The World Is Too Much With Us Personification

1065 Words3 Pages

As time passes by, technology improves, and the less people interact with nature. In William
Wordsworth’s poem, “The World is Too Much With Us” the speaker angrily discusses that we have lost connection with nature due to our focus on things of little importance. The modern age is extremely concerned about time and money, wasting one’s energy, The speaker elaborates on the idea that not a lot of people appreciate things such as the blowing of strong winds, or the moon gleaming over the ocean. The speaker admits he would rather be a pagan who worships an ancient religion in order for him to feel less sad next time he gazes at the ocean. Nature is no longer significant for most people because materials have replaced the pleasures it provides. …show more content…

Wordsworth says that the “Sea that bares her bosom to the moon”(5) elaborating on the isolation of men from nature. He claims that humanity is not influenced by nature anymore. The phrase “bares her bosom” means that the sea is “taking off her shirt” which is the human-like trait. The meaning of that phrase, however, is that people are missing out of the way waves are affected by the moon. A different use of personification is used in that same stanza, when the speaker mentions the “winds that will be howling at all hours / And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers”(6-7). Wordsworth is explaining that we are also ignoring how when the winds are resting they are like “sleeping flowers,” and the way they howl when they wake up. Both, the sleeping and howling traits, are used for the reader to understand the message. These …show more content…

The speaker states that he wishes he was a pagan, raised in an outdated religion. The speaker mentions that seeing ancient greeks rising from the water would make him feel less lonely. He wishes he could see “Proteus rising from the sea”(13) and “hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn”(13-14) because it markedly cheer him up. Believing in these greek gods would at least help the speaker feel “tune[d]”(8) with nature rather than “moves us not”(9) the way we currently are. The same way that nature is figuratively dead, modern people are emotionally dead by being unable to feel nature. We are also unable to feel because “we have given our hearts away”(4), which is a metaphor for the theme regarding the people distancing themselves from nature. The the speaker adds, “a sordid boon!”(4). A “boon” is a gift, however, the word “sordid” describes it as a bad gift, making this phrase a paradox. The use of this paradox in the poem is for the reader to think over the idea, and it also illustrates the poet’s opinion contrary to the set

Open Document