The object of the present text is to provided a personal interpretation of William Wordswoth’s poem She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways.
It is not meant to give a definitive answer but I am going to try to make some possible conjectures about the poem message supported by textual reference.
To begin with, after have reading the title, the intelligent reader may ask himself some intelligent questions such as: Who is she? Why did the poet decide to talk about her? Why did she live in untrodden ways? How did the poet meet her? Why did the poem use the word Dwelt instead of live?
However by this title the reader may aspects the poem to be about this lady that lived in this untrodden districts which not everybody knows about and the reader may aspects the poet to explain why of what brought him to write a text about this particularly girl.
Considering the lay-out you can see that the poem in divided in three stanzas of four lines each (even called quatrains) and every letter of every line is capitalise. Talking about the rhyme line, the poet used an alternate rhyme following the scheme A-B-A and the rhythm of the poem is very slow and soft. For underline the slowness of the poem the poet used words that need to be pronunciate slowly and with extending vocals. This slow sound is incremented by the punctuation which is not stable but reduce the speed of the reading. It depicts the distance between this lady and the poet and to highlight it, in the second line he quoted the “Dove” which is a river of England for made real this situation of gap.
The poet wants to underscore that this lady, whom he specified who she is yet, as she lives far away from the ordinary reality of the town, there is no-one who really cares about her and she has none who blandishments her and few who loves her.
Mainly in the first stanza the poet made a presentation of the lady called her “Maid” which was how the lady were called man-years ago; instead in the second one he started describing her as a “a violet by a mossy stone” which typify her because she is “hidden” in a no man’s land such as a violet is unapparent because it’s concealed by a stone so as the lady, if it dies nobody will notice it. Also in this stanza you can see such a contradiction because in the first two lines W. Wordsworth describe the lady’s way of been imperceptible and on one hand she seems shy and faint but on the other hand he described all of her magnificent and value by compare her to a star “when only one is shining in the sky” so as even there are other more stars for him there is only her. With this two lines is noticeable the importance of this woman to the poet that is the only one who was able to see beyond the appearance and discovered the beauty of this alone person. In this poem is visually describing all of the feeling of love and respect of the poet towards Lucy and this is why he decided to dedicate her a text. When the poet called the maid with her name, it reenforced her humanity and physicality such as when he first pronounced her name, Lucy, she started bringing light to his life as starts do when they illuminate the dark sky during the night.
By the words of William you can feel all of his sadness and suffering such as he wanted a girl that he could not have probably because of the distance. Even if nobody knew her, she made the difference to him, unexpectedly and with no intention she made him felled in love with.
Furthermore by describing Lucy in the way the poet did, she seems elegant, humble and pure such as a diamond set in a rock that will be discovered only by those who believe that there is something more beyond the appearance.
Last but not least by the analysis of this poem you can understand why the poet decided to use the term “Dwelt” instead of “Lives” because it implies a sense of something that finally changed indeed she died.
Summing up, in this poem the poet has been able to describe every aspects of Lucy who made understand us she represents his only light such has the comet for the three wise men. He let us know that even if she was strange or ever to others eyes, instead she was precious and uncommon to him so this is why he loves her in this deeply way.