Question

Which of the following images is not found in "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

• A. a fair youth and his lover beneath a tree
• B. maidens struggling to escape
• C. a heifer being led to the altar
• D. a village girl reaping in the field

Answer 1

Answer:

D. a village girl reaping in the field

• “The Solitary Reaper” is a poem by the English poet William Wordsworth.

• The poem was inspired by the poet’s trip to Scotland in 1803 with his sister Dorothy Wordsworth. It was first published in 1807.

• In the poem, the speaker tries—and fails—to describe the song he heard a young woman singing as she cuts grain in a Scottish field.

• The speaker does not understand the song, and he cannot tell what it was about.

• Nor can he find the language to describe its beauty.

• He finds that the traditional poetic metaphors for a beautiful song fail him.

• The poem thus calls, implicitly, for a new kind of poetry: one that is better able to approximate and describe the pure, unpretentious beauty of the reaper’s song.