SANDU MIHAELA ANDREEA

First of all, The World Is Too Much with Us" is a sonnet by the English Romantic poet William
Wordsworth. In it, Wordsworth criticises the world of the First Industrial Revolution for being absorbed
in materialism and distancing itself from nature. On the other hand, Shelley's poem imagines a meeting
between the narrator and a 'traveller' who describes a ruined statue he - or she - saw in the middle of a
desert somewhere.

In “The World Is Too Much With Us,” the speaker describes humankind’s relationship with the
natural world in terms of loss. Likewise in Shelly's poetry the relationship with nature is rendered by the
presence of the statue. The description of the statue is a meditation on the fragility of human power and
on the effects of time.

Emphasizing the same idea the poem opens with a complaint, saying that the world is out of
whack and that people are destroying themselves with consumerism ("getting and spending").( ‘’The
world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.’’)

In my opinion, the weakening connection between humankind and nature is emphasized in the
metaphor “we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon” which is also an oxymoron. Sordid suggests
the worst aspects of human nature such as immorality, selfishness and greed, while a boon is something
that functions as a blessing or benefit.

Although the two poems utilize imagination in narration, they differ in terms of the styles used.
Wordsworth uses personification as an effective strategy of narration( ‘’ dancing in the breeze…tossing
their heads in sprightly dane’’) . The Ozymandias utilizes metaphors to create a picture of
characterization.

The World is Too Much With Us is a Petrarchan sonnet recognizable by the rhyme scheme and
the eight/six line format. On the other hand, Ozymandias, is written in iambic pentameter and the
rhyme scheme is initially Shakespearean, as the first four lines rhyme ABAB. But then the poem gets
strange: at lines 5-8 the rhyme scheme is ACDC, rather than the expected CDCD. For lines 9-12, the
rhyme scheme is EDEF, rather than EFEF.

In conclusion, the two poems have as a common theme-the interaction with nature which is
presented in different ways. The two poets used similar and different tools in their styles of exploring
the theme of romanticism.