The Solitary Reaper

“The Solitary Reaper” is, aptly, a lyrical ballad: It has a rhyme scheme and melodic rhythm that would make it relatively easy to set to music. Its rhyme scheme is ABCBDDEE for the first and fourth stanzas, and ABABCCDD for stanzas two and three. Since stanzas two and three contain one more rhyme than the first and last stanzas (as the first and third lines rhyme, as well as the second and fourth lines, within the verse’s first four lines), they are even more “musical” than the poem’s opening and closing stanzas. This elevated musicality is an intentional element of craft, as it is those two stanzas that focus directly on the beauty and subject matter of the maiden’s song. With this relatively straightforward ballad form, Wordsworth evokes a traditional song, such as the one the maiden is singing when the speaker finds her in the field.

Setting is where a poem (or any story) takes place. The speaker encounters the singing maiden because he is out for a walk in a natural landscape, and the maiden herself is busily reaping, or harvesting, the grain of a field.