This personification symbolizes his effort to show that we all came from the very same source, we are the same, we are born, we live, we die, just like everything in nature does. Thus, he is using personification for an inanimate object, such as clouds, and he continues to do so with the daffodils. Just like Shakespeare compares his beloved with the summer’s day, Wordsworth compares himself with clouds: “I wandered lonely as a cloud” (Wordsworth 72). He manages to find beauty in the simplest of things and this is a fact that makes him happy when he is sad, which gives him a soothing feeling when he is restless, and which gives him something to ponder about when he is jaded. What he sees might not seem extraordinary at all at first sight, because what he has in his field of vision are mere daffodils, but it is not the flowers themselves which fascinate him so, rather it is the feelings they evoke in him. Wordsworth’s speaker, on the other hand, is describing his wanderings, and the sighting of natural wonders he is privileged to see by a lake. On the contrary, he believes that the poem will give his beloved an everlasting life, where her beauty was compared, and even overcame that of nature itself. This might be suggestive of the cycle of nature, life and then inevitable death, but the speaker shows no remorse or sadness. However, before the ending of the sonnet, the speaker mentions Death and shade, suggesting at the fact that after light, darkness comes. All of this evokes images of warmth and sunshine, a feeling of love and protection, which is exactly how he sees his beloved. As the poem progresses, the speaker introduces the imagery of light, commencing with “the eye of heaven,” which is how he refers to the sun, as it starts to resemble a human face with a “golden complexion” (Shakespeare 11). In this instance, not even the beautiful, flowery, warm and tender summer day imagery can match the loveliness of the speaker’s beloved. Shakespeare commences his sonnet with the comparison of his beloved with the summer’s day, but not even that is enough, because “Thou art more lovely and more temperate” (Shakespeare 11). Thus, for both poets, nature imagery serves a very important role, in denoting the true state of their emotions. Wordsworth on the other hand, utilizes the beauty of nature around him to denote the pensive state of his mind, in a poem which possesses an almost musical flow, urging for people to recognize the undeniable connection and interdependence of man and nature. Shakespeare compares his beloved with the loveliness of nature to evoke visual impressions of the person’s beauty, in an effort to make an abstract notion such as love and devotion more palpable, by comparing it to something that most people agree is beautiful.
Think Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.Imagery in William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” and William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”īoth William Shakespeare and William Wordsworth rely on nature and its beauty to denote the true state of their emotions in their poems. Objects add relationship that might not be found elsewhere What indeed is the journey of that yellow Pinto that now sits in Tyler’s driveway? Does that impact your story in a significant way? 3. Objects offer new direction for plot lines. Humorless Lawyer McCloud might evoke unexpected empathy from readers as he props his feet on his late Grandmother Elsie’s favorite footstool. Objects humanize characters in unexpected ways. But what might the addition of a beloved rocking chair, long-worn robe or well-traveled VW Bug add to your story? 1. When we ponder the players in our plot, we naturally think of the kind that breathe. How the addition of an inanimate object can impact your story Think boats, cars, computers, bicycles, Pet Rocks, shoes, robes, hammers and of course teddy bears and stuffed lions. People have long attached human qualities to inanimate objects as a way of showing affection, humorizing attachment, and honoring this possession’s important space in our lives.