solitary reaper
William Wordsworth
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
Explanation:
First stanza:
The girl is singing alone while she is cutting and binding the grain. Her
song is out-of-place in the valley, however separated from the
traditions of fine verse by her class, occupation, and location.
Her song, like a found poem, springs directly from nature, without
literary context. Her "music" runs like the water in the valley.
Metaphor: the valley profound: He means that her music smoothly runs
like the water in the valley.
Visual image: the image of the girl cutting and binding the grain. Also,
the image of the mountains and the valley.
Auditory Image: the sound of the girl singing, and the sound of the
water in the valley.
Second stanza:
Her song surpasses the beauty of two celebrated English song-birds, the
nightingale and the cuckoo. Reaping takes place at harvest time, in
the autumn, not in the spring or summer, which are associated with the
cuckoo and the nightingale. He wants to say that: From last spring till
this Autumn, no good voice like the girl's is heard. Her only voice can
break the silence of the Hebrides islands and the Arabian sands.
Auditory images: the voice of the two-birds, the nightingale and the
cuckoo. And the voice of the girl which breaks the silence of the
nature.
Visual images: the image of the Highland Islands and the Sand Desert.
Personification: The voice can't break anything else, so it is given a
human quality.
Symbols: 1- In Classical myth, the female nightingale is that to which
Philomela, tragically raped by her sister's husband, metamorphoses on
carrying out her revenge.
2- Cuckoo bird: a symbol that refers to renewal.
Third stanza:
The reaper, or the single "Maiden", hardly fits the myth of married
Philomela, rape victim and tragic revenger, even though the reaper
sings in a melancholic, sad way with natural sorrow. The strange
language in which the girl chants also removes her from any poetic
tradition known to the speaker. He understands only her "sound,"
"voice," and "music," but he doesn't know if she talks about an old
battle or about Philomela.
Auditory Image: the sound of the girl's song which is sad and full of
sorrow.
Fourth stanza:
So what transfixes him in her song is not its content, but its emotional
music. The listener does not understand why she sings in melancholy,
only what the emotion itself is. This feeling "could have no ending".
Despite its sadness, the song helps the speaker to mount up the hill. In
current psychology, the capacity to feel emotion and link it to goals
makes life, indeed survival itself, possible. The speaker's "heart", by
bearing her music, can go on.
Visual Images: 1- the image of the girl swings the sickle. 2- the image of
the listener on his horse walking up the mountain.
Auditory image: The sound of the girl's song which hangs in the
listener's heart for a long time and helps him to go on.
Alliteration:
5- alone – and
9- No Nightingale
10- welcome – weary
12- Among Arabian
15- silence – seas
17- will – what
18- plaintive – perhaps
19- for – far
23- some – sorrow
24- be – been / again – and
25- the theme, the
26- her – have
27- saw – singing/
repetition:
27- her / her
Apostrophe:
7- O listen
Poet's Style:
The poem contains a natural description of human passions, human
characters, and human incidents. It isn't judged by the presence of
artificial, poetic diction. Rather, "the language of conversation in the
middle and lower classes of society
Theme: 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.
Rhyme: It is consisted of Four eight-line stanzas, each closing with two
couplets and all written in octosyllabic lines. It is rhymed as the following:
abcbddee/
William Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper" is one of the most
loved ballads in the corpus of English Literature. The poem "The
Solitary Reaper " was first published in Poems, in Two Volumes in
1807.The poem was written after the publication of his Lyrical
Ballads and is in iambic tetrameter. The poem bears testimony to
his theory how poetry ought to focus on the mundane and the
commonplace. His subject here is a Scottish Highland lass who
sings while reaping. Dorothy Wordsworth tells us in her diary how
solitary reapers were a common phenomenon in the Scottish
scenario. Wordsworth expresses his gratitude to Thomas
Wilkinson for his manuscript that pertains to a tour of Scotland.
The reaper is defined by her cutting and binding. She is described
with the adjective 'solitary'. Nevertheless, it is this solitariness that
sets her apart. Wordsworth often dealt with solitary characters to
exemplify that they were the sole companions of Nature and were
in total communion with the same. Her tremulous voice haunts the
distances. The valley seems to be significant, primarily for this
enchanting music that envelops it. The poet implores to: stop here
or gently pass. He requests to stop to listen to the song; or gently
pass so as to not disturb the smooth flow of the song.
The metaphor of the Nightingale at once points to her commonness
and exclusiveness. It also underlines the power and purity of the
voice of the lass that rouses the poet from his reverie. Like some
soothing balm to weary travelers, they act as shade to wanderers
overcome with fatigue traversing the deserts. The voice was
hitherto the most thrilling one he had heard. The voice of the
cuckoo-bird in the spring-time, pales in comparison. Its pervading
presence breaks the silence of the seas among the farthest of the
Hebrides. 'Hebrides' refers to the North-Western coast of Scotland
where reeds are abundant. "Will no one tell me what she sings?"makes obvious that the poet catches only the tone of the melody,
but not the lyrics. The poet catches the plaintive emotion the song
encompasses and speculates whether the song is in quest of
something long-lost, is out of nostalgia or grieves for heroes (of
battles) unsung. Or does it pertain to any domestic problem that is
a daily routine and may occur yet again: "Some natural sorrow, loss
or pain." The poet's here musings echo Keats' speculations
regarding the stories behind the engravings on the Grecian
Urn. Whatever the song dealt with, the maiden sang as though
there was no end to it. The beauty of the song lay in its melody,
and its haunting quality that continued to enchant the poet long
after he was out of earshot. The theme of the poem bears testimony
to the power of poetry that if true to the aesthetic feel, endows the
reader with an experience to retain, long after the poem is read.
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).
Wordsworth uses several poetic devices in “The Solitary Reaper.”
Among them is apostrophe, which is defined as a figure of speech
where the speaker of the poem addresses a dead or absent person,
an abstraction, or an inanimate object. At the beginning of the poem
the speaker invites the reader to “Behold, her single in the field/Yon
solitary Highland Lass!” He further cautions the reader to “Stop here, or
gently pass!” Although the reader is not present, the speaker’s
imperative to “behold” the girl at her work puts the reader vicariously in
the company of the speaker, as if they were walking the Highlands
together. After the first four lines, the speaker shifts his attention away
from the implied presence of the reader and does not allude to it
again.
Metaphor, another common poetic device, is also found in “The
Solitary Reaper.” The poet uses metaphor to compare two images
without explicitly stating the comparison. For example, in the second
stanza the speaker compares the song of the reaper to those of the
nightingale and cuckoo. Although the three songs are fundamentally
different from one another, they become metaphors for
transcendence as they suggest to the speaker distant times and
places. Because the maiden’s song is in a language unknown to the
speaker, he is freed from trying to understand the words and is able to
give his imagination full rein. The bird-songs and the girl’s song are thus
intertwined, a further link of the maiden to nature.
Suggestion through imagery is also used in connection with the reaper
herself. The poet offers little description of her beyond the bare
essentials given in stanzas 1 and 4. All the reader knows is that the
reaper is a simple peasant girl singing a rather sad song while
harvesting grain in a field. However, the speaker’s imaginative
associations make her much more. He connects her with shady haunts
of Arabian sands, the cuckoo and the nightingale, the seas beyond
the Hebrides, epic battles, and the common human experiences of
sorrow and pain. From his perspective, she becomes the center of the
universe, if only for a moment. Like her song, she dwarfs time and
space, to become a metaphor for the eternal.
Music is also a dominant image in the poem. It is reinforced by the
ballad form whose tones, rhythms, and rhymes emphasize the lyrical
feeling. The musical image is further underscored by the use of
alliteration. The repetition of s sounds, which are threaded throughout
the poem, lends a tonal unity to the piece. For example, in the first four
lines of the first stanza, fourteen words contain s. This pattern is
repeated in the other stanzas but decreases toward the end of the
poem as the reaper’s song releases its grip on the consciousness of the
speaker.
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” is about the power of the imagination to transform
common, everyday events into representations of a larger reality. To the
Romantic poets, imagination was not a synonym for fantasy. Instead
they saw it as closely allied with intuition and emotion. This faculty
enabled the poet to see familiar things in a radically different way.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a Romantic poet himself and a friend of
Wordsworth, noted that “the grandest efforts of poetry are when the
imagination is called forth, not to produce a distinct form, but a strong
working of the mind the result being what the poet wishes to impress,
namely, the substitution of a sublime feeling of the unimaginable for a
mere image.” The aim of the Romantics was to express an abstract idea
using concrete images that were usually drawn from nature.
The poem is an example of the commonplace pointing the sensitive
observer toward an ideal of unity or completeness of being. Although
the reaper is a flesh-and-blood person, she becomes a spiritual gateway
for the speaker of the poem. The natural environment that surrounds her
only heightens her mystery. Her simple song is an expression of her own
heritage and background, yet the speaker imagines it to be an
articulation of the eternal, the boundless, the ultimate reality. This intuitive
impression of the infinite leaves the speaker a different person than when
he first encountered the girl. The wonder of her song permeates his
intellect and lingers in his heart long after he hears the last notes.
Wordsworth’s conviction that the infinite can be encountered in the
finite emerges from his own personal experience. Frequently when he
walked alone in nature, he detected a pervading presence, a
consciousness that would break into the ordinary moments of his life and
turn them into flashes of revelation. In addition to “The Solitary Reaper,”
Wordsworth’s The Prelude and “Lines: Composed a Few Miles Above
Tinturn Abbey” offer examples of poems that reflect intense instances of
mystical insight as well as the sometimes uneasy, sometimes joyous
response the poet had toward these visionary experiences. In “The
Solitary Reaper” Wordsworth celebrates such illuminating moments. The
girl, her song, and her natural surroundings combine in a unified whole
and contribute to the speaker’s expanded vision of reality.
For modern readers, whose lives overflow with activity, the theme of
encountering the transcendent in nature or through everyday events
may at first seem strange. Since many people have little chance to walk
in the woods or stroll through farmland, readers might be tempted to
dismiss Wordsworth’s poem because the setting and situation do not
reflect their own experiences. Although the values, concerns, and
lifestyle of Wordsworth’s time were different, the yearning of the human
spirit to feel connected to something larger than itself remains as strong
today as it was during the nineteenth century. Modern people long for
a quiet place to recollect themselves, a place where they can catch a
glimpse of the eternal in the details of their lives. Thus the theme of
transcendence in “The Solitary Reaper” is timeless, as it speaks to the
needs of the human spirit.
Quote #1
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain; (5-6)
The woman’s song is very close to nature. The rhyme on “strain” and
“grain” tells us that for sure. “Grain” (a plant) goes with “strain” (a
song). Lots of poets have said that art and nature are opposed to one
another, but here they are totally vibing.
Quote #2
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound. (7-8)
The “Vale” can’t get enough of the woman’s song. It is literally
overflowing with the sound of it, as if the natural world were also an
ecstatic spectator.
Quote #3
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands: (9-12)
The natural world is full of singers, like the nightingale described here.
While the reaper is very close to nature (she lives and works in the
fields), she’s not quite a part of it. Her song is way different from the
bird’s song.
Quote #4
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. (13-16)
As in lines 9-12, despite the solitary reaper’s special relationship to
nature, she’s still not quite one with it. Her song is different than the
cuckoo-bird’s song, way out there near the Hebrides. The implication is
that you could travel “way out there” (to the Hebrides) and still not find
a natural counterpart.
Quote #5
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending;— (27-28)
She’s singing, and she’s bending over her sickle. Like we saw in lines 5-6,
art and nature are very close here. It’s like she can’t sing if she’s not
engaged with the natural world.
Remember
Analysing a poem implies that you:
•
look up words you do not know
•
identify the form of the poem (sonnet, free verse, lyric, etc.)
•
mark the rhyme scheme
•
mark the metrical pattern(s) within the poem
•
identify the theme and topic of the poem
•
identify and analyse visual and auditory images
•
reflect on the poet’s choice of words, images etc.