NON-AFRICAN POETRY Examine the relationship between man and nature in The Solitary Reaper

Answer Details

William Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper is built on the Romantic conviction that nature and human feeling belong to one another. The poem watches a Highland girl reaping and singing alone in a field, and it uses the natural world both to frame her and to measure the power of her song, so that man and nature are shown to be deeply and beautifully connected.

Nature as the setting that shapes the human figure. The reaper is not seen in a town or crowd but "single in the field", cutting and binding the grain among the Highland vale. Her solitude and her labour are inseparable from the rural landscape. Wordsworth insists that we behold her in this natural setting, so that the girl and the field become a single image of rustic life.

Nature as the standard for measuring her song. To convey the beauty of her melody the poet reaches instinctively for nature. Her voice is more welcome than the nightingale's to weary travellers in an Arabian desert, and more thrilling than the cuckoo-bird breaking the silence of the seas among the far Hebrides. These comparisons show that human art is best understood through natural images, and that nature supplies the very language of praise.

Harmony between the human voice and the natural scene. The girl's song seems to flow out of the valley itself; the vale "overflowing with the sound". Her music does not disturb nature but merges with it, filling the landscape as naturally as birdsong. Man and nature are thus in concord rather than conflict.

Nature and the working of memory. True to Romantic doctrine, the experience of the reaper in her natural setting sinks into the poet's mind and lives on: he bears the music in his heart "long after it was heard no more". Nature, through the reaper's song, becomes a lasting source of inner nourishment, echoing Wordsworth's belief that scenes of natural beauty feed the spirit in later life.

The dignity of rural humanity. By making a humble labouring girl the centre of the poem, Wordsworth expresses his faith that ordinary people living close to nature possess a natural nobility and emotional depth worthy of high poetry.

Conclusion. In The Solitary Reaper the relationship between man and nature is one of harmony, reflection and enrichment. Nature frames the reaper, lends images to celebrate her song, blends with her voice, and preserves the moment in memory. The poem is a quiet testament to the Romantic belief that human feeling reaches its fullest beauty in communion with the natural world.