She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways

The present text is going to try to prove the sentence we always hear about the fact we realise someone is important only after we have lost it.

I am going to do it through the analysis of the poem She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways by William Wordsworth, dated 1798.

I have to say that the text is only a personal interpretation, consequently it does not pretend to be a definitive version, it will be just a sequence of hypothesis moved to support the thesis.

After reading the titile, the first answer popping into eveyone’s mind is : who is that woman and why the poet wrote the poem for her? Then, when we just read the lines, we understand the maid named Lucy was very important for the poet, almost a necessity; the intelligent reader will clearly notice that at the last line,when he affirms that his life is different without Lucy.

Moreover he reinforces the sentence with the add of a similis, which explains perfectly his feelings: Lucy was his star, she enlightened his path and now that she is gone he feels lost.

That is extremely romatic, like the following metaphore which shields in a single word all the beloved girl’s qualities: violet , a flower which lives hidden ( like Lucy), tiny, scented, modest and humble. Seeing the word by its symbolic meaning it means that the poet is thinking to Lucy and he wants her to do the same, from up above. With this similis Wordswoth succeeds in describing her beauty combined with her personality; even the word “ fair” helps to reach this aim: it underlines her honesty and devotion.

The distance between the maid and the poet is created by the accurate word selection, an example “dwelt”, “ways”, “among”, which force the reader to pronunce long vowels and as a result it is obtained an eco effect.

Furthermore distance is also created by the alternative rhyme that makes a slow rhytm and… last but not least the “Oh” seems like a cry and it makes the

reader feel nostalgia.

In conclusion the poem talks about love and it celebrates the beloved person after she is ceased to be, so that suggests the poet misses her so much and thinks his life has fallen in darkness without his only light, but he understood too late her importance.