A Close Reading of ’daffodils’ by William Wordsworth

A Close-Reading of ‘DAFFODILS’ By William Wordsworth

The poem ‘Daffodils’ by William Wordsworth reflects the inherent connection between man and nature, which is so commonly found in his poetry; for example, in ‘Tintern Abbey’, and ‘The Two-Part Prelude’. In my essay I am going to explore and analyse the variety of figurative devices Wordsworth uses to communicate this idea, and the poetic motives behind his writing. ‘ Daffodils’ is essentially a lyric poem which is expressive of the feelings of joy the poet encounters when seeing the multitude of daffodils.

In the preface to The Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth writes that “poetry is the image of man and nature”. Wordsworth uses a variety of figurative devices to communicate this idea: for example, in the first line of the poem he uses reverse personification in representing himself metaphorically “as a cloud”. Wordsworth then proceeds to personify the daffodils as humans, “dancing” (line 6) and “tossing