The Solitary Reaper

A.     While reading the poem, note down what you are told about.

A1. The characters;

A2. The actions;

A3. The setting.

A1. The characters of the poem are the “Solitary reaper”, who is a girl, and the poet William Wordsworth.

A2. The girl is reaping and singing in Scottish dialect, but the poet, that is listening her, doesn't understand the meaning of it.

A3. In this poem there are two setting: one outside and one inside. The first is the field in which the girl is working in the Highlands. The second setting is in the poet’s mind, that through the imagination, he tries to understand what the girl sings.

B.     The second stanza contains two comparisons. They tell the reader about the quality of the reaper’s song.

In the second stanza: the poet uses some metaphors to express the beauty and the joy that this song gives to whom hears it comparing it to the song of a nightingale heard by travellers of the Arabic deserts in comfort in a shady haunt and to the song of the cuckoo for the sailors that travel for the seas.

C.    The third stanza discusses the possible subjects of the reaper’s song. Say what they are and if they have got anything in common.

In the third stanza: the poet, doubtful of the fact that someone will ever explain him the content of the song, he tries to analyze the causes of the pains for understanding the meaning of the song, so he supposes that song is about of ancient events as a battle, or of humble family problems or straight a natural sorrow as the death of someone close to the girl, that could happen again.

D.    Consider the language the poet uses. What is the tone of the poem?

Language has a great effect, in fact it makes the experience vivid so that one of the delights of the poem is his capacity to recall the episode so naturally that it is hard to see it merely as a “literary” creation, rather than the results of a real experience simply recounted. In fact for Wordsworth the act of imagination and the feelings inspired by that were as real as any other form human experience derived by daily life.