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William Wordsworth 's The World Is Too Much With Us

Decent Essays

Secular Society
In William Wordsworth’s “The world is too much with us,” the speaker both loves nature and wants to be part of a community; this is a conflict because the materialistic worldview of society is causing mass apathy toward nature. The tone is not nostalgic, something that is rare for Wordsworth. Instead of longing for a time gone past, the speaker is longing for a different world. Thus, the tone is melancholy. Wordsworth shows nature is necessary for a relationship with God through the use of word choice, audience, and form.
The world that Wordsworth is referring to in the titular line is the secular world; the world that does not have to do with God. The speaker is concerned that society is getting too wrapped up in the world. It is a problem that has gone on for some time already and it is not going away anytime soon. He blames consumerism for the cultural shift, saying that obsessing over “Getting and spending” has made people forget the powers they held when they worked with nature (lines 1-2).
Not only are these undiscovered powers not doing any good, their neglect has led to their deterioration. Society can no longer “see in Nature that [which] is [theirs]” (line 3). They have become blinded to the spiritual world and can no longer see the hand of God. Worse than that, they have “given [their] hearts away” as “a sordid boon” (line 4). In drawing this parallel the speaker is saying that people have given their souls to the world in a filthy, twisted

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