Poetry of HZD pt. 1: Wordsworth's "Daffodils" Metal Flower Mark III I

The Metal Flower containing an excerpt from William Wordsworth's poem "Daffodils" can be found on a mesa just east of Meridian. Aloy has to cross a tightrope to get to it and will have to fight off a group of Glinthawks. As with all of the Metal Flowers, the poem contained in the Mark III I flower does not appear to have any specific relation to the surrounding landscape in which it is found. As is the standard, it is surrounded by a triangle of purple flowers, not daffodils--a missed opportunity by the game designers if you ask me.

According to my correspondence with Guerrilla Games, the poems contained in the Metal Flowers were all selected by Ben McCaw, the Lead Writer of HZD. The most obvious unifying theme of these poems is, of course, nature, which makes sense in a game that deals with ecological subject matter and contains an elaborate and beautiful depiction of natural landscapes.

Of all of the nature poems McCaw included throughout the game, "Daffodils" is probably the least surprising. It is a among the quintessential nature poems in the English language and a quintessential poem of both Wordsworth's oeuvre and of British Romanticism--the poetic movement in English that is most associated with an appreciation of nature. Nature was central to Wordsworth's poetic output. He writes in the 1802 Preface to his landmark edition Lyrical Ballads that the poet "considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each other, and the mind of man as naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting qualities of nature." He goes on to describe the affection and pleasure that the poet attains in conversing with nature. Ecocritic Kate Rigby explains in her essay "Romanticism and Ecocriticism" that "the primary foci of ecocritical interests in Romanticism have been the new ways of viewing and valuing, representing and relating to the natural world that emerged during this period." Much of Wordsworth's poetry, and Romantic poetry in general, involves attending to and being deeply moved by the natural world.

Wordsworth's sister Dorothy recorded the incident that inspired the "Daffodils" poem in the April 15, 1802 entry of her Grasmere Journals:

"When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park we saw a few daffodils close to the waterside. We fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and yet more, and at last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. 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-glancing, ever-changing. The wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was, here and there, a little knot, and a few stragglers a few yards higher up--but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway."

The poem that Wordsworth himself always referred to as "Daffodils" was actually never given a title in publication. In many of the anthologies it appears in--and it appears in many--it is simply listed and indexed by its first line: "I wandered lonely as a cloud" (though, as Dorothy's record shows, he actually was not alone). "Daffodils" (as I will refer to it) first appeared in Wordsworth's 1807 edition Poems in Two Volumes as a three stanzaed poem, but was later republished in 1815 as a four stanzaed piece with a new second stanza added. What appears in Metal Flower Mark III I is the original first stanza with the added second stanza from 1815. The final two stanzas are omitted. The original first stanza reads,

I wandered 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 lack, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

And the seconds stanza from the 1815 version reads,

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

These first two verses simply set the scene without offering much sense of the author's response to the flowers. McCaw likely wanted to emphasize the pure description of nature more so than the subjective experience of the poet, which comes in the final two stanzas. The opening lines might relate specifically to Aloy who is something of a lonely wanderer--depending on how much the player wants to freely explore the open world. Though, she does have specific destinations and goals at every point in the game. Even as she may wander, however, Aloy never reflects on the beauty of her surroundings. As with the first two verses of "Daffodils," the game simply presents the scenery without the subjective response of Aloy or other characters; it is up to the player to create their own impressions of the landscape presented. Thus, it makes sense that McCaw omitted Wordsworth final two verses that guide the readers impression of the scenery to that of the author.  

The final two verses, which are not included in the Metal Flower from HZD read,

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid 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:

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. 

Wordsworth added a note in the 1815 publication of the poem explaining that "The subject of these stanzas is rather an elementary feeling and simple impression . . . upon the imaginative faculty, than an exertion of it." Many of the nature poems in HZD draw lessons or find metaphors in nature. While others, like "Daffodils," seek instead to capture an emotional impression of a moment in nature. With this poem, the impression is one of joy. The poem's final verse in particular exemplifies Wordsworth's famous statement from the 1802 Preface to Lyrical Ballads where he writes that poetry, which he describes as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," "takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." He is remembering and reflecting on his experience with the daffodils. By omitting these final stanzas and including only the first two from the 1815 edition, McCaw maintains Wordsworth's poetic description of the daffodils themselves, but mostly removes the emotional response of the poet. I would argue that this is consistent with the way the game approaches natural beauty. It presents it through the visual medium of a video game, but the protagonist who players identify with, Aloy, does not offer her emotional impressions about the landscape. She either takes it for granted or sees it as an obstacle. It is up to the player to admire the game's portrayal of nature.