Swiss Cows and an English Poet: Empathic Nostalgia in a Sonnet of Wordsworth's.

The traditional Swiss cowherds' melody called the "Ranz des Vaches" has been famous for centuries for its uncanny ability to evoke extreme nostalgia. This paper analyzes a sonnet of Wordsworth's about his encounter with the "Ranz" in Switzerland in 1820. It examines both the statement and the poetic functioning of the sonnet, comparing it to Wordsworth's better known "The Solitary Reaper." The sonnet, I argue, reveals something of the mechanism by which we manage to identify with and empathize with the Other, even while hinting at the inherent limitations of that mechanism. The paper proposes, in passing, an explanation of the mysterious evocativeness of the "Ranz des Vaches," and also asks whether Wordsworth's sonnet, which has been criticized as particularly unevocative, might not require a special kind of reading, grounded in that very mechanism for relating to the Other that is the theme of the poem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]