Daffodil by Ted Hughes and I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud in contrast - Essay Example

Poetry connects beyond any particular framework of time period. Certain critics comment upon this connects as influence and others quote it as inspiring. William Wordsworth, the great pantheist and romantic poet wrote the poem, ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ in the year 1804. The poem popularly came to be known as ‘The Daffodils’. In the year 1986, the very modern poet Ted Hughes inspired by the poem of Wordsworth had drawn allusion from the poem of Wordsworth and included the poem bearing the title, ‘Daffodils’ in his collection of poems entitled, ‘Flowers and Insects’.

In the sleek edition by Ted Hughes when other poems could not become quite popular, very intriguingly the poem which eluded its title from the Romantic era of English literature drew considerable attention. Both the poems, written age apart, very interestingly pondered upon the impact of memories captivated by both the romantic and the modern poet, which essentially builds the matrix upon which the similarities between the poems can be evaluated and the difference in the perspective upon the same subject could be analysed.

Thesis Statement The essay intends to discuss critically the essential similarities and differences inherent within the poem which evolves out on the context of the same subject. Contrast: I wandered Lonely as a Cloud and Daffodils At the outset, a thorough introspection through the poem by Wordsworth, ‘I wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ enables the readers to come to terms with the exclusive order well organised within the poetic scheme by Wordsworth. The narrator of Wordsworth’s poem is reminiscing upon the private moment encountered by him and evocation of his feelings on seeing the beautiful sight of daffodils on a field.

The influence of the memory is so powerful for the narrator of Wordsworth’s poem that it is capable of making the ‘pensive’ mood of the narrator elevated. Taking the queue of a sombre simile, the poem begins ‘I wander’d lonely as a cloud’. The metaphor of the poem is so strong that the field of dancing daffodils is assumed as the dancers on a dancing floor. The poet plays with the words to the extent within the poem that it seems the rhyming and the choice of words together are so much intended to make the lines of the poem dance together with the daffodils thereby evoking a strong imagery before the eyes of the readers (Woof, 2011).

The main intention of the poem by Wordsworth is to make the readers feel the joy the narrator received on seeing the field of dancing daffodils. The surprise of the narrator is also being communicated by him when he comments upon his surprise at the ‘wealth the show to me had brought’. The poem closes with the trip of the narrator down his memory lane and aptly with a rejuvenating metaphor, ‘and then my hear with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils’ (The Wordsworth Trust, 2012).

The poem by Wordsworth focuses on the beauty and bounty the nature captivates and its ability to balm the bruises of a tired heart and elevate the pensive mood of a man. The poem by Ted Hughes is a seminal work. It is inspired by the poem of Wordsworth which captivates the daffodil flowers central to both the text. Hughes’ ‘Daffodil’ also narrates the memory of the narrator and his encounters with the flower daffodil. However, very contrastingly the berating of the narrator’s dead wife amid the reminiscence of daffodils builds a morbid tone of the poem quite contrasting to the poem of Wordsworth.

The allusion of the title thus appears evidently ironic and a reader coming across the poem by Hughes for the first time will be misled because they won’t find the familiarity of context and intonation with the