Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Song [She dwelt among th'untrodden ways]
In Song William Wordsworth talks about a maid who feels will go un missed because there were not many close to her. He portrays her as a maid "whom there were none to praise and very few to love". It becomes apparent that he feels she is more than the average person and felt strong about her when he starts describing her. Describing her qualities as one would not describe the average, such as "a violet by a mossy stone". He describes her as "unknown" which is a strong label to give. This is obviously a person he thought highly of, but what is the reason. Was this a lover of Wordsworth or a person he just strongly admired? He is not straight forward describing her in a romantic manner. This could be a person who he admired for actions she has committed. Maybe he believed she was unique and should be praised, but she wasn't and it had become to late.
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I also think Lucy was someone who Wordsworth admired more than what was considered to be normal. I think she might have been in a sense his muse though. There is a Lucy mentioned in a lot of his other works, and this poem is one out of five works that are collectively called the “Lucy poems”. Death seems to be a major focus in a lot of his poems involving Lucy too. In “Song (‘She dwelt among th’ untrodden ways’)”, the poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (by Thomas Gray) makes a small (almost hidden) appearance. “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is about death and how one is remembered after. It makes me think that this Lucy character’s death was unnoticed, maybe untimely, and greatly affected Wordsworth (which would make sense if Lucy was in fact his muse). Maybe Wordsworth was trying to draw “well deserved” attention to Lucy through these poems. In “Song” I felt like Lucy was described as a diamond in the rough; a beautiful girl that went unnoticed in a crowd until the day she died, a tragedy. Wordsworth almost describes her as one would a friend, but his word choice also makes me feel like he never had the courage to talk to her. So maybe this poem is him really expressing a lasting regret he had. I also felt like three sides of Lucy where painted in the three stanzas of the poem: growth, beauty, and death. Simple and mostly one syllable words are used too, which in my opinion, further adds to Lucy’s innocent and natural character that Wordsworth admired. Whether or not Lucy actually existed in real life, I don’t know, but it is apparent to me that this Lucy left an unforgotten impression on Wordsworth.
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