The solitary reaper

EXERCISE 1.

• 1) The character of the text is a solitary reaper, whose action is described by the speaking voice.
• 2) The girl is working: she is reaping, cutting and binding the grain. She is also singing. Instead the speaking voice is beholding her and listening her song, while he is walking.
• 3) The setting described by the speaking voice is a field.

EXERCICE 2.

• 1) In the second stanza the reaper's song is compared to a "nightingale" and to a "cuckoo-bird"
• 2) They have in commons "welcome notes" and a "voice so thrilling".
• 3) They suggest a suave, natural, uncontaminated place, like the Highlands.   

EXERCISE 3.

The possible subjects of the reaper song are: "melancholy", "battles long ago", "familiar matter", "natural sorrow", "loss" and "pain". Each theme is about dramatic aspects of life.

EXERCISE 4.

The language of the poem is about melancholy, solitude, despair, pain ( silence, plaintive, unhappy, far-off, sorrow, loss, pain, solitary, single, motionless, melancholy, shady).