William Wordsworth’s famous lyrical ballad “The Solitary Reaper” tells a story from Wordsworth’s wanderings through the Scottish Highlands (Poetryfoundation.org). As Wordsworth and his companions wander the countryside, they come across a young Scottish maiden singing to herself in a field as she cuts the grain that she sowed earlier in the season. Wordsworth seems transfixed by the beauty of her song, and he stops to listen to her sing in the field; although the initial reaction of the speaker is to the beauty of the voice and song of the young woman, the speaker—ostensibly Wordsworth himself, although this is not made explicitly clear—becomes enraptured with the beauty of nature and the way that nature seems to reflect the song that the young woman is singing (Poetryfoundation.org). Wordsworth uses form and romantic diction to reflect a look at nature through the lens of human song.
Wordsworth’s famous poem “The Solitary Reaper” is written in iambic tetrameter (Poetryfoundation.org). The poem uses four stressed syllables and four unstressed syllables in every line; this does more than just give the poem form. It reflects the music of the maiden in the field; every word she sings has a rhythm and a beat, and Wordsworth is consciously reflecting the song of the maiden in his syllable organization. Wordsworth’s speaker is enticed by the melody and the cadence of the song, but the speaker does not seem to understand the words; he even asks about “what she sings” throughout the third verse (Wordsworth). There is no clear indication about what the maiden is singing, but there is still a sense of connection between the speaker and the singer; she does not know he is there, but his unconscious reflection of her song is enough to show the reader of the poem the beauty of it.
There is a wistful longing that is clearly present in the text of the poem, which the speaker is feeling for the maiden. He does not comment on her beauty, but rather the beauty of her song: the beauty of her song seems to reflect the beauty of nature for the poet as well. The third stanza of the poem reads: “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.” (Wordsworth). The maiden is compared to a little bird, both a nightingale and a cuckoo-bird; these were considered birds whose songs were quite lovely and had an almost ethereal quality. However, Wordsworth’s speaker never talks about the nature of the young woman’s voice as a human being; he is connecting and comparing her voice to the most beautiful voices of nature.
One of the most important aspects of the girl’s connection with nature is the fact that she is alone. Wordsworth repeatedly reminds the reader of the girl’s isolation; he tells the reader that she is “alone,” but also “solitary”—it seems as though Wordsworth’s speaker is concerned that any interaction with the girl would further humanize her and interrupt her communion with nature in some way (Wordsworth). The idea of being solitary in nature is a driving theme throughout much of Wordsworth’s poetry; indeed, in some of his most famous poetry, there are no human beings present except the speaker himself. As the girl sings, her voice fills the valley; it is a powerful image in both a visual and audio-spatial sense, because the reader can not only see the girl and her actions, but can also imagine that he or she can hear the girl as well (Poetryfoundation.org).
One thing that the listener seems to struggle with is the nature of the song itself. In the third stanza, the speaker wonders about the song; he wonders what the singer is singing about, and hypothesizes that whatever she is singing about is sad and heartbreaking (Wordsworth). However, it does not seem to matter that the speaker is unable to understand the nature of the woman’s song; he is able to enjoy it and to delve into the experience of listening to the woman sing.
The isolation and solitary nature of the reaper is very important to the overall nature of the poem. Indeed, her solitary nature is even in the title—it is assumed, therefore, that she will be the focus of the poem itself. However, she becomes more than just the central focus for the poem—she becomes the driving force for the communion with nature that the speaker experiences. The rhyme scheme or meter even reflects this: the poem rhymes in the pattern of ABABCCDD, but when the speaker talks about the maiden he drops the rhyme in the first and last stanza, settling instead for a pseudo-rhyme. This reflects how strange and unique the maiden is in the natural setting, but also how she fits into the field and the valley.
The woman is, arguably, an artist; she is creating music that has caused everyone who walks by to stop and listen to, and she is filling the valley with this music. Wordsworth’s protagonists were often artists, and this woman is no exception: she is filling the Scottish highlands with the sounds of her music in such a way that the speaker has to stop and listen.
The Poetry Foundation suggests that one of the common, driving themes in Wordsworth’s poetry is the idea that peasants and common folk can be vehicles for beauty in natural settings (Poetryfoundation.org). In this particular piece, the girl is the vehicle for beauty: she is creating something that vibrates with life and impacts everyone who is around to hear it—and she does it completely alone (Wordsworth). She is, in many ways, a part of nature; it is as though Wordsworth’s speaker has indeed stopped to observe a nightingale or cuckoo singing and has been able to appreciate their song. He understands no more of the girl’s song than he would the nightingale, but his lack of understanding does not detract from the beauty of the moment; instead, it adds to it, because he is able to appreciate the way the music interacts with the natural world.
Romantic poets were not considered “romantic” because they commonly wrote about love or interpersonal connections; they were considered romantic because of the ways that they considered nature and the interactions between human beings. “The Solitary Reaper” is a perfect example of this type of humanistic romanticism, and it is an excellent example of the kind of work that Wordsworth became known for as he established himself as an expert with literary ballads (Poetryfoundation.org).
The romantic poets looked within to understand the nature of the world, and they appreciated the beauty in small acts of creation—in the song of a nightingale, for instance, or the voice of a young woman reaping grain. The human connection for these romantics is driven by the ability of human beings to commune with and appreciate the beauty of the natural world.
Works cited
Wordsworth, William. 'The Solitary Reaper By William Wordsworth : The Poetry Foundation '. N. p., 2015. Web. 21 July 2015.
Poetryfoundation.org,. 'The Solitary Reaper By William Wordsworth : The Poetry Foundation '. N. p., 2015. Web. 21 July 2015.
