Previous Next

Images of Dancing

In the poem’s first stanza, the speaker describes how the “host of golden daffodils” he saw by the lakeshore was “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” (lines 4 and 6). This image of dancing flowers initially contrasts with the speaker’s own embodied experience. For one thing, whereas the flowers are dancing together in a “crowd” (line 3), the speaker is wandering through the countryside alone. For another thing, whereas the daffodils are rooted to the earth and hence sway ecstatically back and forth in the wind, the speaker is a rootless “cloud” (line 1) that “wander[s]” aimlessly through the sky. The movement of the daffodils is clearly significant for both these reasons, which helps to explain why Wordsworth carries this image throughout all four stanzas. Indeed, a version of the word dance appears in every stanza. In the second stanza, the speaker refers to the daffodils as “tossing their heads in sprightly dance” (line 12). In the third stanza, he notes how “the waves beside them danced” (line 13), creating a synchronized movement between flowers and water. Finally, in the last stanza, the speaker describes how the memory of the flowers fills his heart, which then “dances with the daffodils” (line 24).

References to Light

“I wandered lonely as a cloud” features a high number of references to the luminous effects of light. All these references relate to the daffodils that command the speaker’s interest. Upon first seeing the daffodils, for instance, the speaker notes their “golden” (line 4) color. The sight of this fluttering host of flowers then leads the speaker to make a fanciful simile, likening the daffodils to “the stars that shine / And twinkle on the milky way” (lines 7–8). In the third stanza, the speaker compares the dancing daffodils to the wave movement of the nearby lake water, asserting that the flowers “out-did the sparkling waves in glee” (line 14). Although sparkling here refers to the waves, the logic of the comparison laid out here means that the word applies even more strongly to the daffodils. The final reference to light appears in the final stanza. There, the speaker describes his ability to make the memory of the daffodils “flash upon that inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude” (lines 21–22). Taken together, these references to light establish a motif that contrasts with the speaker’s otherwise gloomy mood.

Previous section Themes Next section Symbols

Take a Study Break