What is Romanticism? Read the poem "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth and then explain the romantic elements of Nature in this poem.

  

Romanticism according to many scholars lacks a definitive starting date, but many agree it began during the late 1700s. Romanticism has a strong core that disobeys clustered establishment and fortifies individualism. Poets like William Wordsworth certainly advocated for intellectual individuals to follow ideals instead of established conventions. During the romantic period individual liberty became a major theme and defined romanticism as the development of individualism and an embrace of the natural world in poetic form. Often, the lot of romantic poets like of the Victorian era with Wordsworth including William Blake revered idealism, emotional passion and mysticism in their works. Imagination was not lacking either in response to the neoclassic tradition a movement that favoured science and reason. In a unique manner, Romanticism also discards cultured language which it disdains and uses a much simpler vernacular simpleton language, that the ordinary folk can understand, due to loves’ boundless boundaries (Stewart, 2017).

 

In stanza 1 in the opening line, William Wordsworth confesses that he ‘wandered’ as a lonely cloud that floats on high o’er valleys and hills. This is a legendary opening phrase as Romantic poems usually start in unsociable imprisonment and yes, most were written just post loneliness, with natures ad-hoc belongings that conceive life and bring love to the lonely of heart in natures sublime aesthetics. Clouds wander like sheep without Shepherd justifying Williams feeling of aloneness. Suddenly when all at once ‘I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils’ line 3 and 4, marking a change in tone and rhythm of William’s poem. This stumbling of William on something of such serene beauty and them being daffodils of the like-changes the pace when he personified them like the clouds-now they are a ‘host’, as if waiting in ambush to sweep him of his morbid feet and put love into him.

 

The daffodils were beside the lake and beneath the trees fluttering as if they are majestic butterflies flapping their wings and dancing instinctively to the breeze of the lake and the wind. It must have been a sight to behold because these few lines prove the individual romanticism that the opening paragraph speaks about and how the ideals of nature’s life are brought alive to fit like a snug hand into a romantic portrait of a lonely William now head o’er hills in love with nature. He says they are ‘continuous as the stars that shine’ and ‘twinkle on the Milky Way’. I beg to highlight the unique picture being painted here. Stanza 1 highlights two characteristics of Romantic poetry and that is the glorification of nature and the awareness and acceptance of emotions (Wilson, 2020).

 

In stanza 2 he goes on to say how he and many lovers in Romanticism who write romantic poetry can’t leave out the stars, because they are innumerable and show how love is parallel and ironic to boundless and infinite, as well as, timeless play of words that strike a rose petal by equating them to the stars, like William does. This is to show how nature becomes a close passionate encounter of caressing love binding one in its splendid natural beauty. Putting William no longer in a lonely wandering state but now he is more than an acquaintance with splendid breathless beauty. Ten thousand he saw at a glance. Many argue that love usually comes with many numbers to show just how much the love is worth and though we know how much ten thousand is, we usually only fall deeper in-love knowing what huge amount that is. This is another characteristic of Romantic poetry which is a celebration of artistic creativity and imagination (Wilson, 2020). William was in awe looking at the host of all these daffodils as they tossed their heads dancing sprightly. Daffodils do not dance, which is a human quality, but Romanticism yields the very fruit of personification that churns out a human-full kind of love to get natures point across as beautiful and worth writing romantically about.

 

In stanza 3 we admire what he says about the waves and the admiration he places on the daffodils. He says they danced in vain trying to outshine the daffodils. He personifies the waves and makes them inseparable with humans as with the daffodil’s majesty outshines luscious waves and their heart throbbing beauty as they crash on the seashore. In the end, nature and human are entangled in a dance of love that unites them as one. Natures unique beauty here is what is admired to cheer somebody up into love and take them out of an unsociable probably unwanted state of mind and glue them to natures healing beauty of silhouetted pristine beauty as the waves were outshined in glee. He later gazes and gazes but with little thought what wealth the show to me had brought. This verse shows that many humans contemplate deep in nature. That his imagination will lead him to precious wealth in peaceful love and happiness. Such experiences will be recollected again and again in “vacant” and “pensive” mood (Alshobaki, 2013). Therefore, these daffodils are planted in his “inward-eye” with the ability to bring to his memory whenever he feels lonely.

 

All in all, William Wordsworth wants people to love nature and be in harmony with its splendid beauty. He wants them to be moved by simple natural beauty, to be imaginative and creative, and to appreciate the subtle beauty of the little things (Alshobaki, 2013). There is something that William Wordsworth gets from the Daffodils that anyone can get and he makes it quite clear in the clarity of the emotions he shows and the way he expresses the personification and brings to life the “clouds” and the “host of daffodils” that makes Romanticism very clear in this poem.

 

 This poem by William Wordsworth is an elixir of love to lovers and lovers of nature (Jaunet, 2020).