She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways Summary: 2022

William Wordsworth was born on 7th April 1770 and died in 1850. He is a Romantic poet. He is a nature worshiper and a nature painter. He was a major figure in the Romantic Movement. Wordsworth writes poems by using character of nature as metaphors. All his poems have an element of solitude and detachment from the world, society, and its system.

He tries to bring out the beauty of nature from different aspects. His famous poem, Daffodil, is the best example of nature and imagery in poems. According to Wordsworth, a man is inseparable from the nature, being its best and highest creation of nature.

In this poem analysis I am going to explain about the famous sonnet, “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways”, from Lucy, a collection of Wordsworth’s poems written on his maid. I will be looking at the meaning of the poem, and the analysis of the structure and style of the poem.

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways Summary

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

This poem is about a girl named Lucy, and the poet is admiring her beauty.  In these lines, the poet tries to convey that the girl is lonely and is isolated character who is in relation or association with very few people in her life. He tries to present the  girl as a divine character who is exceptionally pure and gentle. The terms “spring of Dove” and “maid” are here to describe her gentle and pure nature. The term “spring” here is to depict her remoteness and solitude. Wordsworth is trying to

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

In these lines, the poet is trying to show the uniqueness of her beauty. He uses metaphors like “violet” covered in mossy stone, and he tries to show that she is something hidden and neglected by people in general, but is very beautiful. This beauty is always hidden from people generally, and is untouched. The poet tries to show the hideness and simplicity of the person. He is trying to add a sense of more loneliness and isolation to the lines, and a sense of simplicity and beauty to her. He compares her next with a lonely star, all alone in the sky, an which is the brightest of all in the night sky. He tries to add a sense of solitude and unique beauty to her, which is simple and rare.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

In the last stanza, the poet tells how unknown and hidden her life was from others, that no one ever noticed her absence. in this stanza, the poet speaks about her death, and tries to being a sense of loneliness and emptiness that was left behind. The death of the maid was informed as “ceased” in the second line of the stanza. We can see the writer’s lamentation in this stanza, where he is being sad about her death. The term “Oh!” is used to show the poet’s emotional reaction, which is related to the plight of sudden death of the girl. She is a girl with unspoiled nature, of modesty, and her loss is represented as the loss of nature. Wordsworth portrays Lucy in the image of nature, and hence her loss is the loss of the nature. Read more: She dwelt among the untrodden ways analysis

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