The Solitary Reaper

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and one of his best-known works  in English literature.

'"The Solitary Reaper" is one of Wordsworth's most famous post-Lyrical Ballads lyrics. The words of the reaper's song are incomprehensible to the speaker, so his attention is free to focus on the tone, expressive beauty, and the blissful mood it creates in him. The poem functions to 'praise the beauty of music and its fluid expressive beauty, the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" that Wordsworth identified at the heart of poetry.'

Themes

The poem mainly discusses the theme of poetry. Songs are poetry too, and that is clear to Wordsworth. We can see that he sees the girl as a poet because of the preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798). In it, Wordsworth maintained that poetry should not rely on artificial diction for its effort. Rather, it should be written in more ordinary language and simpler form so that all classes might appreciate it. "The Solitary Reaper" exemplifies this belief.

However it is one of Wordsworth's most famous "solitaries". Wordsworth used solitary characters to show how to be one with nature (See 'Old Man Travelling', 'There Was A Boy' and 'Nutting'), and this solitary is no different. The girl is compared to nightingales and cuckoo birds in a positive light, as though she is one of them, which shows her natural side. The "vale profound/ Is overflowing with the sound", and this also shows that she and nature are sympathetic to each other.

Other themes touched on are those of loss- "some natural sorrow, loss or pain"- and imagination - the song takes Wordsworth to the corners of the world, from "Arabian sands" to the "farthest Hebrides". The lack of understanding means that he is able to ponder the meaning, also an example of imagination.

Explaination

In this poem the Wordsworth tells an imagenary story of a Highland girl who was singing in Gaelic, a Cetlic language still spoken in the Highlands of Scotland and the hebrides. That is why Wordsworth could only guess at the theme of her song.

Wordsworth, on one of his long solitary journeys, was enjoing the beauty of the voice of that girl and sharing the natural beauty.