William Wordsworth's The World Is Too Much With Us

In concord to this, the Norton Anthology of English Literature characterises this poem as an inauguration of “[Wordsworth's] “myth of nature”: his presentation of the “growth” of his mind to maturity, a process unfolding through the interaction between the inner world of the mind and the shaping force of external nature” (Willliam Wordsworth 1770-1850, 271).” It is no wonder John Keats describes Wordsworth's poetry as “excessively self-centred” (“Egotistical Sublime”), thereby strengthening the argument of Wordsworth's focus on the individual.

Wordsworth questions the amount of recognition that nature gets from people in today society. He almost uses a guilt trip method to make his reader ask themselves if they have given nature the tribute it deserves. When I was assigned to read this text, I found myself so wound up in school and activities and busy work. So much so that I hadn’t had time to enjoy things around me and the things out the window or under my feet. “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!” (page 790, line2) This text approached me at a perfect time to help me to step back and appreciate the small things that surround me each day. Senior year can be overwhelming more than once and it is always a refreshing breath to stop and smell the roses, metaphorically and literally. Therefore, I am thankful for the impact that this text had on me and the timing of its

Disgusted, the speaker sees how society has morally degraded itself in exchange for wealth and greed. The frustrated tone of the poem becomes further elevated when the speaker exclaims, "We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" (4). Blinded by the daily drudgeries of life, people have become impervious to nature, despite some of the grand displays that one can behold. The speaker describes beautiful images of nature such as the sea, howling winds, and flowers that no longer create an emotional response in people. Since the world has become so out of touch with nature, mankind is no longer able to appreciate the drama that takes place between the wind and the moon. Additionally, the speaker claims that society has become so indifferent to nature that, "Little we see in Nature that is ours;" (3).

Wordsworth’s famous and simple poem, “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” expresses the Romantic Age’s appreciation for the beauty and truth that can be found in a setting as ordinary as a field of daffodils. With this final stanza, Wordsworth writes of the mind’s ability to carry those memories of nature’s beauty into any setting, whether city or country. His belief in the power of the imagination and the effect it can have on nature, and vice a versa, is evident in most of his work. This

Unlike society, Wordsworth does not see nature as a commodity. The verse "Little we see in Nature that is ours" (3), shows that coexisting is the relationship envisioned. This relationship appears to be at the mercy of mankind because of the vulnerable way nature is described. The verse "This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon" (5), gives the vision of a woman exposed to the heavens. In addition, the phrase "sleeping flowers"(7) might also describe how nature is being overrun unknowingly.

(ll. 1-4) describes how nature is supposed to be a blessing, but turns out to be distasteful. The line, “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” (ll. 2) explains how we’re wasting our natural powers of viewing the free nature that we own. Our powers could be to nurture and to appreciate the world. By using contrasting words in a” sordid boon!” (ll. 4), William Wordsworth describes how we are being immoral and turning a blessing (i.e. nature) into something undesirable.

The stanza of Wordsworth's poem, “And then my heart fills with pleasure, and dances with the daffodils.” compares with Muir’s paragraph, “It seems wonderful that so frail and lovely a plant has such power over human hearts.” that they especially, take a liking to flowers and find peace within them. The authors are troubled by either emotions or a force working against them. Wordsworth’s dreary poem, “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” evokes deep emotions and creates dreariness within a series of, dreaminess scenes as he wanders lonely, but seeing the daffodils reawakens a sense of nostalgia within him, While, Muir writes in his essay, “Calypso Borealis” of travelling and facing difficulties of being unable to travel across a swamp, but once he comes across the beautiful Calypso flower he can forgive the forces that were working against him. The “Calypso Borealis” and “I Wandered As Lonely As A Cloud” are both powerful pieces that encourage others to embrace what nature has to offer. “The waves beside them danced; but they, outdid the sparkling waves in glee: a poet could not be gay“ Wordsworth wrote in his poem that express surely, nobody that basked in the sun and witness the glory that withholds nature could stay

Throughout William Wordsworth’s poem, “The World Is Too Much With Us” Wordsworth expresses his angst and frustration towards the increasing number of people who are becoming obsessed with money and man made objects. He believes this obsession is causing humanity to lose their spiritual connection and nature. Wordsworth is disgusted by this desire to posses material objects when nature is so easily accessible to humanity. He thinks the importance society has placed on money and material wealth is wasted. He also claims that he would rather become a Pagan and subscribe to a worn out system of beliefs rather than abandon his connection with nature.

For most poets of the Romantic Age, nature played an invaluable role in their works. Man’s existence could be affected and explained by the presence and portrayal of the external nature surrounding it. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are no different from the other Romantic poets, and their works abound with references to nature and its correlation to humanity. Specifically, Wordsworth’s “The Ruined Cottage” and Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” share the theme of nature affecting man, although essential differences exist in their ideas regarding how it affects man. These two

By using apostrophe, Wordsworth exclaims to “Great God” that he would rather be a “Pagan suckled in a creed outworn.” This is shocking, especially to Wordsworth’s contemporaries. Because this poem was written in the 19th century in England, it can be inferred that most people there were predominantly Christians. So, the fact that the poet wishes to be a pagan, or a person practicing an outdated religion, shows that Wordsworth willingly accepts judgment from others of the predominant faith to have an opportunity to reconnect to nature again. To this end, the poet desires a unique and mystical way of reconnecting to nature: “Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.” According to Wordsworth’s vision, the ocean that he wishes to glimpse is not an ordinary, calm body of water. Instead, there would be divine figures, Proteus and Triton, interacting with the poet: rising up from the water and blowing horn. The ocean suddenly becomes more spiritual, more significant to the context of the poem. These mythological glimpses, consequently, make Wordsworth “less forlorn”: they add joy to his life and help him cope with societal

Wordsworth saw how the industrialization and the Age of Reason restrained nature and made society isolated from nature by giving importance to worldly possessions and material goods. To Wordsworth society solely concentrated on “…getting and spending,” (line 2) completely “…out of tune,” (line 8) with nature. Wordsworth passionately advocated against this consumer mentality and such was his vehement dissolution and discontent that he “rather be a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn” (line 10). This allusion to paganism, an outdated and primitive religion that saw everything in nature as being alive with souls, serves to highlight his great disappointment and discontent with society’s detachment and negligence of nature.

When the author refers to the “Sea,” he wants everyone to open themselves up to the beauty that surrounds them; but instead, we are unconcerned to the appeals from nature. Line eight “For this, for everything, we are out of tune.” In this line, I think the author is trying to say that we are not tuned with the world. We all including Wordsworth are out of tune, or out of congruence with

There is a simile in line 7 “And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers.” Finally, there are two allusions to greek gods in lines 13 and 14, Proteus and Triton respectively. Line 14 gives the example of imagery “Or hear Old Triton blow his wreathed horn”. One can imagine the great sea god blowing a curled horn amid a vast ocean for all to hear. Wordsworth chose images such as this one because they were strong and powerful.

This is most apparent in considerations over the source of power in nature. The blessing of the water snakes, coupled with the symbolic albatross, highlights the divine source of natural power in ‘Mariner’. The albatross arrives as a “blessing bestowed”, representative of nature, but also of sin (Worthen 23). This symbol marks the appearance of supernatural punishment, forming a moral universe in the text. In contrast, Wordsworth presents a more abstract version of the divine. Within ‘Lonely’, “typical characteristics” of his pantheistic view are found, in which the “universe, nature, and God are equivalent” (Tutschka 4). Although both authors agree that nature holds influence over the individual, their divergence concerns religious responses to the world. It is argued that, unlike Coleridge, “Wordsworth does not devote any single piece of his prose to a religious search” (Borkowska 16). However, “religious subjects and motifs” are found in a majority of his works (Borkowska14), including comparisons of the daffodils to celestial beings in ‘Lonely’ (Wordsworth 7-8). This suggests that nature is the supreme figure in this text. While Wordsworth advances a view that “love of Nature leads to love of man”, the religious in ‘Mariner’ conversely suggests that “love of man leads … to an appreciation of nature” (Modiano 43). This emphasises the dissimilar position of nature in the texts. Wordsworth and Coleridge view religious responses to the natural world as needless, and necessary,

Where Wordsworth focused too on love and nature at first, he then took on more spiritual subjects. Further, if we assume that Wordsworth’s imitation of “The Retreat” was intentional, then Vaughan may have even been a poetic model (in some sense) for Wordsworth later in life. True, Wordsworth is not generally considered a religious poet; he would never have originally considered Vaughan a model because of the latter’s extreme religiosity. Yet if these two poems don’t echo in godly gestures per se, they do in a more spiritual sense—and perhaps Wordsworth, as a man confronted with his own mortality, found Vaughan’s treatise on the spirit’s immortality a sympathetic sentiment. Thus by comparing the two, we also might better understand Wordsworth’s poetic progression.