William Wordsworth's The World Is Too Much With Us

William Wordsworth sonnet, “The World Is Too Much With Us,” focuses on what is important in life. Wordsworth claims that people do not appreciate things of nature. He uses a number of literary techniques, and he uses the octave and sestet rhyme scheme in his sonnet. Wordsworth begins his poem with the statement in line one, “The world is too much with us; late and soon.” By this, he meant that society and its rules are what controls people. People follow what the trends of society, and they get caught up in daily life. He continues to prove his point that people are of the world in line two, “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” Wordsworth is showing how people are focused on materialistic aspects of the world, and do not live to their full potential. They waste time on things that are meaningless. Next, Wordsworth uses personification to With the intention of proving that humans waste potential, Wordsworth states in line four, “We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” This metaphor means that people put their passion into materialistic items. Wordsworth uses an oxymoron when he refers to giving hearts away as “a sordid boon.” Sordid is a negative word having to do with being selfish or dishonorable; boon is another word for a blessing. These contradictory words work together to show that putting

He wrote, “This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; / The winds that will be howling at all hours.” He is personifying the sea and wind to draw attention to nature. He describes the way that the tides change with the moon, and he is describing the sound of the wind blowing. He continues in line seven by saying, “And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers.” His utilizes a simile to show that now, the sea, wind, and other things of nature are not significant to people. He claims that people are “out of tune,” and he wrote in line nine, “It moves us not.” Nature has no affect on