-
Essay / Wordsworth: Nature is Ours - 1045
William Wordsworth, born in 1770, was a poet of the Romantic period. Before graduating from St. John's College, he traveled throughout Europe, which intensified his love of nature and influenced his poetry. In his Petrarchan sonnet, “The World is Too Much with Us,” Wordsworth explains that society is corrupt because it focuses more on luxuries than on nature. To get his message across, he emphasized a change of point of view. In this change he goes from complaint to reprimand. Wordsworth uses figurative language and allusions to express his feeling that “as society changes, so do its values” (saifjw). In William Wordsworth's poem, "The World is Too Much With Us," the point of view begins in the second person. In the first part, Wordsworth personifies the ocean and the winds to explain that society is no longer affected by nature. “This sea which reveals its breast to the moon” (line 5) explains the beauty of nature but no one takes the time to notice it because they are too busy with materialistic objects. Wordsworth points out that the winds that “howled at all hours” (line 6) are now confined to one place and go unnoticed “like sleeping flowers” (line 7). A possible interpretation of this would be that at one time the winds were blowing and people were attentive to nature, but now nature is hidden because society no longer notices the beauty of the landscape. In the first two lines of “The World is Too Much with Us,” Wordsworth complains that the world is too obsessed with “obtaining and spending” (line 2) artificial goods that have no meaning; citizens fear being “late and early” due to their busy schedules; “we are in the middle of a sheet of paper...ultimately means being human” (Dickie). Study guides for Shakespeare and other authors. 2007. Internet. February 25, 2012..Dickie, Jordan. ““The World is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth: analysis. » Blog post. The world is too much with us Analysis, William Wordsworth.BestWord, 2010. Web. February 25, 2012..Saifjw. - Essay. Representative OPPapers, May 8, 2011. Web. February 25, 2012."William Wordsworth." Web log publication. : The Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation, 2011. Internet. February 25. 2012..