Place Among The 'Lucy' Series
Wordsworth established himself, according to the critic Norman Lacey, as a 'poet of nature' in his volume Lyrical Ballads in which "She Dwelt" first appeared. Early works, such as Tintern Abbey, can be seen as an ode to his experience of nature (though he preferred to avoid this interpretation), or as a lyrical meditation on the fundamental character of the natural world. Wordsworth later recalled that as a youth nature once stirred in him, "an appetite, a feeling and a love", but by the time he wrote "Lyrical Ballads", it evoked "the still sad music of humanity".
The five 'Lucy' poems are often interpreted as representing both his apposing views of nature and a meditation on natural cycle of life. "Strange fits" presents "Kind Nature's gentlest boon", "Three years" its duality, and "A slumber", according to the American literary critic Cleanth Brooks, the clutter of natural object. In Jones view, "She dwelt", along with "I travelled", represents its "rustication and disappearance".
Read more about this topic: She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways
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