor
of the Stars and their action in the night sky.
The heavens and the elements of nature is a the key themes the Victorian Romantic poets were fascinated by, and links to the ideals of romanticism.
Form:
There are four syllabic stresses per verse line known as Iambs that go from stressed to unstressed.
So as you read stress the first syllable of the word as follows: 'I wandered Lonely as a cloud'
This meter continues in all the verses lines of Six verse lines, equalling Six stanzas in total and giving the poem a continuous metrical effect.
There is a rhyme scheme of alternating rhyme endings, in the first four verse lines of the stanza, with the final last two verse line's as rhyming couplets that are feminine, with the penultimate syllable stressed giving the poem its delicate, lifted quality.
This four beat iambic meter and rhyme scheme give the poem its lyrical composition.
Lyrics were a key feature of the Romantic movement that Wordsworth and other poets used.
Did you know Lyric poems were originally accompanied to music?
I hope picking out these Romantic features helps you enjoy the poem further and encourages you to read the poem
There are lots more, why not try finding some for yourself, if you do, drop me a line and I'll get back to you!
Bye Bye
N *