Simple poem(شعر ساده)

Simple poem(شعر ساده)

The solitary reaper

Summary and analysis

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

The Solitary Reaper is a lyrical ballad which combines lyrical feelings and careful artistry with the techniques and relative objectivity of the ballads

| Posted on 2010-04-06 | by a guest

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I studied this poem at the time i was in SSCL. My english master taught this poem in such a beautiful mannar. Whenever I feel lonliness I just collect the memories of that poem class. Really a fentastic one by Wordsworth also my class teacher. Thanks.

| Posted on 2010-03-24 | by a guest

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Wordsworth was one of the finest poet of nature and love which was shown brilliantly in this poem. I have enjoyed it much because I know beauty lies on the eyes of beholder. When I read it,the whole picture was floating infront of my eyes.
Gopal Dhar.

| Posted on 2010-03-22 | by a guest

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For me, notions of simplicity, virtue and awe are central to this poem; lending it strong tones of spirituality:
The singer is a 'maiden' and is set in a hermit-like environment. She is alone [an idea emphasised three times]; working hard at a simple task and unaffected by the world around her. This is to the extent that the observer is tempted to 'gently pass' - as if out of reverence. Similarly, although drawn to stay, he opts to remain 'motionless and still'. He and the girl might as well be in a church or monastry.
Although the singer is isolated from the world, she nevertheless has a 'profound' effect upon it. It might well be significant that she is a 'reaper' since this has strong religious connotations in terms of 'gathering in the harvest'.
Her influence is both mysterious and awe-inspiring: We do not know what she is singing about; any more that the song of the cuckoo or nightingale are understood.

But this is unimportant: It is the beauty of the tones and notes that are awe-inspiring: They are universal and so capable of transporting the listener to far-flung places.
The notes are plaintive, thrilling and [again] there is an eternal quality - her songs 'have no ending'.
The listener is on a journey and so cannot stay. But there is a hint that the journey of life is likewise involved [insofar as he refers to a later time ['long after'].
The meanings of the songs sung by this solitary reaper, although unfathomable, are equally applicable to the past, present and future ['...and may be again' + 'long after'] and, moreover, the themes are relevant to everyday life [of 'a more humble lay'].
It is also implied that, ['whate'er'] the themes involved, they [and the singer] have healing qualities for natural sorrows and feelings of loss and pain. Again; strong religious connotations.
Equally, it may be significant that the poet makes such suppositions: Perhaps he, himself, is prone to melancholy. However, to make this connection, it is necessary to jump to another poem where Wordsworth mentions that he sometimes finds himself in a 'pensive mood'.
Overall, what we are left with is a simple girl doing a simple task and singing beautiful songs - totally unaware of the impact she has on the world and those within it.
She is bringing in the harvest; but has also harvested a soul.
Echoing the uncomplicated nature of what is going on in the scene, Wordsworth also keeps things simple and easily accessible.
For me, the most significant line is ...'I listened, motionless and still;'
This stresses the impact and power of the unfolding scene: It stopped the listener in his tracks.
The poem belongs to another era. But in a time of celebrity, hype and impatience, the poem celebrates the beauty of simplicity. We too are stopped in our tracks and find ourselves listening.
A. Skelton

| Posted on 2009-12-14 | by a guest

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i got a line from this poem in a spam email just this morning....very odd that the spammer used this poem in spam email.
"Among the farthest Hebrides"

| Posted on 2009-12-01 | by a guest

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this like an evergreen poem. There are so many new interpretations of the poem, which one is the best? And answereing to the post on the 2005-10-18, i think that she was not aware of him, because then why would he say that 'stop here, or gently pass'?

| Posted on 2009-11-29 | by a guest

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by the first post i have read may i remind you that it is a william wordsworth's poem and not shakespear....

| Posted on 2009-11-07 | by a guest

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this poem shows shakespeare's love for nature. he proved that he is a natural poet indeed. here he talks about an innocent girl who is singing alone. her song presents a kind of sadness. it looks as she is singing her own story. her voice has affected him so much that he is mad o flistening of her again and again. he is so impressed by her voice that he starts running after the voice. he does not want to disturb her also. he listens her pleasent voice for some time but it disappears soon. he tries to find th egirl but all in vain. so this poem is the best poem i have ever read in literature.

| Posted on 2009-11-05 | by a guest

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Interestig analysis posted by "a guest" on 8-09-18. I am now reading the poem from a new perspective. I always thought that the poet did not know the singer at all-- just someone working alone and singing by herself. The poet was so impressed with her song that he did not want to disturb her. The memory of her is linked with her music in his heart and it is clear that the message of the music is sadness-- so there might be something to the loneliness and the lovers never meeting interpretation.

| Posted on 2009-10-27 | by a guest

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The poet sees a highland girl singing and reaping alone in the field.She sings a melancholy song as she cuts and binds the grain.To the poet the maidens song seems sweeter even than the song of Nightingale and he considers her voice more thrilliing than the sweet notes of cuckoo.The magic of the reaper's song immidieately tranports poet to the realm of romantic fantsy and imagination.The poet is unfamiliar with gaelic erse of the highlanders so he can only make guesses about the subject of the song.He imagines that the song is about some unhappy incident or about some battles fought long ago.Or it may be some common loss or pain of man's daily existence.But whatever the subject of the song be its sweet music made a deep and lasting impression in poets extraordinary sensitive soul.

| Posted on 2009-10-20 | by a guest

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"The Solitary Reaper" embodies Wordsworth's belief in the healing properties of nature. In addtion, Wordsworth saw the common man as a subject worthy of poetry. The inspiration for this poem, according to his sister Dorothy, came from Wilkinson's book, Tour of Scotland wherein he described a woman, reaping alone and singing. Wordsworth defined poetry as "a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" and he also believed that nature was freedom. THEME is not the key word in looking at this poem; rather, Wordsworth conveys both beauty and awe in a simple scene.

| Posted on 2009-10-10 | by a guest

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An excellent poem by the ever greatest Poet.I just love it!

| Posted on 2009-09-02 | by a guest

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This is a beautiful poem by one of the best romantic writers in english literature. The poem depicts the beauty of the nature and the mystery of the theme of the song. The song creates a desire in hearts of the readers to know the theme. The author did a wonderfull job in conveying the poem to the readers so wonderfully that a person who read that poem will bore it in his heart for ever.

| Posted on 2009-08-11 | by a guest

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a wonderful pem written by william wordsworth.the poet was bewitched by the thrilling notes of the lonely reaper.the whole valley was ringing with her silvery sound.the poet stood still and listened to the golden voiceof the reaper which was so soothing and enchanting.
by aishwarya nathan
chettinad vidyashram

| Posted on 2009-08-05 | by a guest

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1.Why is nightangle's song discribed as "welcoming" and cuckoo's song as "thrilling"?
2.In what ways does the song have a lasting effect on the poet?

| Posted on 2009-07-26 | by a guest

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The Reaper should be identified with nature herself. The Poet was thrilled to listen to her song though it was,as Wordsworth himself has said, was melancholy.

| Posted on 2009-07-08 | by a guest

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This poem always remains as my favourite and is etched in my heart evergreen 4 ever. And reason ofcourse is the beautiful usage of words & comparisons. wordsworth's ability to observe nature & inherit feelings from it's freshness is really remarkable. And this poem is really a rare theme & 1 of the most wonderful in english literature. hats off to wordsworth..
by Amy

| Posted on 2009-06-05 | by a guest

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i think he just meant sth simple , he saw a girl and a feeling

| Posted on 2009-05-26 | by a guest

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I don't think that this poem is as sombre as everyone is making it out to be. I think that, although lonliness is a recuring theme throughout, lust and appreciation also pay a major part. I think that Wordsworth is telling the reader to appreciate all the small things in life and that simple things can give longer lasting pleasures.

| Posted on 2009-04-09 | by a guest

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I think that when he speaks about her singing and no one understanding, that would be relating to his work because no one understood his poetry
- Andy

| Posted on 2009-03-24 | by a guest

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To whom is the nightingale's song described as "welcome"and the cuckoo's song "thrilling"?

| Posted on 2009-03-21 | by a guest

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this poem is good . and i have to explain it for homework .and thanks for helping and making me understand .

| Posted on 2009-01-18 | by a guest

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plzzzz a liil better easy and nic summary needed till tom

| Posted on 2009-01-16 | by a guest

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"The Solitary Reaper" is a prime example of the poetry produced during the Romantic era in England. This is because the poem has a central theme of independance and being one with nature. The lass who is singing in a celtic language, a language the speaker in the poem does not understand, is the symbol of the ideas romantics embraced. The lass is "solitary" which represents the idea of breaking away from society and being your own induviual person. Her reaping is a symbol of the idea of being close or one with nature.
As the speaker listens to the song the lass is singing he first notices a melancholy melody that he compares to a nightingale and the cuckoo bird, who both have very sweet songs. As he listens to the song, still unable to understand it, he begins to wonder what she is singing about and for the remainder of the poem the speaker uses his imagination to try and guess what her song is about. Also the music seems to have a major impact on the speaker, as if inspiring him to something, because as he walks away he is still thinking about the song, still hearing it "Long after it was heard no more."

| Posted on 2009-01-14 | by a guest

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Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper" is a poem only of feeling as poetry seems to be. It is not important that wherever the presence of nightingle or cuckoo is real or not, the main issue is however, we can feel it or not.

| Posted on 2008-10-25 | by a guest

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I want a site in which we write the question and we get the answers. Please i request u give me the site

| Posted on 2008-10-12 | by a guest

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This poem focusses on the solitary life that people live as the woman was 'reaping and singing by herself'. the man, obviously affected by the womans melancholy song, is too lonely looking at the woman and listening 'motionless and still'. the unhappiness of the lonliness shown through the song. it is truely a song of two strangers, alone, who will eventually die lonely. Unlike many poems and songs that suggest that the lonely parties egt together, The Solitary Reaper shows that the lonliness is almost always forever as 'Long after, the music was heard no more' suggesting that the woman had dies, and the two remained lonely. Although this is the case, the imagery presents an almost romantic picture, but the messege is clear. They will never meet again.

| Posted on 2008-09-18 | by a guest

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The poem ‘The Solitary Reaper’ written by William Wordsworth is about a young woman binding and cutting grain in a field. As she sings, the poem tells us that what she sings about is quite emotional. The poet took notice of this one day as he watched this woman get lost in her singing. ‘The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more’ these final lines express that this young lady has affected the poet. The poet used the line ‘As if her song could have no ending’ to explain how calm and peaceful her singing was.
The tone and atmosphere of this poem is very calm, emotional and peaceful. Imagery is used throughout this poem to help give readers a better understanding of what is actually going on. Some of the imagery used is, ‘’
The poet creates a comparison between "No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands." and "A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides." You cannot hear a nightingale in the Arabian Sands, and you cannot hear a Cuckoo-bird in the Hebrides. This comparison is used by the poet to explain to the readers, how beautiful the singing is.

| Posted on 2008-06-22 | by a guest

.: WHY :.

Is it possible to hear the song of the nightingale in the Arabian deserts or the cry of the cuckoo-bird in the Hebrides? If not, why use these two comparisons?

| Posted on 2008-06-07 | by a guest

.: The Solitary Reaper :.

The Solitary Reaper is a classic example of a poem from the romantic era written by William Wordsworth. It’s about how a man, most probably Wordsworth is affected by a song being sung by this woman. The song of the young girl reaping in the fields is incomprehensible to him a "Highland lass," she is likely singing in Scots, and what he appreciates is its tone, its expressive beauty, and the mood it creates within him, rather than its explicit content, at which he can only guess.
Already from the beginning we can see patterns which are common to the romantic poets such as the title. “ The Solitary Reaper” The romanticists usually focus on the individual itself furthermore it is common for the poems to be about one person alone in this instance the person is “Solitary…” The author further emphasizes the fact that she is alone in the first stanza “Behold her, single…” and “…singing by herself” All through the poem we never find out who this person who is singing actually is, the author doesn’t tells us anything about her this might be because this bares little importance. In addition we also see this idea of the poet being an individual in the last stanza when he says “I listen’d till I had my fill” He is using the first person of the singular which conveys the idea that the poet himself is the person listening to the song. The woman is perceived to be as one with nature through both the singing and the working. “Alone she cuts and binds the grain And sings a melancholy strain…” It seems as if she is in harmony with the nature which again is common throughout the romantics as they sought wilderness and nature to be very important. At the end of the first stanza we can see Wordsworth describing the sound as if it were a liquid “Is overflowing with the sound.” this is repeated again in the last stanza “…till I had my fill.” The song is portrayed to be a liquid which is filling up both the valley where it is being sang and the poet himself like a container that needs to be filled up. Wordsworth makes several references to various historical locations and events some including "Travellers...Among Arabian Sands," "battles long ago," and "the silence of the seas among the farthest Hebrides." The girl's act of reaping and cultivating the land links the past with the future the land that supported her elders will continue to support the future land inhabitants. The author chooses to describe the sweetness of the song by comparing it to the singing of birds. “No Nightingale did ever chaunt…” and “…from the cuckoo-bird” The fact that he chooses to compare the singing of the lady to the singing of birds demonstrates how he feels about the song and how he thinks its beautiful. More over Wordsworth gives instructions throughout the first stanza. “Stop here” “gently pass” “O listen” In a way this shows the poets lack of contact with the woman and the fact that he does not want her to stop singing. The author also refers to different times, the past “And battles long ago.” and the present “Familiar matter of to-day?” We can see this in the third stanza which is based around time, he’s trying to figure out what the song is about and doesn’t know if its about the past or the present.
The poem's structure is simple--the first stanza sets the scene, the second offers two bird comparisons for the music, the third wonders about the content of the songs, and the fourth describes the effect of the songs on the speaker--and its language is natural and the poe

| Posted on 2008-05-25 | by a guest

.: you read not what he said :.

First comment, longest one, twice misquotes the poem. The line is: "I listened, motionless and still..." not "...till I had my fill." I may not be an expert on time times, but I like this poem, I memorized it, and I don't think they talked that way then. WW didn't, leastways not in this poem. This is a thing pointed out, not a criticism, and certainly not an attack--as mere point-outs have a way of coming across when they're online.
If you emphasize the wrong syllabels in the line
"among Arabian sands," it reads better.
A "lay" is a song. It helps to know that, too.

| Posted on 2008-04-27 | by a guest

.: The Solitary Reaper :.

The Solitary Reaper is a classic example of a poem from the romantic era written by William Wordsworth. It’s about how a man, most probably Wordsworth is affected by a song being sung by this woman. The song of the young girl reaping in the fields is incomprehensible to him a "Highland lass," she is likely singing in Scots, and what he appreciates is its tone, its expressive beauty, and the mood it creates within him, rather than its explicit content, at which he can only guess.
Already from the beginning we can see patterns which are common to the romantic poets such as the title. “ The Solitary Reaper” The romanticists usually focus on the individual itself furthermore it is common for the poems to be about one person alone in this instance the person is “Solitary…” The author further emphasises the fact that she is alone in the first stanza “Behold her, single…” and “…singing by herself” All through the poem we never find out who this person who is singing actually is, the author doesn’t tells us anything about her this might be because this bares little importance. In addition we also see this idea of the poet being an individual in the last stanza when he says “I listen’d till I had my fill” He is using the first person of the singular which conveys the idea that the poet himself is the person listening to the song. The woman is perceived to be as one with nature through both the singing and the working. “Alone she cuts and binds the grain And sings a melancholy strain…” It seems as if she is in harmony with the nature which again is common throughout the romantics as they sought wilderness and nature to be very important. At the end of the first stanza we can see Wordsworth describing the sound as if it were a liquid “Is overflowing with the sound.” this is repeated again in the last stanza “…till I had my fill.” The song is portrayed to be a liquid which is filling up both the valley where it is being sang and the poet himself like a container that needs to be filled up. Wordsworth makes several references to various historical locations and events some including "Travellers...Among Arabian Sands," "battles long ago," and "the silence of the seas among the farthest Hebrides." The girl's act of reaping and cultivating the land links the past with the future the land that supported her elders will continue to support the future land inhabitants. The author chooses to describe the sweetness of the song by comparing it to the singing of birds. “No Nightingale did ever chaunt…” and “…from the cuckoo-bird” The fact that he chooses to compare the singing of the lady to the singing of birds demonstrates how he feels about the song and how he thinks its beautiful. More over Wordsworth gives instructions throughout the first stanza. “Stop here” “gently pass” “O listen” In a way this shows the poets lack of contact with the woman and the fact that he does not want her to stop singing. The author also refers to different times, the past “And battles long ago.” and the present “Familiar matter of to-day?” We can see this in the third stanza which is based around time, he’s trying to figure out what the song is about and doesn’t know if its about the past or the present.
The poem's structure is simple--the first stanza sets the scene, the second offers two bird comparisons for the music, the third wonders about the content of the songs, and the fourth describes the effect of the songs on the speaker--and its language is natural an

| Posted on 2008-04-23 | by a guest

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the poet tells readers that the song the lass sings does a lot to the ear that you either choose to stay and listen or pass by slowly but it seems as if he stayed to listen to the voice which he compares to that of a bird.

| Posted on 2007-12-21 | by a guest

The Solitary Reaper”

Summary

The poet orders his listener to behold a “solitary Highland lass” reaping and singing by herself in a field. He says that anyone passing by should either stop here, or “gently pass” so as not to disturb her. As she “cuts and binds the grain” she “sings a melancholy strain,” and the valley overflows with the beautiful, sad sound. The speaker says that the sound is more welcome than any chant of the nightingale to weary travelers in the desert, and that the cuckoo-bird in spring never sang with a voice so thrilling.

Impatient, the poet asks, “Will no one tell me what she sings?” He speculates that her song might be about “old, unhappy, far-off things, / And battles long ago,” or that it might be humbler, a simple song about “matter of today.” Whatever she sings about, he says, he listened “motionless and still,” and as he traveled up the hill, he carried her song with him in his heart long after he could no longer hear it.

Form

The four eight-line stanzas of this poem are written in a tight iambic tetrameter. Each follows a rhyme scheme of ABABCCDD, though in the first and last stanzas the “A” rhyme is off (field/self and sang/work).

Commentary

Along with “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” “The Solitary Reaper” is one of Wordsworth’s most famous post-Lyrical Ballads lyrics. In “Tintern Abbey” Wordsworth said that he was able to look on nature and hear “human music”; in this poem, he writes specifically about real human music encountered in a beloved, rustic setting. The song of the young girl reaping in the fields is incomprehensible to him (a “Highland lass,” she is likely singing in Scots), and what he appreciates is its tone, its expressive beauty, and the mood it creates within him, rather than its explicit content, at which he can only guess. To an extent, then, this poem ponders the limitations of language, as it does in the third stanza (“Will no one tell me what she sings?”). But what it really does is praise the beauty of music and its fluid expressive beauty, the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling” that Wordsworth identified at the heart of poetry.

By placing this praise and this beauty in a rustic, natural setting, and by and by establishing as its source a simple rustic girl, Wordsworth acts on the values of Lyrical Ballads. The poem’s structure is simple—the first stanza sets the scene, the second offers two bird comparisons for the music, the third wonders about the content of the songs, and the fourth describes the effect of the songs on the speaker—and its language is natural and unforced. Additionally, the final two lines of the poem (“Its music in my heart I bore / Long after it was heard no more”) return its focus to the familiar theme of memory, and the soothing effect of beautiful memories on human thoughts and feelings.

“The Solitary Reaper” anticipates Keats’s two great meditations on art, the “Ode to a Nightingale,” in which the speaker steeps himself in the music of a bird in the forest—Wordsworth even compares the reaper to a nightingale—and “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” in which the speaker is unable to ascertain the stories behind the shapes on an urn. It also anticipates Keats’s “Ode to Autumn” with the figure of an emblematic girl reaping in the fields.

1Behold her, single in the field,

2Yon solitary Highland Lass!

3Reaping and singing by herself;

4Stop here, or gently pass!

5Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

6And sings a melancholy strain;

7O listen! for the Vale profound

8Is overflowing with the sound.

9No Nightingale did ever chaunt

10More welcome notes to weary bands

11Of travellers in some shady haunt,

12Among Arabian sands:

13A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

14In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

15Breaking the silence of the seas

16Among the farthest Hebrides.

17Will no one tell me what she sings?--

18Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

19For old, unhappy, far-off things,

20And battles long ago:

21Or is it some more humble lay,

22Familiar matter of to-day?

23Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

24That has been, and may be again?

25Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang

26As if her song could have no ending;

27I saw her singing at her work,

28And o'er the sickle bending;--

29I listened, motionless and still;

30And, as I mounted up the hill,

31The music in my heart I bore,

32Long after it was heard no more.

Notes

1] Coleridge, Wordsworth, and his sister had visited the Scottish Highlands in 1803. Dorothy's Recollections for September 13 that year notes: "It was harvest time, and the fields were quietly -- might I be allowed to say pensively? -- enlivened by small companies of reapers. It is not uncommon in the more lonely parts of the Highlands to see a single person so employed." In a note to the 1807 edition, Wordsworth traced the poem's source: "This Poem was suggested by a beautiful sentence in a MS Tour in Scotland written by a Friend, the last line being taken from it verbatim." Thomas Wilkinson's manuscript, Tours to the British Mountains (London, 1824), states: "Passed a Female who was reaping alone: she sung in Erse as she bended over her sickle; the sweetest human voice I ever heard: her strains were tenderly melancholy, and felt delicious, long after they were heard no more" (12).

2] Highland: mountainous region in northern Scotland associated with the Celtic clans.

7] Vale profound: broad, deep valley between two high ranges; possibly the world itself, as a place of suffering (OED "vale" 2b). Wordsworth takes this from conventional poetic diction; cf. Gilbert West's "Education. A Poem" (1751), lines 617-21:

On to the Centre of the Grove they stray'd;
Which, in a spacious Circle opening round,
Within it's shelt'ring Arms securely laid,
Disclosed to sudden View a Vale profound,
With Nature's artless Smiles and tranquil Beauties crown'd.

9] Nightingale: a small song-bird, well-known for the male's musical notes in the mating and nesting season. In Classical myth, the female nightingale is that to which Philomela, tragically raped and mutilated by her sister Procne's husband, metamorphoses on carrying out her revenge.

14] Cuckoo-bird: song-bird migrating to Britain in the spring and associated with renewal. Cf. John Logan's "Ode to the Cuckoo" (1782) and "Spring" by Thomas Brerewood (-1748):

When the wood-pigeons sit on the branches and coo;
And the cuckoo proclaims with his voice,
That Nature marks this for the season to woo,
And for all that can love to rejoice ...

16] Hebrides: islands northwest of Scotland in the Atlantic.

18] plaintive numbers: conventional poetic phrase, as in George Dyer's "Ode XIX. To a Young Painter and Poetess" (1801):

So may the foliage of thy spring
Be follow'd by the richest bloom;
Nor thou in plaintive numbers sing
To Genius, withering in the tomb.

21] humble lay: conventional poetic diction, as in Thomas Warton's "ODE V. To a Gentleman upon his Travels thro' Italy" (1747), lines 1-3:

While I with fond officious care,
For you my chorded shell prepare,
And not unmindful frame an humble lay ...

Commentary by Ian Lancashire
(2002/9/9)

Wordsworth's preface to the 1800 Lyrical Ballads argues that poetry "contains a natural delineation of human passions, human characters, and human incidents." It ought not be judged by the presence of artificial, poetic diction. Rather, "the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society" can be its medium. "The Solitary Reaper" exemplifies these beliefs.

Written seven years after Lyrical Ballads, it describes a nameless listener's delight in a young woman's melancholy song in an unknown language as, working by herself in a Scottish valley, she swings a sickle, reaping grain. Four eight-line stanzas, each closing with two couplets and all written in octosyllabic lines, have a musical lilt. Short lines deliver the rhymes at a quick pace. Sentences normally need two or more such short lines to complete, so that few lines are strongly end-stopped; most freely enjamb. Diction is conversational. Often lines consist mainly of monosyllabic words (4-5, 13, 17, 21, 24, 27, 30-32). Wordsworth prefers common verbs, "behold," "reap," "sing," "stop," "pass," "cut," "bind," "chant," "hear," and "break." Words imported into English from Latin or Greek, like "solitary" and "melancholy" or forms with "-ive" and "-ion" endings (e.g., "plaintive" and "motionless"), are infrequent.

Wordsworth writes plain, almost undemanding verse. For example, he repeats the simplest idea in varying words. The girl is "single," "solitary," and "by herself" (1-3). She is "reaping" (3), that is, "cuts and binds the grain" (5), "o'er the sickle bending" (28). The onlooker is both "motionless and still" (29). The lass "sings" (3, 17, 25, 27) or does "chant" (9) a "strain" (6), a "lay" (21), or "a song" (26). The speaker relies on everyday idioms, worn to vagueness by overuse in ordinary talk. Her "theme" (25) is of "things" (19) or "matter" (22) "That has been, and may be again" (24). This excludes only what never existed at all. Whenever the speaker might become elevated in speech, his language seems prosaic, even chatty: "Will no one tell me ..." (17), "Whate're the theme" (25), and "Long after it was heard no more" (32). Wordsworth notes, pointedly, that this last line comes verbatim from a prose travel book.

"The Solitary Reaper" does not implement, programmatically, his dogma of plain diction. For example, "Vale profound" (7), "plaintive numbers" (18), and "humble lay" (21) are semi-formulaic catch phrases in the very eighteenth-century verse whose artificiality he rejects. These exceptions may be deliberate, characterizing the speaker (not Wordsworth) as someone for whom poetry means much. He resorts to formulas as if to hint that the girl's song is out-of-place in the valley, however separated from the traditions of fine verse by her class, occupation, and location. Wordsworth may deliberately impoverish his speaker's language so as to contrast it with the reaper's song.

Unlike other poets, this lass sings alone, isolated from both her predecessors (her "poetic tradition") and any audience. Dryden, Pope, Gray, and so many others defined themselves by quoting from classical literature and each other. Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper" shatters this continuity. Her song, like a found poem, springs directly from nature, without literary context. Her "music" runs like water ("overflowing" the valley) and surpasses the beauty of two celebrated English song-birds, the nightingale and the cuckoo. Here again the speaker raids conventional poetic language, as if incapable of finding truly suitable language. Ironically, both his analogies break down. Reaping takes place at harvest time, in the autumn, not in the spring or summer, seasons traditionally associated with the cuckoo and the nightingale. The reaper, a single "Maiden" (25), hardly fits the myth of married Philomela, rape victim and tragic revenger, even though the reaper sings in a melancholic, plaintive way about "Some natural sorrow" (23). The strange language in which the lass chants also removes her from any poetic tradition known to the speaker. He comprehends only her "sound," "voice," and "music," though it rings in his heart -- his memory -- "long after it was heard no more" (32).

This simple confession redeems the speaker from his own impoverished language. He bears witness to something that eighteenth-century poetry seemed at times embarrassed of. What transfixes him in song is not its content, but its emotionally expressive music. The listener does not understand why she sings in melancholy, only what the emotion itself is. This feeling "could have no ending" (26), as if she, like Keats' Ruth amid the alien corn, communicates wordlessly something universal about the human condition. Despite its sadness, the song helps the speaker to mount up the hill (30). In current psychology, the capacity to feel emotion and link it to goals makes life, indeed survival itself, possible. The speaker's "heart" (31), by bearing her music, can go on. For that reason, "The Solitary Reaper" relates an ecstatic moment in which a passer-by transcends the limitations of mortality. Both the song and he go on together

      (from Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803)

Like many of Wordsworth's best and most memorable poems, this is a sort of

snapshot, a poem that strives to recapture a single instance in time and

space (compare, for instance, 'Daffodils' and 'Composed Upon Westminster

Bridge'). Unsurprising, actually, since it reflects Wordsworth's own

philosophy of poetry; i.e, that a poem should be a 'spontaneous overflow of

powerful feelings, recollected in tranquility'.

The poem itself needs little explanation, but note the memorable quality of

phrases like 'stop here, or gently pass', or the wonderful imagery of

'breaking the silence of the seas'. Note also the slightly unusual rhyme

scheme, ababccdd, which along with the short fourth line gives the poem a

nice rhythmic effect.

Notes:

Coleridge, Wordsworth, and his sister had visited the Scottish Highlands

in 1803. In a note to early editions of the poem Wordsworth recorded his

indebtedness to a sentence in his friend Wilkinson's manuscript of his Tours

of the British Mountains: "Passed by a Female who was reaping alone; she

sang in Erse as she bended over her sickle, the sweetest human voice I ever

heard. Her strains were tenderly melancholy, and felt delicious long after

they were heard no more."

Summary and Analysis of "The Solitary Reaper"

In the first stanza the speaker comes across a beautiful girl working alone in the fields of Scotland (the Highland). She is "Reaping and singing by herself." He tells the reader not to interrupt her, and then mentions that the valley is full of song.

Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

The second stanza is a list of things that cannot equal the beauty of the girl's singing:

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

In the third stanza the reader learns that the speaker cannot understand the words being sung. He can only guess at what she might be singing about:

Will no one tell me what she sings?--

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

In the fourth and final stanza the speaker tells the reader that even though he did not know what she was singing about, the music stayed in his heart as he continued up the hill:

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And o'er the sickle bending;--

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

Analysis

"The Solitary Reaper" was written on November 5, 1805 and published in 1807. The poem is broken into four eight-line stanzas (32 lines total). Most of the poem is in iambic tetrameter. The rhyme scheme for the stanzas is either abcbddee or ababccdd. (In the first and last stanzas the first and third lines don't rhyme, while in the other two stanzas they do.)

This poem is unique in Wordsworth's oeuvre because while most of his work is based closely on his own experiences, "The Solitary Reaper" is based on the experience of someone else: Thomas Wilkinson, as described in his Tours to the British Mountains. The passage that inspired Wordsworth is the following: "Passed a female who was reaping alone: she sung in Erse [the Gaelic language of Scotland] as she bended over her sickle; the sweetest human voice I ever heard: her strains were tenderly melancholy, and felt delicious, long after they were heard no more" (as qtd. in The Norton Anthology English Literature).

Part of what makes this poem so intriguing is the fact that the speaker does not understand the words being sung by the beautiful young lady. In the third stanza, he is forced to imagine what she might be singing about. He supposes that she may be singing about history and things that happened long ago, or some sadness that has happened in her own time and will happen again.

As the speaker moves on, he carries the music of the young lady with him in his heart. This is a prevalent theme in much of Wordsworth's poetry. For instance, the same idea is used in "I wandered lonely as a cloud" when the speaker takes the memory of the field of daffodils with him to cheer him up on bad days.

The Solitary Reaper Analysis

The poem'The Solitary Reaper' was written by William Wordsworth in the Romantic Era. Most of William Wordsworth poems are filled with his passionate belief in the beuty and power of nature. He desribed nature not as something beautiful, but as an expression of the 'spirit' and the 'music of humanity'. The poem describes one of Wordsworth's early experiences in nature, that is a source of both joy and tranquility, as the lonely girl reaped corn in the Scottish field.

'The Solitary Reaper' is a description of a melodious sound that is heard in the atmosphere. Its mood can be described as one of relaxation,depression and gentleness. The structure is a four-eight line stanzas each ending with a couplet and composed of lines that are written in iambic tetrameter.

'A voice so thrilling was ne'er heard'
The above qoute describes how the sound of the girl's voice was accepted by all who heard. The sound of the reaper was pleasurable, and indeed welcoming. This qoute also shows how the voice could not be compare to any other that existed.

Wordwroth uses a few literary devices to express his description so the readerss could imagine themselves listening to the soothing voice of the Scottish reaper. These include hyperboles, the use of rhetorical questions and metaphors. The use of hyperboles is seen in this sentece 'Breaking the silence of the seas, among the farthest Hebrids.' It describes the voice of the reaper as one that is so loud, that it was heard miles away from where it originally began.

The use of metaphors were seen when the poet compares the voice of the reaper to other beautiful voices, such as those of a 'Cuckoo-bird in the spring-time' and the voice of a 'nightingale'. Rhetorical questions were seen used to show emphasis or to allow the poet to ask questions that gives ideas about what she is singing about, since he does not undesrtand the language. However they can feel the emotions by the tone...

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