Sunday, April 15, 2012
Daffodils (1804)
byWilliam Wordsworth(1770-1850)
I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
And dances with the daffodils.
1. To translate from Enlish into Vietnamese
Hoa thủy tiên vàng
Nhẹ lướt trên thung lũng, núi đồi,
Bất chợt tôi nhìn thấy một thảm hoa, Và bất chợt, tôi thấy một thảm hoa
Một chủ nhân của những hoa thủy tiên vàng; Một thảm hoa thủy tiên vàng rực rỡ
Bên bờ hồ và bên dưới tán cây, Bên bờ hồ và dưới những tán cây
Rung rinh và nhảy múa với những cơn gió nhẹ. Đang rung rinh nhảy múa cùng những cơn gió nhẹ
Và cứ thế như những ngôi sao trên bầu trời Như những ngôi sao tỏa sáng trên nền trời
Lấp lánh trên dải Ngân Hà,
Hoa trải dài xa tít tới tận chân trời Hoa trải dài tới tận chân trời
Dọc theo bờ của một con vịnh Dọc theo bờ vịnh
Trong thoáng chốc tôi đã nhìn thấy mười nghìn hoa thủy tiên, Thoáng chốc tôi đã thấy cả một vườn thủy tiên
Lúc lắc đầu trong điệu múa sống động.
Bên thủy tiên, từng con sóng nhảy múa; nhưng thủy tiên Những con sóng dập dềnh bên hàng thủy tiên
Còn đẹp hơn nhiều những con sóng lấp lánh trong niềm hân hoan: Nhưng những bông thủy tiên còn nổi bật hơn sóng, lấp lánh trong niềm hân hoan
Một bài thơ không thể tả hết lời nhưng nó rực rỡ, Một bài thơ không thể nói hết được vẻ rực rỡ của thủy tiên
Trong một niềm vui to lớn: Trong niềm hạnh phúc tràn đầy
Tôi chăm chú nhìn, nhìn thật kĩ và chợt nghĩ Tôi chăm chú ngắm nhìn và nhận ra
Điều tuyệt vời thủy tiên đã đem lại cho tôi: Điều tuyệt vời thủy tiên mang đến
Như những khi nằm trên trường kỉ Tôi thường nằm trên chiếc trường kỷ
Lúc tâm hồn lơ đãng hay trầm tư, Để tâm hồn lơ đãng hay trầm tư
Thủy tiên lại lóe sáng trong tâm trí
Đó chính là niềm hạnh phúc trong cô đơn;
Và khi ấy trái tim tôi ngập tràn niềm vui,
Như nhảy múa cùng những đóa thủy tiên.
2. William Wordworth (1770-1850)
William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet. He and Samuel Taylor Coleridgehelped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth was Britain’s Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.
2.1. Life
a) Early life (1770 - 1790)
William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland – one part of the scenic region in the northwest of England, the Lake District. And there were many beautiful sites in this land. The magnificent landscape deeply affected Wordsworth's imagination and gave him a love of nature.
His father, John Wordsworth taught him poetry of Milton, Shakespeare and Spenser. In addition, his father allowed him to rely on his own father's library. While spending time on reading in Cockermouth, Wordsworth also stayed at his mother's parents house in Penrith, Cumberland. At the time in Penrith, Wordsworth was exposed to the moors. He had lost his mother when he was eight and five years later, his father. This fact had a great influence on his life and his literary work.
William Wordsworth was the second of five children in his family. Specially, his sister – Dorothy was a very important person in his life. The domestic problems separated Wordsworth from his beloved and neurotic sister Dorothy. She had especially fresh contact to nature from a very early age. Her thoughts and experience brought a endless/invaluable source of inspiration for her brother, who also introduced himself as Nature's child. The first time she saw the sea, she burst into tears, "indicating the sensibility for which she was so remarkable," Wordsworth remembered.
In 1778, William Wordsworth entered a local school and then continued his studies at Cambridge University. He started his poetic career in 1787, when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine. In that same year, he began attending St. John's College, Cambridge, and received his B.A. degree in 1791. During a summer vacation in 1790, Wordsworth went on a walking tour through revolutionary France. He also traveled in Switzerland, Italy.
b) 1791 – 1802
On his second journey in France (in November 1791), William Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enthralled with the Republican movement. He fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon. And they had a daughter, Caroline. Because of lack of money and Britain’s tension with France, he returned alone to England. Then, he couldn’t see them again.
In 1793, Wordsworth’s first poetry was pulished with collections “An evening Walk” and “Descriptive Sketches”. He received a legacy of 900 from Raisley Calvert in 1795 so that he could continue the poetic career. In that year, he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Somerset and they became close friends. Together, Wordsworth and Coleridge (with insights from Dorothy) produced Lyrical Ballads (1798), an important work in the English Romantic movement. The second edition was published in 1800. Wordsworth gives his famous definition of poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." A fourth and final edition of Lyrical Ballads was published in 1805.
In 1795 - 1797, he wrote his only play, “The borderers” but it wasn’t performed at any theatre.
In autumn of 1798, Wordsworth, Dorothy and Coleridge went to Germany. Despite extreme stress and loneliness, he began working on an autobiographical piece later titled “The Prelude”. In that period of time, he wrote many famous poems. One of them was “Lucy”. Then, he and his sister returned Lake District where he was born. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey were known as the "Lake Poets".
c) 1802 – 1850
In late 1802, Wordsworth Wordsworth married to a childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson. Dorothy continued to live with the couple and grew close to Mary. For the last 20 years of life, she had lost her mind as a result of physical ailments. Almost all Dorothy's memory was destroyed/lost, she sat by the fire, and occasionally recited her brother's verses.
He continued writing autobiographical poems, which he never named but called the "poem to Coleridge". In 1805, his brother, John died and that affected him strongly. In 1807, his Poems in Two Volumes were published, including "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood". Since 1810 Wordsworth and Coleridge were estranged over the latter’s opium addiction. Two of his children, Thomas and Catherine, died in 1812. Wordsworth was appointed official distributor of stamps for Westmoreland. Then his family, including Dorothy, moved to Rydal Mount, Ambleside (between Grasmere and Rydal Water) in 1813, where he spent in the rest of his life.
From the age of 50 his creative began to decline. Wordsworth abandoned his radical faith and became a patriotic, conservative public man. In 1843 he succeeded Robert Southgey (1774-1843) as “England's poet laureate”.
Wordsworth died on April 23, 1850 and was buried at St. Oswald's church in Grasmere. His widow Mary published his lengthy autobiographical "poem to Coleridge" as The Prelude several months after his death. Then it was recognized as his masterpiece.
→ In conclusion, Wordsworth’s life was an unfortunate life/destiny/fate and It had strong effects on his works. That was a key factor which led him to become a great romantic poet.
2.2. Major works
Wordsworth was a well-known romantic poet with many lyric poems. Almost works described the poet's love of nature and revolve around themes of death, endurance, separation and grief. He gave prominence to emotion in poetry. He said : “the poetry as the spontanueous overflow of powerful fellings”.
ü Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798)
· "Simon Lee"
· "We are Seven"
· "The Thorn"
ü Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (1800)
· "Three years she grew"[14]
· "I travelled among unknown men"[14]
· "Lucy Gray"
· "The Two April Mornings"
· "Nutting"
· "The Ruined Cottage"
· "Michael"
· "The Kitten At Play"
· "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" Also known as "Daffodils"
· "Ode to Duty"
· "Elegiac Stanzas"
· "London, 1802"
Guide to the Lakes (1810)
3. Daffodils
The poem “Daffodils” was also known with the title “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. It was a lyrical poem written by William Wordsworth in 1804. It was first published in 1807 in Poems in Two Volumes, then it was released in 1815 in “Collected Poems” with four stanzas. “Daffodils” is considered as one of the most popular poems of the Romantic Age.
It was inspired by an April 15, 1802 event, in which Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, came across a “long belt” of daffodils on a walk near Ullswater Lake in England. The poet was wandering in the forest and enjoying the fascinating nature around him, when suddenly he saw a crowd of golden daffodils by the lakeside. The daffodils was so beautiful that he was compelled to gaze at these flowers playing with pleasure in the wind. His sister, Dorothy later wrote in her journal as a reference to this walk: “I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever dancing ever changing…”. And “Daffodils” expressed the poet’s excitement, love and praise for a field blossoming with daffodils.
The poem is a sonnet, 24 lines, including four six – line stanza. Each stanza is formed by a quatrain, then a couplet, to form a sestet and a ABABCC rhyme scheme. For example the rhyming scheme of the first stanza is ABAB ( A – cloud and crowd; B – hills and daffodils) and ending with a rhyming couplet CC ( C – trees and beeze). By the way, the poem can convert into a continous flow of expressions without a pause.
Just reading the first stanzas, we can feel the time and space in which William wrote “Daffodils” :
I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
The first line makes nice use of simile : “as a cloud”.It opened with the narrator walking in the state of worldly detachment, his wandering. That is a romantic poet in a romantic emotion too. In a dreamy, disinterested state, poet gazed and thought about life and himselft. He saw a crowd of golden daffodils by the lakeside, they “Fluttering and dancing in the breeze”. The author used personification to describe beauty of daffodils. They becomed to have action and mind like people. Those lines are as beautiful as a picture. If Wordsworth didn’t have love of nature, he couldn’t write good verses.
In the 2nd poem, he continued describing daffodils:
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
The figure of simile is subtly used : “as the stars that shine”. The golden daffodils were compared with the stars shining and twinkling on the galaxy. By that way the poet immortalized daffodils. And this is in contrast to transitory nature of life examined in other works. They seemed to become more beautiful in Wordsworth’s poem.
How glorious and plentiful these daffodils were! Maybe this was also the first time he had come across such an immense field of daffodils along the shore. It was impossible for us to count them, but the author could still feel how many flowers were stretching as far as the eyes can see:
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
Particularly, the author reversed usual syntax and hyperbole in : “Ten thousand saw I at a glance”. That was capable of emphasizing quantities of daffodils. In the last of the 2nd poem, Wordsworth used personification “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance” again. And in the next several lines the 3th poem:
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee
Through characterized daffodils, we can find that nature has its own soul. These light-hearted daffodils, weaving in unision with each other in the wind. And the author compared them with waves. Through the lake’s sparking waves danced beautifully, the daffodils seemed to do much better than them. That reinforced beauty of daffodils. William lifted him out of his soul and placed him in a higher state in which the soul of nature and the soul of man were united into a single harmony. Apparently, he felt dazed with so many daffodils around him and there was no limitation between his vision and the long belt of golden flowers.
The poet felt happy and pleasant when he saw golden flowers smiling in the sunshine:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
What wealth the show to me had brought:
Perhaps to him, the daffodil’s charm was a gift which God granted.
Many years later, the daffodil’s beauty still haunted Wordsworth. Whether he stayed in empty or thoughtful mood, the images of daffodils came to mind and flashed upon his eyes:
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
And dances with the daffodils.
In the last stanza, it is revealed that this scene is only a memory of the pensive speaker. This is marked by a change from a narrative past tense to the present tense as a conclusion to a sense of movement within the poem: passive to active motion, from sadness to blissfulness. The memory of daffodils was etched in the author’s mind and soul forever. When the poet was feeling lonely, dull or depressed, he thought of daffodils and cheered up. He desired to dance with the daffodils:
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
And dances with the daffodils.
The above two lines weren’t composed by Wordsworth but by his wife, Mary. Wordsworth considered them the best lines of the whole poem. They showed love of daffodils. To him, daffodils are close friends who come to console and encourage him. And images of daffodils would never seem to fade in Wordsworth’s mind.
The title, “Daffodils” appears as a simple word that reminds us about the arrival the spring season, when the filed is full of daffodils. Daffodils are yellow flowers, with amazing shapes and charming fragrance. But daffodils in Wordsworth’s poem is also an artistic symbol. They symbolize the nature and the joys and happiness of life. The poem uses descriptive language throughout the stanzas. The wording is simple and melodious.
This poem was one of the Wordsworth’s greatest works of Romanticism. The poem showed us natural beauty and the potential of nature towards people. He would like to call us to come back to the nature and enjoy it. The soul of nature and the soul of man were united into a single harmony.
In summary, through the analysis of poem in the aspects such as language, a lot of literary devices, narrator, rhyming scheme, images, symbols ... we can recognizeits beauty as well as profound human values. Reading “Daffodils”, I love our nature and life more and more. This poem will be long lasting in spite of the world’s up and down.
