Burroway says that there are two things that poetry is supposed to do: be heard and be remembered (294). “Daffodils,” by William Wordsworth does just that. The language is simple, so as you read it, you don’t have to go back and spend time interpreting all of the possibilities. The rhyme scheme is a melodic ABABCC, and it’s enjoyable to read. The simplicity of the rhyme scheme, the words and the imagery created by Wordsworth is pleasant in a way that allows you to experience what his speaker is seeing and feel just as good as he does while looking at the daffodils.
In terms of language manipulation, as Burroway refers to it, Wordsworth uses personification and (I ‘m not sure of the technical name) reverse-personification to get his message across. The speaker feels connected to nature via these gorgeous daffodils, and whenever he feels anxious or like something is missing, he drifts back to that memory of stumbling upon them. I see this poem as an expression of the fundamental connection humans have with nature. What Wordsworth does to exemplify this connection through language, is he speaks of the flowers as if they are sentient beings with the ability to perform human actions: they “host,” they “flutter,” “dance” and are very sociable; on the other hand, the speaker is de-personified, in that Wordsworth writes about him as a nonliving, yet organic aspect of nature: a cloud. The flowers and the man are on the same level of existence, and when the beauty of the flowers awaken the speaker to this realization, a shift occurs in which he is no longer lonely, but rather filled with happiness because of the connection he feels to the flowers.
I’d like to know what Wordsworth was trying to do with certain word choices because as I was reading his poem out loud, a few of the words kind of messed up the flow of the poem: fluttering, continuous, and “ten thousand.” Why wouldn’t he have just made it “a million,” so the reader could pronounce it “amill-yun” which sounds smoother?
Reemi, you raise some good questions here and have a good reading of the poem! I like your question about the ten thousand vs. a million. I wonder if he wanted the ten thousand to stand out, to not roll smoothly off the tongue? What do you think? Why would a poet choose something like that over something else?
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