'Daffodils' and 'Composed upon Westminster Bridge' Analysis Luke Peters

William Wordsworth himself once said, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Wordsworth, like most romantic poets, had a strong attitude towards the rebellion against the industrial revolution and strove to revert back to the “bliss” of nature. He believed that by returning to nature, mankind would become unrestricted by the constraints imposed upon them by an industrialised society. Humanity had corrupted his view of human nature and man from a state of innocence and natural beauty. Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” and “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” are poems that convey Wordsworth’s preoccupations with nature, politics and the imagination through the beauteous image of the daffodils “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” and a city adorned with an almost celestial light.

During the romantic period nature became a powerful symbol; a vision of life as it should be. “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” colludes with the idea that nature is pure and beauteous. This is evident as early as the very first line where the Earth is personified as a “fair” and beautiful woman. This mimics the sonnet form of Shakespeare, where the crux of the sonnet dealt with the everlasting beauty of women. Perhaps this leads on to say...