A Study Guide for William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535825511

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I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

William Wordsworth

1815

Introduction

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud is a short lyric poem by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. It was written in 1804 and first published in his Poems, in Two Volumes in 1807. A revised version, in which the poem was expanded from three stanzas to four, was published in Wordsworth's Poems in 1815. The origin of the poem lies in a walk that Wordsworth took with his sister Dorothy in the Lake District in northwest England, where the Wordsworths lived. This was on April 15, 1802, when the Wordsworths were walking near Gowbarrow Park, near Ullswater, and came upon a large number of daffodils near the water. Dorothy described the scene in her Grasmere Journals. William did not write the poem until two years later, making much use of Dorothy's account. The poem has always been one of Wordsworth's most popular. Indeed, it is one of the most famous poems in the English language. Quite simple in style, it shows how Wordsworth, like many of the Romantic poets, was inspired by the beauty of nature. It also gives insight into the way Wordsworth composed his poems.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud is currently available in I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud… And Other Poems You Half-Remember from School edited by Ana Sampson and published Michael O'Mara Books in 2009.

Author Biography

Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, a small town in the northern part of England's Lake District, on April 7, 1770. His family was quite well off and lived in the best house in town, which was provided for John Wordsworth, Wordsworth's father, by Sir James Lowther, who employed Wordsworth as his legal representative. Wordsworth had