Humanities Engagement 3

Option 4: Historic Trends in Literature

Jana Koh

HUMS 2233

July 26, 2022

Text 1: The World Is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth1 (1807)

The World Is Too Much With Us is a sonnet written by William Wordsworth when he was 32

years old and published in the year 1807. This time period is the beginning of the growth of

Industrialization where agriculture and cottage industry was in decline and the rural way of life

was slowly being taken over by factory work and mass production. During that time, England

saw a sudden influx of new invention and technology such as the steam engine as well as textile

factories, and America soon followed suit. The World Is Too Much With Us is Wordsworth’s

concerned response to this fast-changing economy and its effects on the human spirit.

Text 2: I Am The People, The Mob by Carl Sandburg2 (1916)

I Am The People is a lyrical poem where Sandburg expresses his feelings based on his personal

experience coming from a poor, working-class family. He uses this poem also as a voice for the

working class and speaks to the power that the group has. During that time, society’s elites were

threatened by the expansion of the working class and had been successfully stifling their voice

and political influence. I Am The People is Sandburg’s taking a stand for an audience of people

that were not part of the higher, wealthier social classes, and were instead oppressed by them. It

is almost like an anthem for the working class, to recognize their own worth and create

awareness of the issue of inequality during that time.

Text 3: What Work Is by Philip Levine3 (1991)

What Work Is is a free-verse poem with no set rhyme scheme or meter, describing workers like

himself waiting in line for an interview – for the chance to work. Through the course of the

nineteenth and twentieth century, the Industrial Revolution created a huge industrial working
1
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us
2
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45036/i-am-the-people-the-mob
3
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52173/what-work-is
class., which included skilled artisans in certain trades as well as semi- and un-skilled laborers,

though they were uniformly identified by their poor working conditions and welfare.

By the end of the twentieth century, the 1990s saw an upturn in economy but employment

situation for blue-collar workers is still playing catch-up. What Work Is is a reflection of

Levine’s personal experience of the working class, and reveals his reason, like most other

workers, for working so hard, that it is more for the people he cares for than materialism.

In all these texts, there is a common theme of the effects of modernism on man. These

three poems were all written in different historical contexts yet speak of the same issues and

struggles. In Wordsworth’s The World Is Too Much With Us, published the earliest of the three,

the speaker laments the wasting away of humanity due to industrial work in his diction through

the use of the phrase “a sordid boon,” and juxtaposes the man-made with the natural by using

motifs of nature such as the “sea” and “winds”. While the first text is written with a tone of

passivity, almost to the point of resignation and hopelessness, the second text I Am The People,

The Mob carries an assertive and hopeful tone. At this time, society had already progressed and

gotten used to seeing more factories than farms, but a new problem of oppression and

mistreatment arises. The power in the tone is achieved through Sandburg’s freedom in the

structure of the poem, where every line is almost like its own prose, each line a declarative

statement. While Sandburg’s use of free verse demonstrates a desire to be removed from

restrictive structures that limit the influence and ability of the working class, Levine uses free

verse and enjambment in What Work Is to create a sense of intimacy as it invites the readers to

follow along his train of thought. Levine writes from a position of dignity and self-realization by

addressing its own question backwards, while the other two texts aim to create external change.
Bibliography

Levine, Philip. 1991. "What Work Is". Poetry Foundation.

Sandburg, Carl. 1916. "I Am The People, The Mob". Poetry Foundation.

Wordsworth, William. 1807. "The World Is Too Much With Us". Poetry Foundation.