William Wordsworth (17701850), British poet, credited
with ushering in the English
Romantic Movement with the
publication of Lyrical
Ballads(1798) in
collaboration with Samuel
Taylor Coleridge.
William Wordsworth was born on 7 April
1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in the
Lake District. His father was John
Wordsworth, Sir James Lowther's attorney.
The magnificent landscape deeply affected
Wordsworth's imagination and gave him a
love of nature. He lost his mother when he
was eight and five years later his father. The
domestic problems separated Wordsworth
from his beloved and neurotic sister
Dorothy, who was a very important person in his life.
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
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William
The Solitary Reaper is a poem by
Wordsworth in which the poet recounts his tale of
meeting with a girl, reaping in the fields alone.
In this poem, the poet William Wordsworth describes
and exemplifies a once in a lifetime kind of memory that
is meant to be taken out of the vaults of memory and
savoured forever.
The poet sees a 'highland lass' (a
girl who lives in highland) reaping
the crop and singing while she does
so. She is all alone in the field and
is cutting and binding the grains
accompanied by her melancholy
and gloomy song. The maiden's
song is so euphonious and
overwhelming that it is overflowing
the valley.
The poet compares the song of the girl with
a song of a nightingale, soothing his
sorrows and easing his weariness just in the
same way as the nightingale welcomes the
weary travelers in the shady oasis in the
Arabian sands. It is also compared to the
song of a cuckoo bird, which is harbinger of
summer and bringer of happiness. The song
of the maiden is as thrilling and persuasive
as the song of the cuckoo bird which is
effective enough to break the silence of the
seas.
The poet cannot understand the
dialect of the song, so, he is unable
to comprehend its meaning, but is
able to gauge from its sad tone that
it probably relates to some unhappy
memory or some battles fought long
ago. The poet also feels that the
song may be about the
commonplace and unanimous
things like sorrow, loss or pain.
The poet felt that the girl's song had no
end and would endure forever. The
poet saw the girl singing as the sickle
bent over. The song was so
mesmerizing and spellbinding that it
held the poet motionless and still. As
the poet monted over the hill, the song
could not be heard but it left an
indelible impression on the poet's heart.
For the poet, it always remained to be a
fresh and evocative memory.
Wordsworth's preface to the 'lyrical
ballads' argues that poetry contains a
natural delineation of human passions,
human characters, and human
incidents and that 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
•Who is the solitary reaper?
•What is she doing?
•What is the theme of her song?
•The song of the girl is compared to---•What are the possibilities about the theme of the song?