Thursday, March 14, 2013

The world is to much with us


The world is too much with us

This poem is a sonnet, and so in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is Italian, and follows: a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, c, d, c, d, c, d. This poem talks about man’s lack of connection with nature.
The first line restates the title. This line means that we are consuming the world instead of coexisting with it. “Late and soon” refers to the evening and morning. The second line “getting and spending” refers to our completely economically based society. “We lay waste our powers” the powers we are wasting are the ones that the world gives us naturally, we waste them by ignoring the forest and seeing only lumber. The third line refers to how nothing Nature has is ours; it is all resources for the pursuit of economical gains. The fourth line refers to how we have given away our “hearts” for a dirty blessing; this means we have sold our very beings for material gain. The next three lines each make reference to the elements, “The Sea” represents the element of water, “The winds” make reference to the element of air, and “flowers” refer to the element of earth.
The eighth line tells that everything we are doing about the environment is wrong. The ninth line announces the poet's outrage at mankind. The remaining lines tell how the poet would rather be in a time period without the technological benefits, if only to see Nature. The Gods Triton and Proteus mentioned are personification of Nature herself.
Wordsworth wrote this poem during the time of the industrial revolution. It is interesting to see that this poem remains highly relevant in today’s environmentally conscious society.

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