Please login to post your comments.
The Solitary Reaper
William Wordsworth
About William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was an early leader of Romanticism (a literary movement) that celebrated nature and focussed on human emotions) in English poetry and ranks as one of the greatest lyric poets in the history of English literature.
He was born on April 7, 1770 at Cockermouth. He was second of the five children of his parents, the others being Richard, Dorothy, John and Christopher. By the time he was thirteen, his parents were dead. He went to the Hawkshead Grammar School, where he developed his love for nature.
His first volume of poems was published in 1793. In 1802, he married Mary Hutchinson. It was in 1843 that he became Britain's Poet Laureate. He passed away on April 23, 1850.
Available Answers
- 1.
Why do you think Wordsworth has chosen the song of the nightingale and the cuckoo, for comparison with the solitary reaper's song?
- 2.
As you read the second stanza, what images come to your mind? Be ready to describe them in your own words, to the rest of the class. (Be imaginative enough and go beyond what the poet has written.)
- 3.
In the sixth line of the first stanza, we read:
"... and sings a melancholy strain,..."This "s" sound at the beginning of sings and strain has been repeated. Poets often do this. Do you know why? Do you know what this "poetic repetition" is called? Can you find other instances of this, in The Solitary Reaper?