1

The Projection of Performativity:

A Theoretical Feminist Approach to William Wordsworths The Solitary Reaper
 2

Abstract

This paper offers a theoretical feminist approach to William Wordsworths poem The Solitary

Reaper by reading the poem alongside Judith Butlers theory of gender performativity. It argues

that the poems speaker projects a specific performance upon the solitary reaper through his

interpretation of her song. From a musicological standpoint, with particular attention to James

Donelans book Poetry and the Romantic Musical Aesthetic, the essay focuses specifically on the

function of the solitary reapers song within the poem. By arguing that the audible song of the

solitary reaper is a form of labor, and that the body of the solitary reaper is, thus, a labored

subject, the essay argues that the figure of the solitary reaper is a receptacle for the speakers

idealized projections of femininity. Rather than offer a redemptive reading of Wordsworths

treatment of female characters, the essay offers a critique of the representation of the solitary

reaper through the lens of feminist and gender theory.

Key Terms: Projection, Gender Performativity, Judith Butler, Feminine Idealization, Labor
 3

Recent feminist scholarship has critiqued the simplistic representation of female

characters in William Wordsworths poetry. While at first Wordsworths representations of

gender appear to be reductionist at best, feminist scholars have introduced a more complex

reading of Wordsworths conception of women. Most notably, in her book Wordsworth and the

Cultivation of Women, Judith W. Page suggests that Wordsworths relationship to the feminine be

considered in light of the female relationships in his personal life.1 Page argues for a reading that

claims Wordsworths portrayal of women during different poetic moments reflects the various

female relationships in his life. She also recommends a resistance to reading Wordsworth as

either idealizing or marginalizing female characters. Rather, Page argues that Wordsworths

portrayal of female characters reflects his shift from theorizing about the egotism of the sublime

to considering the communal aesthetics of the beautiful.2 Page relates the presence of peripheral

feminine characters in some of his most well known poems, such as The Solitary Reaper, to

Wordsworths association of the beautiful with scenes of feminine domesticity.

While Page offers a compelling reading of female characters in Wordsworths poetry,

Sonia Hofkosh, a reviewer of Pages work, suggests that Pages reading is, perhaps, too much of a

strain even for the sympathetic reader. While Page herself acknowledges that such a forgiving

reading cannot explain away the more problematic aspects of Wordsworths work, Hofkosh

critiques Pages work as being too much of a reclamation project. Hofkosh argues that Pages

work suggests readers exert themselves in order to love Wordsworth, and that the amount of

work that is required to conduct such a reading is counterintuitive to the very purpose of Pages

project. Thus, while Hofkosh acknowledges the nuances of Pages argument in connecting

Wordsworth the poet to the realm of the feminine, she critiques the exertion required in

recuperating feminist empathy for Wordsworth.

 4

In the specific context of The Solitary Reaper, James Donelans book Poetry and the

Romantic Musical Aesthetic is especially useful.3 Donelans reading of the solitary reapers song in a

musicological context complicates both Pages argument and Hofkoshs critique of it. If the

recuperative project that Page undergoes is too straining, as Hofkosh seems to suggest, Donelans

reading of the solitary reapers song complicates the idea that Wordsworths poetic

representations of women directly correlate with his personal relations. Donelan argues that the

speakers comparison of the solitary reapers intelligible song to the songs of birds places her

within a greater cultural context, rather than dehumanizing her.4 If this argument is read in

relation to Pages theory, however, the intelligibility of the reapers song is, perhaps,

Wordsworths inability to relate directly to certain notions of the feminine at the moment of the

poems conception. Perhaps, then, it is useful to place the respective musicological and feminist

readings into conversation with one another.

Even though there is practical application in reading Donelan and Pages readings in an

intersectional context, both readings can be further complicated by being grounded in feminist

theory. In the specific context of The Solitary Reaper, the projection of feminine embodiment

upon the reaper, as well as the specific conveyance of her gendered embodiment, can be further

explored through Judith Butlers theory of gender performativity.5 Butler argues that through the

repetition of theatrical, stylized acts, gendered bodies are created. Thus, gender does not

presuppose bodies and there is no true gendered essence, but rather it is birthed through a

series of repetitive performances. Additionally, Butler conceives of the body as in constant

motion towards gender embodiment. For Butler, bodies are receptacles that become gendered

through acts. Thus, to place Page and Butler into conversation, the solitary reaper performs the

poets relationship to the feminine. If the female characters reflect Wordsworths actual

experiences, then it is the manifestation of his contextual perception of women that the solitary
 5

reaper performs. In relation to Donelans analysis of the solitary reapers song, her song is a

performance of the poets perception of her, rather than oneness with a higher culture. While it

may be symbolically linked to a larger community, it is only conveyed through the speakers

interpretation of it. When read through the theoretical feminist lenses of gender performativity

and projection, the solitary reaper is not only embodied through the poet speakers relation to the

feminine, but also through the speakers literal analysis of her song.

The poem begins with the command to behold the woman in the field, with a certain

ambiguity as to whom the admonition is directed. While Donelan references Geoffrey Hartmans

theory that the invocation to behold demands a certain moment of self-conscious reflection, it

is also a command to visibly consume the woman in the field.6 Through the demand to behold,

there is the assumption that the woman has something to offer the traveler, which gives her a

sense of agency. However, the admonition to look at her, rather than interact with her, positions

her as somewhat immobile. Her position as a solitary creature means that she is the focal

object of the field, rather than the field itself. If she is the only creature in the field, why is it

necessary for the speaker to admonish the traveler to behold? Would this not be a natural

reaction if she were the only one in the field? The speaker calls attention to the performative

aspect of the solitary reapers work, and she becomes hyper-performative. For Butler, gendered

performances are enmeshed in discourses of cultural recognition, and, thus, there are very real

consequences for performing gender incorrectly.7 A Butlerian reading would suggest that there

is a resonant symbolic meaning of the solitary reapers performance for the speaker, which may

involve a heightened perception of what is actually taking place. If the speaker projects an aura of

performance onto the woman, then her actions not only become gendered, but also implicated in

the process of her movement towards embodiment.

 6

The solitary reapers actions are both generative (reaping) and performative (singing).

Both, however, are in the service of the male speaker. As his is the only account given, there is no

other vantage point from which the womans actions are interpreted. In order for the solitude to

be interpreted as an oasis away from culture where the poet can be joined with an unknown,

soothing song, the woman must be isolated. In order for him to project his perception of her onto

her body, there must not be any other figures present who would possibly complicate this

narrative. The woman must be alone in the field in order for the speaker to interpret the specific

tone of her individual song. It must be a singular song, for if there were multiple reapers her

specific intonation would be indistinguishable. While the speaker presents her tone as objectively

melancholy, he projects her performativity. The interpretation of her tone as melancholy relies

upon the speakers own musical knowledge. Since the speaker cannot interpret her words, he can

only interpret her tone. As there seems to be a cultural boundary between the speaker and the

solitary reaper, is it to be inferred that the perceived tone of her song aligns with her actual

words? Or, perhaps more provocatively, does the speaker not have access to the words she is

singing because his idealized image of her does not align with reality? Clearly, a disparity

between tone and the meaning of content is not accounted for. While there is an expectation that

the speaker is correct in assuming it to be melancholy, it is a rather essentialist assumption

considering the cultural and linguistic barriers between the two characters. In this sense, then,

projection and performativity are closely linked, as what the speaker infers the reapers song to be

(a melancholy tale), is based on his interpretation of her embodied performance.

While Page argues that there is a feminization in Wordsworths paradigmatic shift from

considering the sublime in solitude to notions of the beautiful expansively, thus encouraging

representations of communities of women, the solitary reaper is not located within a larger

community. Rather, it is her song alone that makes the vale [overflow] with the sound.8 If
 7

Wordsworths purpose in isolating the solitary reaper is to implicitly connect her to a vast,

universal feminine community, then perhaps her song is representative of a communal melody.

However, it seems more likely that the woman is on a makeshift, interpretive stage in the middle

of the vale, filling the surroundings with her song. While her song appears to be a byproduct of

her labor to help the time pass more quickly, which offers her some autonomy in the situation,

she is still tasked with having a song that will be heard throughout the vale. Were the song to be

removed from the solitary reaper, the speaker likely would not have noticed her in the field, or at

least not have had some poetic recollection of the experience. Arguably, then, it is the song itself

that facilitates her embodiment. Without the song, an exotic offering to the traveler, the reaper

would simply be a disembodied figure, performing a traditionally feminine task. It is her song

that distinguishes her from the natural backdrop, even in her construction as a pseudo-natural,

mythical figure.

In his analysis of the song, Donelan observes that it is compared to various bird songs that

welcome scenes of hope.9 He draws attention to the inarticulate cries of the nightingale and

cuckoo-bird, and suggests that the potency of their respective cries is in what they signify, rather

than any articulate message.10 Similarly, he argues that the song of the solitary reaper can be

read symbolically in terms of how the poet interprets it, rather than literally. From a critical

feminist perspective, this is a bit of a sympathetic reading. While from a musicological standpoint

this theory is weighty and has significance in being applied to a more nuanced feminist reading, it

does not account for the projection of the male characters particular gendered sensibilities onto

the solitary reaper. In the speakers comparison between her song and the enigmatic songs of

other birds, it is evident that his comparisons are rooted in notions of the sublime. In his inability

to articulate the words of the nightingale or the cuckoo-bird, and especially the words of the

solitary reaper, he concludes that her act must be one of sublimity. However, the speakers
 8

unwillingness to understand or articulate the meaning of the reapers song further marginalizes

her. While there obviously may not have been space for interpretation, there is a certain

mysticism in associating her song with the songs of birds. Such a strong attachment to the natural

world does dehumanize her, as Donelan partially refutes, for Wordsworths female figures tend to

exist in a liminal space between human and creature.11 Thus, in aligning her with the sublime

songs of birds, she becomes more creatural than human. Rather than his privileging of her songs

above the birds being a compliment, it further marginalizes her as the most direct comparison is

to creatures that lack the potential for articulation. In completely removing her potential for

articulation, and, indeed, her very articulation of language in the song, the speaker further

separates her as a being far removed from humanity.

While there is certain usefulness in reading the solitary reapers song as a moment of

escapism for the traveler, it is dangerous to assume that the speaker maintains her both as part of

the natural world and distinctly human.12 Rather than saying that she is most certainly both,

there is evidence suggesting that she is neither. Perhaps it is safer to say that she is not quite

creature, yet not quite human, and thus exists in a hyper-natural world. This scene cannot be

read as merely a field in which a woman is reaping; there is too much poetic mysticism for this to

be the case. Not only does the image of a woman singing a foreign song in a field hearken to a

trope in traditional fairytales, but there is also something rather haunting about the image.

Somehow, distance is maintained between her as the object of the speakers gaze and the speaker

himself. He does not approach her, but simply observes from afar. The speaker most notably

projects his notion of her own femininity onto her in the third stanza:

Will no one tell me what she sings?

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

 9

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of today?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again!13

When the words of the solitary reapers song are not translated to him, the speaker immediately

begins to project what they may be. While perhaps a natural speculation of the imagination, it is

problematic from a critical feminist perspective. There is a hurriedness in the speakers desire to

be told what she sings, and no explicit moment of waiting for a reply. Thus, as soon as he

rhetorically questions whether or not someone will tell him what she is singing, he immediately

begins to interpret the song himself. Through his interpretation, he applies his own set of cultural

knowledge to a situation entirely foreign to him. While it is all speculation, which he exhibits by

framing his musings with perhaps, he is audibly expressing thought, or at least internally

ruminating upon such questions. Thus, while he is speculating as to what the song may be about,

he has ceased to listen to the song. If the song is such a sublime experience for the speaker, how is

it that he detracts from the sublimity of the song by looking to interpret its meaning? This does

not appear to be a poem composed upon recollection, but rather a musing fixed directly in the

moment. How is it, then, that the speaker has words to speak if this is such a sublime experience?

Should he not be rendered speechless? Perhaps in being overcome with awe, and being troubled

by the object inspiring the awe, the speakers reaction to his complete lack of comprehension is

over-articulation.

Perhaps the speakers interpretation of the reapers song as melancholic can be attributed

to the deathlike quality of the act of reaping. The speaker wonders whether it is a melody about

old, unhappy, far-off things, /and battles long ago, or some humble lay, / familiar matter of
 10

today? / Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, / That has been, and may be again!14 The

speculated content of the song is divided between grand, past sorrows (far-off things and

battles) and a more current natural sorrow. The binary set up between past and present,

catastrophic and natural sorrow, specifically confines the potential meaning of the reapers

song. There is no other option but for it to be grandiosely sorrowful, or at least tinged with

sadness. If the speaker guides the solitary reaper towards gendered embodiment, rather than the

reaper fully inhabiting her body, then the depicted scene is a contrived performance based on the

speakers own projection. If, in the truest sense of Judith Butlers theory of performativity, one

comes to shape ones own gendered subjectivity, which accounts both for internal and external

forces acting upon the body, then the solitary reaper is restricted from autonomously inhabiting

an embodied self.15 Rather, the speaker shapes the reapers embodiment through his own

projection of her performativity. If, to follow the dominant feminist theory of gender

constructivism, then the solitary reaper never truly comes to inhabit her body as a gendered

space.16 Instead, she is essentialized according to her appearance as female, even though she is

not entirely human. It seems, then, that the speaker makes her human enough to be interpreted

by his own set of ideals, but creatural enough to be denied access to conscious decision-making

processes, and, thus, modes of resistance.

There is a cyclical nature to the speakers conception of sorrow that appears to trace a

natural trajectory of the course of sorrow, yet still only limits the reaper to songs of sorrow. While

the speaker makes reference to various conceptions of sorrow, there is a performative aspect to

his ruminations. If the solitary reaper is a performer of sorrow, then her gendered embodiment

will always already be couched within the parameters set forth by the speaker. In the context of

this argument, then, the solitary reaper can never access true self-directed embodiment. Rather,

as a character of projected performance, she can only ever manifest the speakers masculine
 11

ideals of feminine embodiment. Even as the speaker projects embodiment onto her, it is still in

the context of performance. Thus, embodiment is made inaccessible to the reaper through the

very linear interpretation of her performance. Not only does she abide according to the

speakers conception of her physical location, but also in her literal performance of the

incomprehensible song. The song is thus the ultimate representation of an approximation to

gendered embodiment. It is only through the intelligibility of the song that the speaker is able to

shape her gendered embodiment.

If until the last stanza the solitary reaper has been offered a certain sense of ungendered

humanity, the speaker very clearly genders her in his final address:

Whateer the theme, the Maiden sung

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And oer the sickle bending;

I listend till I had my fill:

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.17

While concluding that the theme of the song is ultimately of little consequence, as the speaker has

gleaned from it what he desires, the reaper becomes the Maiden. If Wordsworth has been

redeemed through a sympathetic reading of the poem, as Pages approach suggests, it is the

speakers shift to referring to the reaper as a maiden that most obviously genders her. While a

lack of overt feminization in the first three stanzas has set the stage for the final stanzas explicit

gendering of the solitary reaper, the speaker most clearly projects a keen gendered embodiment

upon her in the final lines of the poem. Notably, his address of her as a Maiden comes after the
 12

intelligibility of her song. The speaker only comes to conceive of her as a maiden after he has

unsuccessfully sought to decipher her song. It is through the illegibility of the solitary reapers

song that she is labeled Maiden. If, according to Butlers theory of gender performativity, one

comes to inhabit a gendered body through the repetition of theatrical, stylized acts, then the

repetition of the speakers acknowledgement of his inability to decipher the meaning of the

reapers song genders her as Maiden. Rather than the repetition of stylized acts on her part, it

is the speakers projection of stylized acts upon her that most clearly genders her female. Arguably,

though, as her embodiment is only made possible through projection, she remains a disembodied

figure even in her assumed femininity.

In this final stanza, Donelan argues, From the perspective of the speaker, [the solitary

reapers] song has become absolute music, pure sound free from the constraints of denotation

and narrative.18 In joining the finite nature of human life with the cyclical processes of nature,

Donelan argues that the speaker connects nature and humanity through a complex

understanding of the function of the reapers song.19 However, while the song may have become

absolute music for the speaker free from the burden of narrative verbal meaning, it does not

render the actual meaning of the song insignificant. This is, perhaps, the most concerning stanza

of the poem from a critical feminist perspective, as the speakers interpretation of her song as

pure music depends upon his lack of comprehension of it. The speakers ability to interpret the

song as pure music requires his denial of any form of overt cultural meaning the song may

ostensibly have. In his lack of understanding, the speaker reinscribes the reaper as lacking agency

over her own embodiment. Thus, the song is only free from the constraints of denotation and

narrative because of the speakers appropriation of his own knowledge to the situation. In

applying what he perceives as tangible and comprehensible to the situation, he positions her as

intangible and incomprehensible. Through the championing of his own system of knowledge
 13

above hers, the speaker positions himself as advantageously placed within the hierarchy of

observer and object. As she is defined through his gaze, the perceived purity of the music is only

made possible through the linguistic separation between him and the reaper.

A Butlerian reading of the cyclical nature of the reapers song would interpret it in the

following way: Through the repeated, theatrical performance of mundane activities (reaping),

the reaper comes to embody a very specific identity.20 It is through the repetition of her song, or

the speakers imagination of its repetition, that the reapers identity is sustained. The speaker

states that he saw her singing at her work, interpreting her song as performance. In his visual

consumption of her body, and audible consumption of her song, the speaker shapes the reaper as

performer. As he is the one who sees her performing, he has complete control over the

performative nature of her identity. Butler argues that the body does not exist apart from its

gendered identity, and, similarly, the reaper cannot exist apart from her song. If her song is the

embodiment of her identity, then were she to be silent, her identity would not be forged through

performance. The speaker describes her as constantly singing, yet were she to cease from singing

at any point, what would happen to his perception of her? Would she instantly become either

fully human or fully creature? Does the never-ending nature of her song place her within a

liminal space between human and creature? It is unclear as to how the speaker conceives of her

identity. While it is decidedly human in his reference to her as Maiden, the process by which

the speaker arrives at this identity is complex. In his understanding of her as both human and

creature, she cannot be fully human even in his explication of her as Maiden.

While the reapers physical work can be read in terms of Wordsworths shift from a

solitary investment in the sublime to a communal conception of the beautiful, it is also useful to

deconstruct the conception of the reapers worker body. In the feminization of Wordsworths

understanding of the beautiful, Page argues that there is a movement towards a placement of
 14

women within a communal setting.21 However, the entire poem can also be read as a movement

towards the feminization of the solitary reapers worker body. If the poem begins with her as

merely a worker, she is clearly feminized by the end in the specification of her as Maiden.

While perhaps the song also belongs to her, it is the work that is most clearly explicated as

hers.22 If the work belongs to her, the sickle does not. The speaker sees her singing at her

work, yet over the sickle bending.23 If the sickle, symbolic of death, does not belong to the

reaper, then the work she has control over detaches her from any symbolic associations with

death. Thus, if the reapers song is truly melancholy yet the sickle is not explicitly hers, she is

separated from the process of production. In a Marxist sense, the reaper can be read as being

separated from the means of production, even though she is the sole worker. As the work belongs

to her, and not the instrument of work, she is disembodied from the act of reaping. While the

speaker reads her in productive terms (singing, which he is able to enjoy, and reaping, a

productive activity) she does not hold much control over the means of production or the product

itself. Even though the focus is notably on her and not the product of her labors, her body cannot

be separated from her labor. In the specification of her as the solitary reaper, her worker identity

as reaper is intrinsic to the speakers conception of her identity. As she is not given a proper

name, her identity is created through the literal action of her body. If her body implicates her as

worker, then her song is also a labor.

There is an overt feminization of the reapers worker body that cannot be separated from

her song. Thus, while Donelan aptly argues for the transcendental natural qualities of her song,

this cannot be read apart from the obvious labor of her body. While Donelan argues that the

reapers song is a working song, and that as the singer works as she sings, the poet also

speaks while in the middle of his tour of Scotland, it reduces the labored body of the reaper

simply to that of singer.24 She is not simply a singer; rather, her identity is forged through the
 15

relation between her song and the physical labor of her body. To historicize the comparison

between the poet and reaper is important, yet it seems to place the poet and reaper on equal

footing. Perhaps the words of the poet can implicitly be read as a labor, but it is not explicated as

a physical, bodily labor. Thus, to make the comparison between the song of the reaper and the

words of the poet is to oversimplify the working body of the reaper. The comparison works if the

poet is explicitly defined as a working body, but to assume poetry as a labor is to offer a

sympathetic reading in comparison to the very overt labored reaper body.

The speaker further projects his own idealized fantasies onto the reaper in his ability to be

filled with her music, yet have the option to leave the space of her work on his own accord:

I listend till I had my fill:

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.25

While Wordsworth tends to other his female characters through a placement of them in

separate, wilderness spaces, the male speaker is given the power to glean from the space what he

will, and then depart from it.26 In The Rape of the Rural Muse, Nancy A. Jones argues that

Wordsworths comparison of the solitary reaper to various birds is a form of rape, and, similarly,

the argument can be applied to the speakers ability to pillage the scene for the sake of his own

poetic sensibilities. In essence, the speakers easy movement in and out of the rural scene is a

simulated rape; he gleans what he desires from the reaper through a subjective interpretation of

her song, and then leaves with what he has taken from her. Ultimately, he has taken from her

any true meaning of the song. While she may, perhaps, retain the original meaning of the song

for herself, the extraction of speculative meaning is a form of rape. As an exaction of power, the

speaker not only fails to entertain any possible meaning of the song outside of his own perception,
 16

but also reduces the space in which the reaper dwells to a poetic tourist destination. Thus, the

poet is able to enter the rural space as a poetic tourist, without the intention of remaining there.

Perhaps, then, the real rape of the rural muse is not in likening her song to the songs of birds,

but in the actual removal of her song from the wilderness space. The speaker takes the meaning

he has created with him, while leaving the actual song behind him. Maybe this is due, in part, to

his supposed position as a poet (thus, entitled to interpretation), yet there is a removal of the

product itself (interpretation) from the means of production (both the song itself and the body of

the reaper). Thus, the reapers song is immortalized through the speakers memory of it. He

disembodies the song by removing it from the literal body of the reaper, thereby forever

cementing her as a figure, lone and working, in a voyeuristic field.

The redemptive projects of both Judith W. Page and James Donelan offer critical insights

into the workings of The Solitary Reaper, and, when placed into conversation with Judith

Butlers theory of gender performativity, provide nuanced analyses of the solitary reapers literal

and figurative location. From a critical feminist perspective, however, the entire poem can be

read as the poet speakers idealized projection of the reapers performative femininity. Rather

than portraying a body autonomously working towards gender embodiment, the body of the

solitary reaper is manipulated as a site for the speakers idealized visions of femininity. In relation

to Nancy A. Jones work, it is the rape of the reapers song that leads to her ultimate

disembodiment. Through this theoretical lens, the solitary reaper is not only a site upon which

the speakers anxieties are placed, but also a body fashioned by the male gaze. As the speaker

interprets her body and song, the solitary reaper is really the creation of his own imagination.

Through artful projection, the speaker forces his own notions of performative femininity onto the

solitary reaper, thus positioning her gendered, bodily identity as intrinsically bound to the

movement of her body and tonality of her song.

 17

Notes:

1 Page, Judith W. Wordsworth and the Cultivation of Women. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1994.
2 Page discusses the feminization of Wordsworths poetic aesthetic reflected in his shift from a
focus on the solipsistic sublime to a communal understanding of the beautiful.
3 Donelan, James H. "Nature, Music, and the Imagination in Wordsworth's Poetry." In Poetry and
the Romantic Musical Aesthetic, 206-214. New York City: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
4 Jones, Nancy A. The Rape of the Rural Muse: Wordsworths The Solitary Reaper in Rape
and Representation, ed. Lynn A. Higgins and Brenda R. Silver, 263-277. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1991. Donelan references Jones work, in which she argues
that the comparisons made between the reaper and nature are a form of rape, rather than a
reification of the reapers privileged position in the natural world.
5 Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and
Feminist Theory." In Feminist Theory Reader, edited by Carole R. McCann and Seung-
Kyung Kim, 462-73. New York City: Routledge, 2013.
6
Geoffrey Hartman reads these apostrophes as a variation on epitaphs that ask the passing
traveler to stop and consider his mortality through the brief cautionary tale of the person buried
beneath the tombstone; this pause in the journey establishes a moment of self-conscious
reflection (Donelan 207-208).
7 Performing ones gender wrong initiates a set of punishments, both obvious and indirect, and
performing it well provides the reassurance that there is an essentialism of gender identity after
all. That this reassurance is so easily displaced by anxiety, that culture so readily punishes or
marginalizes those who fail to perform the illusion of gender essentialism, should be sign enough
that, on some level, there is social knowledge that the truth or falsity of gender is only socially
compelled and in no sense ontologically necessitated (Butler 470).
8 O listen! for the Vale profound/Is overflowing with the sound (lines 7-8)
9 The stanza spans the widest extremes possible, from the nightingale in the Arabian desert to
the cuckoo in the Hebrides off the coast of Scotland. In both cases, the birds do not produce
 18

articulate words, but natural cries which acquire meaning through the poets interpretation of
their context (Donelan 209).
10 This ambiguity reflects Wordsworths desire to find a spring of hope after a long winter of
mourning as well; travel and time have long been known to ease sorrow. Although both bird
songs communicate welcome news to their listeners, neither is a message in words; they are
merely sounds that accompany welcome natural events (Donelan 209).
11 See the Lucy Poems
12 The reaper is both part of the natural landscape and clearly human; by keeping the
denotative content of her song at a distance, Wordsworth emphasizes the connection between the
sensuous enjoyment of the natural landscape and that of musical material (Donelan 210-211).
13 (Lines 17-24)
14 Stanza 4, lines 19-24
15 Butler argues, The body is not merely matter, but a continual and incessant materializing of
possibilities. One is not simply a body, but, in some very key sense, one does ones body, and,
indeed, one does ones body differently from ones contemporaries and from ones embodied
predecessors and successors as well (Butler 464).
16 Social constructivism refers to the belief that gender is a construct, shaped by societal and
cultural forces, rather then biologically predetermined through its relationship to sex (the physical
appearance of the body).
17 Lines 25-32
18 Donelan, 211
19 Donelan, 211-212
20 Gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed;
rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time an identity instituted through a stylized
repetition of acts. Further, gender is instituted through the stylization of the body, and, hence,
must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and enactments
of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self (Butler 462).
21 In her review of Page, Hofkosh argues: This feminization is theorized as a paradigm shift
from the model of the egotistical sublime and its solitary revelations in the early Wordsworth, to a
 19

later interest in the concept of the beautiful associated with domesticity and a supportive
community of women (Hofkosh 448).
22 I saw her singing at her work (line 27 emphasis added)
23 Emphasis added
24 Donelan, 208
25 Lines 29-32
26 See Wordsworths Lucy Gray for a specific example of a female character inhabiting a
distinctly wilderness space.
 20

Bibliography

Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and
Feminist Theory." In Feminist Theory Reader, edited by Carole R. McCann and Seung-
Kyung Kim, 462-73. New York City: Routledge, 2013.

Donelan, James H. "Nature, Music, and the Imagination in Wordsworth's Poetry." In Poetry and
the Romantic Musical Aesthetic, 206-214. New York City: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Hofkosh, Sonia. "Wordsworth and the Cultivation of Women by Judith W. Page." Review of
Wordsworth and the Cultivation of Women. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, July
1996.

Jones, Nancy A. The Rape of the Rural Muse: Wordsworths The Solitary Reaper in Rape and
Representation, ed. Lynn A. Higgins and Brenda R. Silver, 263-277. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1991

Page, Judith W. Wordsworth and the Cultivation of Women. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1994.