A Stylistic Analysis of William Wordsworth's Poem

"The Solitary Reaper"

Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary highland lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

 

No nightingale did ever chant

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling never was heard

In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

 

Will no one tell me what she sings?

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago;

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of today?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

 

Whatever the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at work,

And o'er the sickle bending——

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

Introduction

William Wordsworth has been renowned as a Lake Poet together with S.T. Coleridge and Robert Southey. His masterpiece Lyrical Ballads as a collaboration with Coleridge was remarkable for the bloom of the Romanticism in England. In the preface of the second edition Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth discussed what he viewed as the elements of a new type of poetry based on the verity of language, a plain style, and a revolt against the "gaudiness" of the 18th-century poetic diction. Meanwhile he held the opinion that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility：the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and dose itself actually exist in the mind.

 

Analysis

Wordsworth's poem "The Solitary Reaper" is a typical embodiment of his early masterpieces, from which it contains his poetic views in the depiction of the idyllic life in the countryside. Though plain and simple words the poem are, the profound artistic conception and music beauty the poem conveys. This thesis shall state how dose this poem achieve its aesthetic from stylistic analysis.

 

1.      At the Phonological Level

Meter

In the poem, Wordsworth generally adopted the traditional ballad form in every stanza of first four lines. In every stanza, from the first line to third line, five line to eight line, these lines are iambic tetrameter, four stresses contained. The fourth and eighth line in every stanza is iambic trimester, 3 stresses contained.

V-V-V-V-

V-V-V-V-

V-V-V-V-

V-V-V-

V-V-V-V-

V-V-V-V-

V-V-V-V-

V-V-V-

As a master of lyrical poet, Wordsworth combined the traditional ballads and couplet together as his own lyrics style, which the meter can be described as 4443,4443.

Rhyme

Wordsworth was good at rhyme selection, as can be seen in this poem tradition ballad rhyme and couplet combined. The foot rhyme of the this poem can described as abcbddee.—-field,lass,herself,pass,grain,strain,profound,sound.This kind of rhyme scheme is somewhat similar to Spenserian Stanza (ababbcbcc),oblivious of its numbers on lines. However both are sound the beauty in music.

 

2.At the Graphological Level

Capitalization

In this poem, Wordsworth put emphasis on the adjective words. Among the emotional adjectives, the word "solitary" is conspicuous on the part of understand the theme. Besides other words such as "single”, “by herself”, “motionless”, “still”, these words are all centered on the description of solitary. These words are Wordsworth's regular selection in poems to highlight his preference to loneliness.

However some words of this poem are archaic, such as Behold(see),Yon(you),o’er(over).Some critics hold the opinion that this poem was written for Wordsworth himself, that is why some archaic words appeared in this poem.To some extent, the soliloquy style of this poem made it credible for the readers.

Punctuation

The punctuation of this poem is as what Wordsworth advocated in his words selection that words should be plain but contemplative. In the poem Wordsworth used some exclamatory marks to how his emotion process when he saw the singing solitary.

"stop here , or gently pass!",with the exclamatory mark the poet tried to call on the readers to lose themselves in the the reaper's songs.

 

3.At the Semantic level

The Tense of this poem

     Though this poem was written long after the poet heard the song, the tense he chose was primary tense，which enables the readers can enjoy what he experienced personally on the scene. The readers may not find the time of this story until the last stanza. The arrangement of the tense is deliberate and shorten the distance between the reader and the real scene.

Antithesis

In the second stanza of this poem, the distance of the scene becomes far more distant by imagination on songs breaking the silence of the seas among the farthest Hebrides. By the contrast to the nightingale, the poem gives prominence to the reaper's song.

Meanwhile the time of this poem is changed by the poet's imagination. The poet shows us the time: the past--- the scene of the singing reaper, the present---the scene the poet climbed the mountain, the future---the songs disappeared but it haunted in the poet's heart. From the antithesis, the poem intrigues the reader to image their own fate---past, present, future, which achieve the poetic function---to enable readers to have meditation on life.

Repetition

     Repetition is the simple repeating of a word, within a sentence or a poetical line, with no particular placement of the words, in order to emphasize. This is such a common literary device that it is almost never even noted as a figure of speech. It also has connotations to listing for effect and is used commonly by famous poets such as Larkin.

     In this poem, it mainly appeared the synonym repetition and paronym repetition.

     The word "solitary" in the headline set a lonely and melancholy key for the whole poem. Correspondingly, in the first stanza synonym repetition as like "single”, “solitary"， "by herself"，"alone，all highlight the images of the reaper. Then words like "strain"，"sound"，"notes"，"voice"，"numbers"，"lay"，"song"，"music" sticking out the pleasing songs that the reaper sang.

 

Conclusion

This poem was collected in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, which some of his preference was illustrated in this poem---sentimentalism and loneliness. Wordworth with

 his skillful pen achieved the beauty in sense, sound, and form in this poem.

 

Reference

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5吴翔林：《英诗格律及自由诗》[M]。北京：商务印书馆，1993