TEXTUAL ANALYSIS – “She dwelt among the untrodden ways”

“She dwelt among the untrodden ways” is a poem written by William Wordsworth in 1798. It belongs to the “Lucy series”, a number of works dedicated to the poet’s love.

Reading the title it’s possible to understand the subject of this poem by the personal pronoun “she”, underlined by the position on the first line. The reader also knows that the girl lived in an unknown place, and his expectation is to know more about this girl.

The layout is composed of three stanzas of four lines, and the reader can understand that in this stanzas the first person narrator has organized the girl’s description.

Effectively, reading the poem one time, it’s possible to understand that the layout’s simplicity’s aim is to emphasizes the girl’s description. The reader’s expectations are confirmed: this girl lives in an unknown place, far away from everyone, and only the first person narrator can understand his beauty, when she dies. The story happens in a not-defined time, and it is divided in two parts.

The first part is composed by the first two stanzas, and its objective is to underline the girl’s beauty as long as she lives. The reader doesn’t know the girl, but the personal pronoun “she” and the word “maid” reveal gradually the poem’s subject and creates a suspense. The not-defined place and time have the function to create a fantastic atmosphere, which underlines the girl’s qualities, but which is the sign of the personal vision of the first person narrator, or of his imagination. In the first stanzas the first person narrator persists moreover on the girl’s solitude, by the chiasm of alliterative sounds in the third line “whom there were none”. In the second stanza there are two figures of speech that the first person narrator uses to underline the girl’s beauty: the metaphor at line five and the simile at line seven. In the metaphor the girl is compared with a violet hidden by a mossy stone. Its significant is that the girl is a very sweet and modest person. IN the simile the girl is compared with a single star that shines in the night, so it underlines her beauty. The alliteration of the sound “s” in this figures of speech underlines the first person narrator’s affection to the girl, and understanding this images the reader realize that it isn’t important who the girl is but the first person narrator’s feelings about her. Moreover, the alliterative sound “h” and “o” underlines the personal viewpoint of the only one that notice the girl.

The second part is composed by the last stanza and its aim is to give a message to the reader. The first person narrator tells of the girl’s dead. He underlines one more time her solitude with the alliteration on line nine “she lived unknown, and few could know”. The cornerstone of this part is the first person narrator desperation: the onomatopoeic sound “oh” and the last line connote his said condition. The revelation of the girl’s name, Lucy, is now not necessary, and the reader feels said and strange, because also if he knows the name of the girl by now is late.

The two parts are joined by the rhyme scheme (ABAB), that also simplifies the read, and by the same sweet sounds (“s”, “o”, “w”, “m”, “n”) that causes the same rhythm in all the poem, highlighting the girl’s life’s monotony, not-broken by the first person narrator that now despairs himself.

In conclusion, the message that the poet seems to give to the reader is that it doesn’t let it pass the time without acting, also if what you want to do is far away from the common think, because when you decided to act it would be too last (as underlines also the past simple).