I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

William Wordsworth
- Symbolist Approach
Reaching towards nature, towards the world, can only create aware connections between your interior and exterior, your skin being the thin line of separation. It is well known that the bonds have never been broken; the nature had always had a clear reflection in each of us, the conscious realization of it being considered a rebirth of the senses, of the soul, of the human. The poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth has a naive way to sun this aspect of life, making use of the most common symbols of rebirth the human unconscious can percept: the daffodils, the stars and the water. This been said, the only approach that I could consider worthy of choosing is the Symbolist. A manner well known by the romantics, almost instinctively, it will be taken in hands by Dr. Carl Gustav Jung and developed into the theory of the Archetypes. Over 1

the years it will grow and have a great influence in philosophy and psychology, but the beginnings are always the sweetest and the most delightful as a child in his cradle, naive and innocent. This is how I tend to consider every romantic writer, somehow breached from the every day reality, choosing a world of his own, built in dreams and aspiration of a higher human state. Revolving around his perception of nature, which was seldom a feeling one had in his common life in society, Wordsworth has given a very proper title to his poem: I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud. This is the first thing that emphasizes the theme, even more if you are aware of the borders in which he creates. He fixes from the very beginning the point of reference on a cloud, which, by simile creates the visual image of an utterly loneliness. A cloud being that object of nature situated above everything else, is the symbol of solitude, the one that represent best his state of mind and the rupture with the world. Also, the usage of the verb wandered gives an undefined trajectory of his will, of his journey, of his soul, which is a very important part of the process of losing one self completely before truly finding him self, described by Wordsworth in the last verse of the poem. The idea inhered through the four words of the title is developed in the poem. Wordsworth is resuming the title in the first line, making it this time only the point of start for his story. As his dream begins with the simile, it continuous with the personification of the cloud by situating the inner man high over vales and hills, describing the reach of the first stage in the losing and finding process. Always, in this type of situations, everything that has a crucial importance its percept as a sudden acknowledgment, as if, even if he has seen them all his life before, its the first time he really sees them for what they are: When all at once I saw a crowd, /A host, of golden daffodils, in a perfect symbioses with everything that surrounds them: Beside the lake, beneath the trees, / Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.. The choice of the flower hasnt been casual, the daffodil is virtually synonymous with spring, it also represents the winters end and a lucky emblem of future prosperity throughout the world, so from a symbolist view representing rebirth and new beginnings. By using the term host for the daffodils, the lyrical self is recognizing them as the basic organism of the symbioses, the center of the poem, the personified elements able to make the necessary change the ego is searching. The components that are combined by them are shown within the last two lines of the verse, through an enumeration, also in a symbolist manner: the lake for water, the trees for earth and the breeze for the air. The fire has a represent too in the epithet golden daffodils, giving him his wrights in destroying the old and make place for the new. Nature at its best. From this point on everything falls into a felling of unearthliness. When the simile is made with the stars Continuous as the stars that shine / And twinkle on the Milky Way, the reality changes its texture and the perceptions could almost confuse it with an enlightenment state of mind. But it would only be the misunderstanding of an apprentice, for no state of that kind would have the need of numbers as the lyrical self makes use of them: Ten thousand saw I at a glance. If the first plan was situated on earth, this one is located somewhere above and beyond it. The Milky Way makes the connection with the gods for its so believed origin from Heras breast, sending you back at the beginning of the world and life. The place is described as a never-ending line of daffodils which easily gives the impression of heaven, or better said nirvana, considering everything the

lyricist attributed to them. This second verse is the one that has the most words with a positive feeling: shine, twinkle, stretch, never-ending, glance, tossing, sprightly, dance; a very important attitude for a proper enlightenment. The resemblance of the daffodils shape with the stars was used in the second verse to transport the conscious into a deeper space. In this third verse is presumed the return into nature with the two lines: The waves beside them danced; but they / Out-did the sparkling waves in glee, this time with the metaphor which compares the daffodils glee with the one of the waves. His reference to a poet has the same effect, it also has to be kept in mind that the inner self is making a clear distinction between the form that he has left from, referring to it in the third person: A poet could not but be gay, and the one that he is about to achieve: In such a jocund company: / I gazedand gazedbut little thought / What wealth the show to me had brought:. The line: A poet could not but be gay, refers to the fact that human eye could easily catch the beauty of a sight, but hardly could he phrase in any way the real vibration it is send. The epithet jocund company it is used to describe the feeling he is receiving from nature during hes spiritual elevation. Hes surprise can be seen in the repetition of the verb gazed, underlining the fact that he would never believe that only the feeling of happiness is able to make him achieve the knowledge of oneself, knowledge called as wealth for it is the thing a human being has the highest need in life. Using the interrogative what only emphasizes its importance known by a few people, seen also in: but little thought a common habit among them to believe only what they have been thought. The recall of his former habits is given as an example for the naivety he is talking about in the previous verse: 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;. The boredom of the vacant and pensive mood of a free spirit situated in his living-room can easily be used as a reason for hes turning to the inward eye, his only pleasure and bliss in the chosen solitude. The fact that they only flashed without changing anything, shows that it is needed a deeper comprehension for a real understanding of the spirit. In the last two lines of the poem he returns with his eyes and soul in the presence of the daffodils and their blissful company for the final faze of the process he went through: And then my heart with pleasure fills, / And dances with the daffodils. his joining with the daffodils, in a symbolist manner being the rebirth of oneself in a more illuminated state. Along the poem there are two key word found in every verse: dance and daffodil. If the daffodils symbolize the rebirth and new beginnings, the dance, in the occultism is seen as a way of breaking the ties that keep you connected to this world and practically put you into another state of perception. So their constant apposition can be seen as a leit-motif of death and birth, the two complementary processes, the ones that nature doesnt allow to separate, loved and hatred by humans on both sides.

Bibliography:
The meaning and symbolism of narcissus/ daffodil