The World Is Too Much With Us Meaning

“The World Is Too Much with Us” Analysis

The word Romantic is one of the great terms of literary history that means the history period from 1798 to 1837(between Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads). Romanism was a literacy and intellectual movement that started in Europe in the late decades of 18th Century. It was with the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 by William Samuel Coleridge and Wordsworth. This gave birth to Romanticism in the history of English literature. Romanticism contains elements that are combined in a writer like Coleridge. In this essay, a poetic book “The World Is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth will be analyzed.

“The World Is Too Much with Us” poem is a statement about the conflict between humanity and

nature. The symbolism in this poem gives the reader a sense of deep feelings and convictions that Wordsworth had. He addresses how the progress of human being was tampered with by the restrictions imposed by nature. The words “late and soon” in the opening verse describes how the past and future are included in characterization of humankind. There are numerous references to nature from the poem. The poem is a lyric poem in form of a sonnet. It is a patriarchal sonnet that consists of an eight-line stanza (octave) and a six line stanza (sestet). The first stanza presents the theme while the second one suggests a solution for the problem. The rhyme scheme is also used as poetic device such as: First stanza we have abba, abba. The second stanza, we have cd, cd, cd. Other structures and styles are:
Alliteration: such as Line (I): The world is too much with us;
 Line (IV): we have given our hearts away;
Simile: such as Lines 6-7: The winds that will be howling at all hours, 
“......And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers” that compares the winds to flowers.
Metaphor: such as Line 4: We have given our hearts away.
This is a compares the hearts to concern and attention to life/enthusiasm.
Personification: such as Line 5: The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon. 
He compares the sea to a woman and the moon to a person who sees the woman
The tone is angry and is modulated with sarcasm thus indicating vengefulness. The poet scolds the society because of devoting all its energy to pleasures and materialistic enterprises. “While they are pampering their bodies” he says “people are starving their souls.” Sarcastically he says that he would opt to be a pagan at least he could appreciate nature through different eyes and even see proteus rising from the sea perhaps to wreck vengeance on complacent mankind.
My main claim in regardless to the poem is that people are so preoccupied with worldly affairs including making and spending money and has led to weakening of people’s ability to perceive real life matters. According to the poet, he complains that "the world" is too overwhelming for us to appreciate. He also says that people are so concerned about money and time that we end up using all our energy. People want to accumulate stuffs and thus see nothing in Nature that they can "own." And according to him, we've sold our souls. Thus people should be able to appreciate beautiful events like the moon shining over the ocean and the blowing of strong wind, however, it's like we're on different wavelength from Nature.