Wordsworth and Remix.

William Wordsworth writer and poet extraordinaire has written many poems in his life but none are more important than I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud the poem that helped further popularize remixing. This poem is an influential example of a remix. Remixing is the act of talking something previously created and making something brand new out of it. This practice is used within our lives on a daily basis.

Wordsworth’s poem I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud falls under remix due to its source material. The poem is actually based off of a journal created by his sister Dorothy Wordsworth. The name of the writing is The Grasmere Journals and it is based off of Dorothy’s experiences in Grasmere during April of 1802. The journal goes into detail about Dorothy’s admiration and appreciation for nature; she does this by vividly describing the world around her and the experiences she had with her brother.

William took the experiences recounted within this journal and turned them into I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud. This poem was written in the Romanticism era and its content vividly displays this fact. After reading it you can immediately tell that the poem shares the same sentiments as the journal.  Both have the same key scene about daffodils and them “dancing”; this is illustrated by the quotes “we saw a few daffodils close to the waterside,” (Wordsworth 85), “Some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced” (Wordsworth 85) “They stretched in a never-ending line Along the margin of the bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in a sprightly dance.” (Wordsworth 89). The first two quotes are from The Grasmere Journals and the last quote is from I wondered Lonely as a Cloud, these quotes show without a shadows of a doubt that the share the same subject material. I wondered Lonely as a Cloud is an excellent example of genre play; genre play being a classification of remix. Genre play simply means “Deploying a text that blends, repurposes, or moves in and out of genre.” (Edwards xxx). As has already been displayed, William Wordsworth takes the stories from The Grasmere Journals and turns it from a journal format to the format of a poem. The transition to a poem is so seamless that the poem became a prime example of a remix.

I wondered Lonely as a cloud was such a successful remix that it and its background became a very popular topic in English discussions. One example would be its inclusion in the University of North Florida Book Re: Mix. There are also a plethora of online articles discussing the importance of the two writers and their writing. I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud, The Grasmere Journals and their creators have now been forever immortalized in history due to their contributions to writing as a whole.