I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Encyclopedia
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (also commonly known as "Daffodils" or "The Daffodils") is a poem by William Wordsworth
.
It was inspired by an April 15, 1802 event in which Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy
, came across a "long belt" of daffodils. Written in 1804, it was first published in 1807
in Poems in Two Volumes
, and a revised version was released in 1815
, which is more commonly known. It consists of four six-line stanzas, in iambic tetrameter and an ABABCC rhyme scheme.
It is usually considered Wordsworth's most famous work. In the "Nation's Favourite Poems", a poll carried out by the BBC
's Bookworm
, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" came fifth. Well known, and often anthologised
, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is commonly seen as a classic of English
romanticism
within poetry
, although the original version was poorly reviewed by Wordsworth's contemporaries.
, in the Lake District. Wordsworth would draw on this to compose "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1804. It was inspired by Dorothy's writing in reference to this walk:
The death of his brother, John, in 1805 had affected William strongly. However, the effect of his sister Dorothy
was positive, and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is considered an example of the benefit of her presence. In this respect, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is like "Alice Fell", "The Beggars" and "The Butterfly." At the time of the poem, Wordsworth lived with his wife and sister at Dove Cottage
, in Grasmere
in England
's Lake District
.
Lyrical Ballads
, a series of poems by both himself and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
, had been first published in 1798 and had started the romantic movement in England. It had brought Wordsworth and the other Lake poets into the poetic limelight. Wordsworth had published nothing new since the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads, and a new publication was eagerly awaited. Wordsworth had, however, gained some financial security by the 1805 publication of the fourth edition of Lyrical Ballads; it was the first from which he enjoyed the profits of copyright ownership. He decided to turn away from "The Recluse
" and turn more attention to the expedient publication of Poems in Two Volumes, in which "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" would appear.
s. Each stanza is formed by a quatrain
, then a couplet
, to form a sestet
and a ABABCC rhyme scheme
. The fourth- and third-last lines were not composed by Wordsworth, but by his wife, Mary. Wordsworth considered them the best lines of the whole poem. Like most works by Wordsworth, it is romantic
in nature; the beauty of nature, unkempt by humanity, and a reconciliation of man with his environment, are two of the fundamental principles of the romantic movement within poetry
. The poem is littered with emotionally strong words, such as "golden", "dancing" and "bliss".
The plot of the poem is simple. Wordsworth believed it "an elementary feeling and simple impression". The speaker is wandering as if among the clouds, viewing a belt of daffodils, next to a lake whose beauty is overshadowed:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
The reversal of usual syntax in phrases, particularly "Ten thousand saw I at a glance" is used as part of foregrounding
(for emphasis). Loneliness, it seems, is only a human emotion, unlike the mere solitariness of the cloud. In the second and third verses, the memory of the daffodils is given permanence (particularly through comparison the stars); this is in contrast to the transitory nature of life examined in other works:
Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:
In the last stanza, it is revealed that this scene is only a memory of the pensive speaker. This is marked by a change from a narrative past tense
to the present tense
. as a conclusion to a sense of movement within the poem: passive to active motion; from sadness to blissfulness. The scene of the last verse mirrors the readers' situation as they take in the poem:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Like the maiden's song in "The Solitary Reaper
," the memory of the daffodils is etched in the speaker's mind and soul to be cherished forever. When he's feeling lonely, dull or depressed, he thinks of the daffodils and cheers up. The full impact of the daffodils' beauty (symbolizing the beauty of nature) did not strike him at the moment of seeing them, when he stared blankly at them but much later when he sat alone, sad and lonely and remembered them.
Personification is used within the poem, particularly with regards to the flowers themselves, and the whole passage consists of images appearing within the mind of the poet.
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of dancing Daffodils;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: --
A poet could not but be gay
In such a laughing company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
Wordsworth replaced "dancing" (4) with "golden"; "Along" (5) with "Beside"; and "Ten thousand" with "Fluttering and" to create the 1815 revision. He then added a stanza between the first and second, and altered "laughing" (10) to "jocund". The last stanza was left untouched.
(1807), in which "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" originally appeared, has been considered to be the peak of Wordsworth's power, and of his popularity. However, it was poorly reviewed by Wordsworth's contemporaries, including Lord Byron, whom Wordsworth would come to despise. Byron said of the volume, in one of its first reviews, "Mr. W[ordsworth] ceases to please, ... clothing [his ideas] in language not simple, but puerile". Wordsworth himself wrote ahead to soften the thoughts of The Critical Review
, hoping his friend Wrangham would push a softer approach. He succeeded in preventing a known enemy from writing the review, but it didn't help; as Wordsworth himself said, it was a case of "Out of the frying pan, into the fire". Of any positives within Poems in two volumes, perceived masculinity in "The Happy Warrior" was one. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" couldn't have been further from it. Wordsworth took the reviews stoically.
Even Wordsworth's close friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge
said that the poem contained "mental bombast". Two years later, however, and many were more positive about the collection. Samuel Rogers
said that he had "dwelt particularly on the beautiful idea of the 'Dancing Daffodils'", and this was echoed by Henry Crabb Robinson
. Critics were rebutted by public opinion, and the work gained in popularity and recognition, as did Wordsworth.
The poem came in for criticism in the Edinburgh Review
, but the publication was well-known for its criticism of the Lake poets
. As Sir Walter Scott put it, at the time of the poem's publication, "Wordsworth is harshly treated in the Edinburgh Review, but Jeffrey [the editor] gives ... as much praise as he usually does". Upon the author's death in 1850, the Westminster Review
called the poem "very exquisite".
; the English Literature GCSE course in some examination boards in England
, Wales
, and Northern Ireland
; and in the current Higher School Certificate syllabus
topic, Inner Journeys, New South Wales, Australia.
Because it is one of the best known poems in the English language and is also unabashedly romantic
and sentimental, it has frequently been the subject of parody
and satire. Some recent examples can be found here, here, here, and here. A satire was also done on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
.
A reference to this poem can be heard on the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
by Genesis (1974) at the beginning of part of the suite "The Colony of Slippermen" called "The Arrival". Portions are also spoken in Dan Ireland's 2005 British film, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
. In Anastasia Krupnik
, by Lois Lowry
, there is a scene in which a college poetry class discusses the poem. The poem is extensively referenced in Jamaica Kincaid
's novel Lucy
.
In 2004, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the writing of the poem, it was also read aloud by 150,000 British schoolchildren, aimed both at improving recognition of poetry, and in support of Marie Curie Cancer Care
.
In 2007, Cumbria Tourism released a rap
version of the poem, featuring MC Nuts, a Lake District Red squirrel, in an attempt to capture the "YouTube generation" and attract tourists to the Lake District. Published on the two-hundredth anniversary of the original, it attracted wide media attention. It was welcomed by the Wordsworth Trust
, but attracted the disapproval of some commentators.
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
.
It was inspired by an April 15, 1802 event in which Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy
Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives...
, came across a "long belt" of daffodils. Written in 1804, it was first published in 1807
1807 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Ireland:* Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom...
in Poems in Two Volumes
Poems in Two Volumes
Poems in Two Volumes was an 1807 publication by the poet William Wordsworth .It included many notable Wordsworth poems, including:* "Resolution and Independence"...
, and a revised version was released in 1815
1815 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* February 2 — Leigh Hunt released from prison after being jailed for criticizing the Prince Regent in The Examiner...
, which is more commonly known. It consists of four six-line stanzas, in iambic tetrameter and an ABABCC rhyme scheme.
It is usually considered Wordsworth's most famous work. In the "Nation's Favourite Poems", a poll carried out by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Bookworm
Bookworm
Bookworm may refer to:* Bibliophile or bookworm, an avid reader and lover of books* Bookworm , a popular generalization for any insect which supposedly bores through books...
, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" came fifth. Well known, and often anthologised
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is commonly seen as a classic of English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
within poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, although the original version was poorly reviewed by Wordsworth's contemporaries.
Background
The inspiration for the poem came from a walk he took with his sister Dorothy around Glencoyne Bay, UllswaterUllswater
Ullswater is the second largest lake in the English Lake District, being approximately nine miles long and 0.75 miles wide with a maximum depth of slightly more than ....
, in the Lake District. Wordsworth would draw on this to compose "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1804. It was inspired by Dorothy's writing in reference to this walk:
The death of his brother, John, in 1805 had affected William strongly. However, the effect of his sister Dorothy
Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives...
was positive, and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is considered an example of the benefit of her presence. In this respect, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is like "Alice Fell", "The Beggars" and "The Butterfly." At the time of the poem, Wordsworth lived with his wife and sister at Dove Cottage
Dove Cottage
Dove Cottage is a house on the edge of Grasmere in the Lake District. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth from December 1799 to May 1808, where they spent over eight years of "plain living, but high thinking"...
, in Grasmere
Grasmere
Grasmere is a village, and popular tourist destination, in the centre of the English Lake District. It takes its name from the adjacent lake, and is associated with the Lake Poets...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
's Lake District
Lake District
The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...
.
Lyrical Ballads
Lyrical Ballads
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature...
, a series of poems by both himself and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
, had been first published in 1798 and had started the romantic movement in England. It had brought Wordsworth and the other Lake poets into the poetic limelight. Wordsworth had published nothing new since the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads, and a new publication was eagerly awaited. Wordsworth had, however, gained some financial security by the 1805 publication of the fourth edition of Lyrical Ballads; it was the first from which he enjoyed the profits of copyright ownership. He decided to turn away from "The Recluse
The Recluse
"The Recluse" was the second single taken from the album The Ugly Organ by American Indie Rock band Cursive. It was released as a single in 2004...
" and turn more attention to the expedient publication of Poems in Two Volumes, in which "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" would appear.
Composition and themes
The poem is 24 lines long, consisting of four six-line stanzaStanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
s. Each stanza is formed by a quatrain
Quatrain
A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse. Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China; and, continues into the 21st century, where it is...
, then a couplet
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...
, to form a sestet
Sestet
A sestet is the name given to the second division of an Italian sonnet , which must consist of an octave, of eight lines, succeeded by a sestet, of six lines. The first documented user of this poetical form was the Italian poet, Petrarch. In the usual course the rhymes are arranged abc abc, but...
and a ABABCC rhyme scheme
Rhyme scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme. In other words, it is the pattern of end rhymes or lines...
. The fourth- and third-last lines were not composed by Wordsworth, but by his wife, Mary. Wordsworth considered them the best lines of the whole poem. Like most works by Wordsworth, it is romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
in nature; the beauty of nature, unkempt by humanity, and a reconciliation of man with his environment, are two of the fundamental principles of the romantic movement within poetry
Romantic poetry
Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day , also influenced poetry...
. The poem is littered with emotionally strong words, such as "golden", "dancing" and "bliss".
The plot of the poem is simple. Wordsworth believed it "an elementary feeling and simple impression". The speaker is wandering as if among the clouds, viewing a belt of daffodils, next to a lake whose beauty is overshadowed:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
The reversal of usual syntax in phrases, particularly "Ten thousand saw I at a glance" is used as part of foregrounding
Foregrounding
Foregrounding is the practice of making something stand out from the surrounding words or images. It is “the ‘throwing into relief’ of the linguistic sign against the background of the norms of ordinary language.” The term was first associated with Paul Garvin in the 1960s, who used it as a...
(for emphasis). Loneliness, it seems, is only a human emotion, unlike the mere solitariness of the cloud. In the second and third verses, the memory of the daffodils is given permanence (particularly through comparison the stars); this is in contrast to the transitory nature of life examined in other works:
Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:
In the last stanza, it is revealed that this scene is only a memory of the pensive speaker. This is marked by a change from a narrative past tense
Past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future...
to the present tense
Present tense
The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
. as a conclusion to a sense of movement within the poem: passive to active motion; from sadness to blissfulness. The scene of the last verse mirrors the readers' situation as they take in the poem:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Like the maiden's song in "The Solitary Reaper
The Solitary Reaper
"The Solitary Reaper" is a ballad by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and one of his best-known works in English literature.'"The Solitary Reaper" is one of Wordsworth's most famous post-Lyrical Ballads lyrics...
," the memory of the daffodils is etched in the speaker's mind and soul to be cherished forever. When he's feeling lonely, dull or depressed, he thinks of the daffodils and cheers up. The full impact of the daffodils' beauty (symbolizing the beauty of nature) did not strike him at the moment of seeing them, when he stared blankly at them but much later when he sat alone, sad and lonely and remembered them.
Personification is used within the poem, particularly with regards to the flowers themselves, and the whole passage consists of images appearing within the mind of the poet.
Original version
The version published in the 1807 Poems in Two Volumes ran:I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of dancing Daffodils;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: --
A poet could not but be gay
In such a laughing company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
Wordsworth replaced "dancing" (4) with "golden"; "Along" (5) with "Beside"; and "Ten thousand" with "Fluttering and" to create the 1815 revision. He then added a stanza between the first and second, and altered "laughing" (10) to "jocund". The last stanza was left untouched.
Contemporary
Poems in Two VolumesPoems in Two Volumes
Poems in Two Volumes was an 1807 publication by the poet William Wordsworth .It included many notable Wordsworth poems, including:* "Resolution and Independence"...
(1807), in which "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" originally appeared, has been considered to be the peak of Wordsworth's power, and of his popularity. However, it was poorly reviewed by Wordsworth's contemporaries, including Lord Byron, whom Wordsworth would come to despise. Byron said of the volume, in one of its first reviews, "Mr. W[ordsworth] ceases to please, ... clothing [his ideas] in language not simple, but puerile". Wordsworth himself wrote ahead to soften the thoughts of The Critical Review
The Critical Review
The Critical Review was first edited by Tobias Smollett from 1756 to 1763, and was contributed to by Samuel Johnson, David Hume, John Hunter, and Oliver Goldsmith, until 1817....
, hoping his friend Wrangham would push a softer approach. He succeeded in preventing a known enemy from writing the review, but it didn't help; as Wordsworth himself said, it was a case of "Out of the frying pan, into the fire". Of any positives within Poems in two volumes, perceived masculinity in "The Happy Warrior" was one. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" couldn't have been further from it. Wordsworth took the reviews stoically.
Even Wordsworth's close friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
said that the poem contained "mental bombast". Two years later, however, and many were more positive about the collection. Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron...
said that he had "dwelt particularly on the beautiful idea of the 'Dancing Daffodils'", and this was echoed by Henry Crabb Robinson
Henry Crabb Robinson
Henry Crabb Robinson , diarist, was born in Bury St. Edmunds, England.He was articled to an attorney in Colchester. Between 1800 and 1805 he studied at various places in Germany, and became acquainted with nearly all the great men of letters there, including Goethe, Schiller, Johann Gottfried...
. Critics were rebutted by public opinion, and the work gained in popularity and recognition, as did Wordsworth.
The poem came in for criticism in the Edinburgh Review
Edinburgh Review
The Edinburgh Review, founded in 1802, was one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century. It ceased publication in 1929. The magazine took its Latin motto judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur from Publilius Syrus.In 1984, the Scottish cultural magazine New Edinburgh Review,...
, but the publication was well-known for its criticism of the Lake poets
Lake Poets
The Lake Poets are a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known, although their works were uniformly disparaged by the Edinburgh Review...
. As Sir Walter Scott put it, at the time of the poem's publication, "Wordsworth is harshly treated in the Edinburgh Review, but Jeffrey [the editor] gives ... as much praise as he usually does". Upon the author's death in 1850, the Westminster Review
Westminster Review
The Westminster Review was a quarterly British publication. Established in 1823 as the official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, it was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was one of the driving forces behind the liberal journal until 1828....
called the poem "very exquisite".
Modern usage
The poem is presented and taught in many schools in the English-speaking world: these include in the 7th grade of most schools of the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
; the English Literature GCSE course in some examination boards in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
; and in the current Higher School Certificate syllabus
Syllabus
A syllabus , is an outline and summary of topics to be covered in an education or training course. It is descriptive...
topic, Inner Journeys, New South Wales, Australia.
Because it is one of the best known poems in the English language and is also unabashedly romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
and sentimental, it has frequently been the subject of parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
and satire. Some recent examples can be found here, here, here, and here. A satire was also done on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show is an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959 to June 28, 1964 on the ABC and NBC television networks...
.
A reference to this poem can be heard on the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
The Lamb Lies down on Broadway
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is a double concept album recorded and released in 1974 by the British rock band Genesis. It was their sixth studio album and the last album by the group to feature the involvement of lead singer Peter Gabriel.-Premise:...
by Genesis (1974) at the beginning of part of the suite "The Colony of Slippermen" called "The Arrival". Portions are also spoken in Dan Ireland's 2005 British film, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a 2005 comedy-drama film made by Claremont Films and distributed by Picture Entertainment Corporation. It was directed by Dan Ireland and produced by Lee Caplin, Carl Colpaert and Zachary Matz from a screenplay by Ruth Sacks, based on the novel by Elizabeth...
. In Anastasia Krupnik
Anastasia Krupnik
Anastasia Krupnik is the first book of a popular series of middle-grade novels by Lois Lowry, depicting the title character's life as a girl "just trying to grow up." Anastasia deals with everyday problems such as popularity and the wart on her thumb. The book is written in episodic fashion, each...
, by Lois Lowry
Lois Lowry
Lois Lowry is an American author of children's literature. She began her career as a photographer and a freelance journalist during the early 1970s...
, there is a scene in which a college poetry class discusses the poem. The poem is extensively referenced in Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid is a Caribbean novelist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in the city of St. John's on the island of Antigua in the nation of Antigua and Barbuda...
's novel Lucy
Lucy (novel)
Lucy is a short novel or novella by Jamaica Kincaid. The story begins in medias res: the eponymous Lucy has come from the West Indies to the United States to be an au pair for a wealthy Caucasian family...
.
In 2004, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the writing of the poem, it was also read aloud by 150,000 British schoolchildren, aimed both at improving recognition of poetry, and in support of Marie Curie Cancer Care
Marie Curie Cancer Care
Marie Curie Cancer Care is a charitable organisation in the United Kingdom which provides nursing care, free of charge, to terminally ill people, giving them the chance to choose to be cared for at home...
.
In 2007, Cumbria Tourism released a rap
Rap
Rap may refer to:*Rapping, performance in which rhyming lyrics are used, with or without musical accompaniment ; while an MC performs spoken verses in time to a beat/ melody**Hip hop subculture**Hip hop music...
version of the poem, featuring MC Nuts, a Lake District Red squirrel, in an attempt to capture the "YouTube generation" and attract tourists to the Lake District. Published on the two-hundredth anniversary of the original, it attracted wide media attention. It was welcomed by the Wordsworth Trust
Wordsworth Trust
The Wordsworth Trust is a living memorial set up to celebrate the works of the poet William Wordsworth and his contemporaries. Wordsworth, conscious of the need for poetry to renew itself within a tradition speaks of writing for 'youthful poets' who 'will be my second self when I am gone.'An...
, but attracted the disapproval of some commentators.
External links
- The Wordsworth Trust
- Information about William Wordsworth
- "Daffodils" set to music From the 1990 concept album “Tyger and Other Tales”