Unity Between the Human and the Nonhuman in Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy Gray, or Solitude’

Abstract

In 1798, Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads, which included the poem ‘Lucy Gray, or Solitude’. Since then, it has consistently been analyzed alongside Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy Poems’, another set of poems that ‘Lucy Gray, or Solitude’ does not belong to. The result is a reductive interpretation of ‘Solitude’ that this paper aims to amend, arguing that ‘Lucy Gray, or Solitude’ holds value independent of the ‘Lucy Poems’. It is particularly prominent when considering Lucy Gray as one of Alan Bewell’s ‘marginals’ or people who live on the fringes of human society. Then, the paper focuses on the form and rhythm of the poem ‘Lucy Gray, or Solitude’, as well as Lucy Gray’s identification with young animals and light. Furthermore, Lucy’s symbolic passage of the bridge and the landmarks of its path are analyzed, leading to the question of how Lucy and her parents perceive her disappearance differently. The paper concludes by saying that Lucy Gray achieves unity between the human and the nonhuman.