"The World is Too Much With Us"

“The World is Too Much With Us”

William Wordsworth, like many other Romantic poets during his time, felt a deep connection with nature and worked hard for others to follow their creative and spiritual way of life.  “The World is  Too Much With Us, follows this theme, and mainly discusses Wordsworth disapproval of how we in fact treat the world and the nature encompassed in it.

In the first stanza , Wordsworth drops key information, “The world is too much with u; late and soon-Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;-Little we see in Nature that is ours...” (1-3).  Wordsworth indicates that humans are too focused on material objects rather than appreciating what we already attain in the beauty of nature.  Here he capitalizes the word “nature” in attempts to personify it and treat it as its own, powerful, living being.  lHe charges humans with the guilt of  loosing touch with anything meaningful in the world, “We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” (4). 

Wordsworth believes that humans are so far from being harmonic with nature:

“ This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon-The winds that will be howling at all hours-

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers-For this, for everything, we are out of tune-

It moves us not” (5-9).  

One seems to ignore nature in its entirety, thus, rejecting it from ones lifestyle for a more materialistic and gluttonous one.  

Towards the end of the Sonnet the speaker states:

“I’d rather be a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn-Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea-Or 

hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn” (9-14).  

Here, the speaker would be happier living as a Pagan, a man of another religion, just to see if he appreciated the world much more than the average Christian.  Overall, The speaker is in fact angry with man’s connection with nature, and prompts all to step back and appreciate the natural things Earth has to offer, rather than relying on material needs.