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“Making close reference to language imagery and verse form explore Wordsworth's

presentation of his relationship with the natural world in The Solitary Reaper bringing
out ways in which it relates to the handling of this topic in other poems in the selection.”

“The Solitary Reaper” is a poem about the observance of a scene on which the poet has
no effect. The poem is about what he sees and thinks about what is happening; his appreciation
of the natural world, and of the beauty and mystery of the song of “Yon solitary Highland
Lass”. Wordsworth's relationship with the natural world is purely observational throughout the
poem – the woman is part of the scene, and although Wordsworth takes time in the poem to
consider what her thoughts are as a person, she is effectively not a character in the poem, but a
part making up the poem just as anything else described in it.
The poem is written in a form which mirrors the woman's song. There is a similar
regular rhyme scheme in all stanzas, but the first and last are slightly different from the middle
stanzas. The final stanza also contains some two syllable rhyme, which is even more song-like,
and finishes the poem with a more positive feel. The strict structure of trimeters and and
tetrameters along with the rhyme scheme could be seen to emphasise the point Wordsworth is
making about the limitations of language. The woman's song is in Gaelic, and although in the
third stanza Wordsworth has written the line “Will no one tell me what she sings?” which is
followed by his suggestions of what the song might be about, the final stanza concludes with
“Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang / As if her song could have no ending: […] The music in
my heart I bore, / Long after it was heard no more.”, suggesting that without the limitations that
knowing the meaning of the words brings to the song, the song has far more meaning and is
even more beautiful.
This idea of memory, too, is prevalent throughout the collection of poems. Poems such
as this were written after the event, or often from someone else's account of the event.
Wordsworth is quoted to have said that poetry is “emotion recollected in tranquillity”; the
memory and description can capture an event and allow it to be understood more clearly than
the event itself.
“The Solitary Reaper” herself is a symbol of loneliness in the natural world. The birds in
the second stanza to which her voice is compared are solitary birds; a nightingale and a cuckoo.
However, her voice is described as causing “the Vale profound / [to be] overflowing with the

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sound.” - her voice fills not only the empty space, but the word “profound” can be seen as
describing both a vale profound in size, and profound emotion. The poem is in celebration and
wonder of this, as well as an expression of loneliness.
The previous poem in the collection, “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge”, has a
similar lonely mood to it; however, the list of all the things in the space being described greatly
contrasts with the “Vale profound” in “The Solitary Reaper”. The scene is cluttered and stuffy,
and with it being described with “This City now doth like a garment wear / The Beauty of the
morning: silent, bare” is seen as fake, and imitating this beauty in comparison to the natural
beauty of the following poem. The silence of the city is also a key feature – it does not have a
song as the woman gives the landscape.
Wordsworth's relationship with the natural world is portrayed throughout all of his
poems in various ways, and is a reoccurring main theme, as in “The Solitary Reaper”. The
comparisons in this poem to places of other times suggest the timelessness of the scene. It will
not, like the city will, change its “garment” - and yet the woman is harvesting, meaning the
poem is set in Autumn, which could represent change. Perhaps, though, this is more about the
melancholy emotions of the singer than of a transition. There is a positive conclusion to the
poem, but for the poet and reader; he leaves the woman behind, and so her song becomes
timeless – but once he has left, the scene inevitably is not.

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