John Muir And I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

“The power of imagination makes us infinite.” (John Muir). Both John Muir and William Wordsworth demonstrate this through their use of language as they describe nature scenes. John Muir studies nature and in his essay about locating the Calypso Borealis he uses scientific descriptions to grab his reader’s attention and to portray his excitement at finding the rare flower. William Wordsworth on the other hand shows his appreciation for the beauty of nature and its effect on a person’s emotions in the vivid visual descriptions that he gives of the daffodils in his poem ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud.’ Wordsworth with his appreciation of beauty and Muir through scientific descriptions provide an indication of the influence that nature has had on them as they capture their reader’s attention both emotionally and visually through their personal and unique use of tone, diction, syntax and vocabulary. Both Muir in his essay The Calypso Borealis and Wordsworth in his poem Wandered lonely as a cloud, evoke emotion

The encounter with the flower had so impressed Muir that he wrote a letter about it to his university professor, Professor J. D. Butler. He mentions that the calypso meeting happened forty five years ago and yet he vividly remembers the meeting and is able to describe it in detail. He mentions that it was one of his most unforgettable and inspiring meetings in his life with anybody or anything. Wordsworth reminisces in the last stanza of his poem that frequently when he is lying on his couch feeling bored or sad he reflects upon the vision of the daffodils and that makes him happy again. He uses the expression “in vacant or in pensive mood” using the word vacant rather than ‘empty’, implying that he has room in his mind for thought, as opposed to having nothing in his mind at