critical appreciation of the world is too much with us by william

wordsworth
Analysis

"The world is too much with us" is a sonnet with an abbaabbacdcdcd rhyme scheme. The poem is
written from a place of angst and frustration. All around him, Wordsworth sees people who are
obsessed with money and with manmade objects. These people are losing their powers of divinity, and
can no longer identify with the natural world. This idea is encapsulated in the famous lines: "Getting and
spending, we lay waste our powers; / Little we see in Nature that is ours." Wordsworth believes that we
have given our hearts (the center of ourselves) away in exchange for money and material wealth. He is
disgusted at this especially because nature is so readily available; it almost calls to humanity. In the end,
Wordsworth decides that he would rather be a pagan in a complete state of disillusionment than be out
of touch with nature.

The final image of the poem is of Wordsworth standing on a lea (or a tract of open land) overlooking the
ocean where he sees Proteus and Triton. He is happy, but this happiness is not what the reader is meant
to feel. In actuality, the reader should feel saddened by the scene, because Wordsworth has given up on
humanity, choosing instead to slip out of reality.

OR

The World Is Too Much With Us is a sonnet written in Iambic pentameter. This sonnet is in the
pattern of Petrarchan model. This sonnet is divided into two parts. The first part is called octave and
the second part is sestet. The octave follows the rhyme scheme of ABBA ABBA and the sestet
follows a rhyme scheme of CDCDCD. The first part introduces the problem, whereas the second
part provides the solution. In this poem, all the poetic lines are almost equal in their length. The poet
heavily depends on the use of allusion and mythology. The word 'Pagan' refers to an ethnic man of
Germanic root. Similarly, Proteus and Triton are the names of two gods who are closely associated
with the myth of nature. In the middle part of the poem, the phrase “Great God” has been capitalized.
It means the speaker feels helpless in the human world and he desires to be supported by the god.
The rhyme scheme has definitely supported the poet to make it more persuasive. The title of the
poem has been repeated in the very first line. By using the pronoun 'we', the poet is also taking
responsibility of such a loss of nature. Most of the words like 'getting and spending' 'little' and 'forlorn'
indicate commerce and modernity. At two different places, the poet takes the help of exclamation
mark "sordid boon"! and "GREAT GOD"!.
Overall, the poem is well organized with the selection of proper diction. The poet has balanced the
number of syllabic words. Wordsworth seems to have consciously crafted this sonnet with proper
consideration of rhyme, rhythm and musicality.