The World Is Too Much With Us William Wordsworth Natalia Han Macee Wiese

The World Is Too Much With Us The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The 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.--Great God! 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.

The World Is Too Much With Us We are so worried with our worldly affairs—including making money and spending it—that we weaken our ability to observe what really matters. We have given our souls away in order to reap a material blessing (sordid boon). In our quest for material gain, we do not notice the beauty of the sea or the fury of the winds. Nothing in nature moves us. Well, I would rather be a pagan brought up in an outdated religion. Then I would be inclined to stand in a meadow and appreciate nature around me. I could spot Proteus rising from the sea or listen to Triton blowing his conch shell.

Diction "For this, for everything, we are out of tune; The second half of the poem compares the experience of modern man in nature to that of the Pagans. The speaker, looking out on a pleasant meadow, feels nothing, "It moves us not." He envies the Pagans, who see not profits to be harvested, but rather deities to be worshiped in the sea. The speaker, however, leaves himself little hope of escaping the mindset of the industrialized man; Paganism is "a creed outworn," and the time for man to idolize rather than exploit nature has passed. The 19th-century sea was to be ruled by whalers, slavers and opium ships, not by outmoded gods "For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be a Pagan suckling at 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."

Tone and Mood On the whole, this sonnet offers an angry summation of the familiar Wordsworthian theme of communion with nature, and states precisely how far the early nineteenth century was from living out the Wordsworthian ideal. The sonnet is important for its rhetorical force (it shows Wordsworth’s increasing confidence with language as an implement of dramatic power, sweeping the wind and the sea up like flowers in a bouquet)

Rhetorical Situation Point of View Wordsworth presents the poem in first-person plural in the first eight lines and part of the ninth, using we, ours, and us. At the end of the ninth line, he switches to first- person singular, using I. Use of first-person plural enables Wordsworth to chastise the world without seeming preachy or sanctimonious, for he is including himself in his reprimand.

Figurative Language "Bares her bosom" is an example of alliteration, a phenomenon in which several words begin with the same letter. Line 6: The speaker compares the winds to a wolf or any other animal that "howls." The "howling" animal is a metaphor for the winds. Line 7: The winds aren't "howling" at this moment, and the speaker compares them to "sleeping flowers" that are "up-gathered." Because the speaker uses the word "like" to make the comparison, this is a simile.

Continued… Alliteration Line 1: The world is too much with us Line 2: we lay waste our powers Line 4: We have given our hearts away Line 5: bares her bosom Line 6: The winds that will be howling Metaphor Comparison of hearts to attention or concern or to enthusiasm or life Oxymoron Line 4: sordid boon. Personification Line 5: The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon Comparison of the sea to a woman and of the moon to a person who sees the woman

Imagery used in the poem Feelings Line 1-2: The speaker implies that we don’t have time for nature because we are too busy” getting and spending” all the time; the phrase “ we lay waste our powers” is cryptic, but the fact that it occurs so close to the word “heart”(4) suggests that It has some connection to our ability to feel. Line 12: The speaker suggests that the current state of affairs has cause him to feel “forlorn” (i.e., sad, depressed, etc). He implies that if he were a pagan he would see things that would make him feel differently.

Poem Structure Takes the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, A Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two parts, an octave (the first eight lines of the poem) and a sestet (the final six lines). The rhyme scheme of a Petrarchan sonnet is somewhat variable; in this case, the octave follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, and the sestet follows a rhyme scheme of CDCDCD. In most Petrarchan sonnets, the octave proposes a question or an idea that the sestet answers, comments upon, or criticizes.

Continued…… Meter Wordsworth wrote most of the lines in the poem in iambic pentameter, in which a line has five pairs of syllables. Each pair consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Lines 5 and 6 demonstrate this pattern. .......1.................2................3..............4................5 The SEA..|..that BARES..|..her BO..|..som TO..|..the MOON, .........1.................2..................3................4..............5 The WINDS..|..that WILL..|..be HOWL..|..ing AT..|..all HOURS Wordsworth veers from this pattern in lines 2 and 3, in which he stresses the first syllable of each line.