Write A Critical Summary Of The Poem "The Solitary Reaper" By Wordsworth.

"The Solitary Reaper" is a delightful lyric by William Wordsworth. Wordsworth is known as a great lover and preacher of nature. He impresses us by the imaginative and philosophical quality of his thoughts.

This poem is a result of his visit to Scotland where he came across a lovely maiden in the fields all alone. Her lovely person and her sweet song had a deep impression on the poet and moved him to compose these verses. The lovely singer appeared to be a part of that beautiful scene of nature.

A highland girl was reaping grain in the field and singing a song at the same time. The poet did not understand the contents of the song as it was in a foreign language. He guessed that it was the tale of old and tragic events of the past. It could also be an account of some recent calamity or mishap. Whatever the theme of the song, it was sung in a beautiful, rich voice. The song seemed to be endless. The poet was bewitched by the thrilling notes of the lonely reaper. The whole valley was ringing with her silvery sound. Even the spring bird Cuckoo could not produce such a magical effect as the maiden's song cost on the poet.
The poet stood still and listened to that golden voice for some time. After words, when he was climbing the hill he could not hear that song any longer. But he was still feeling the sweet vibrations of that music in his heart. The sweet memory of that song had become a permanent source of joy.

This is one of William Wordsworth's best known poems. It contains a number of his typical themes such as the beauty and greatness that can be found in everyday life and ordinary people. It also emphasises the importance of nature and natural surroundings; and like many of his other poems it is full of sympathy for poorer people, especially the agricultural poor who suffered badly from social changes during Wordsworth's lifetime.

The speaker of the poem at once feels very close to the girl he sees working in the fields, and yet is distanced from her because, as a Gaelic speaker, she is singing in a language he doesn't understand. This means that he can feel close to her only through the music itself, which to him is evocative of olden times, making him think of the history of the Highlanders and their past tragedies - wars and other 'unhappy' things.

Like his most famous poem 'Daffodils' the poem celebrates the way a memory of something beautiful - flowers or music - will create a lasting joy, staying in the mind long after the image or sound is gone. Like 'Daffodils', 'The Solitary Reaper' also has nature at its heart; the girl is perfectly a part of her surroundings, a feature of the landscape. She is compared to a singing bird, rather like the Nightingale in Keats's equally famous poem about the eternal power of melody.

Some critics have felt that Wordsworth, like other Romantic poets, was a bit patronising towards the characters he portrayed, seeing them as 'quaint' and not understanding the real hardship and lack of 'beauty' in their lives. There may be some truth in this - certainly his description of the 'highland lass' gives no idea of the hard physical work she is doing or the hard life she probably leads - but the poem is intended as a reflection on the power of beauty to stir the emotions and unlike many of his other works, is not intended as social comment.

For a good overview of this poem and of Wordsworth and similar writers,Sparknotes is a good place to start.

Here is my analysis of the poem The Solitary Reaper:

"The Solitary Reaper" was written on November 5, 1805 and published in 1807. The poem is broken into four eight-line stanzas which is 32 lines total. Most of the poem is in iambic tetrameter. The rhyme scheme for the stanzas is either abcbddee or ababccdd. This poem is unique in Wordsworth's oeuvre because while most of his work is based closely on his own experiences, "The Solitary Reaper" is based on the experience of someone else: Thomas Wilkinson, as described in his Tours to the British Mountains. Part of what makes this poem so intriguing is the fact that the speaker does not understand the words being sung by the beautiful young lady. In the third stanza, he is forced to imagine what she might be singing about. He supposes that she may be singing about history and things that happened long ago, or some sadness that has happened in her own time and will happen again.
As the speaker moves on, he carries the music of the young lady with him in his heart. This is a prevalent theme in much of Wordsworth's poetry. For instance, the same idea is used in "I wandered lonely as a cloud" when the speaker takes the memory of the field of daffodils with him to cheer him up on bad days.

William Wordsworth is an English romantic poet and this story is one of his best works!

"nature never did beat                                                                                                the heart that love here."

William wordsworth!
"Some Natural sorrow, loss or pain
that has been and may be again."
That has been one of my best poems, actually you have to understand that not every thing has a message, the poem is a way to express feelings poet was going by a Scottish countryside then he heard a woman(the reaper) sing a sad song, although he cannot understand the meaning because he do not know the language, he describes that how melodious the song was which he was unable to hear after that. In the poem he also guesses what could be the theme of the song.