The+World+Is+Too+Much+with+Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon, media type="youtube" key="3HHP8lBpE6g" height="280" width="462" align="right" Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. (Chapter 3 page 603 in the textbook)
 * "The World Is Too Much With Us" **
 * By: William Wordsworth **

The [|video] to depicts "The World is Too Much with Us" through a series of drawings

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ** Historical Context **
 * Wordsworth grew up with a fond appreciation for nature [[image:http://www.poets.org/sites/default/files/styles/286x289/public/images/biographies/wwordswo.jpg?itok=s8eJ4z7a width="257" height="260" align="right" caption="William Wordsworth" link="@http://www.poets.org/sites/default/files/styles/286x289/public/images/biographies/wwordswo.jpg?itok=s8eJ4z7a"]]
 * "The World is too Much with Us" was published in 1807
 * England, Wordsworth's home, was the center of [|industrialization]

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ** Biography **
 * Raised in mountains of [|Cumberland] where he spent a lot of time outdoors.
 * Went on a walking tour of Europe before his final semester at [|St. John’s College in Cambridge]
 * Came in contact with the French Revolution, chaos inspired him to turn to philosophy
 * Gained sympathy for the common man’s life, an aspect of Romanticism.
 * Works on [|Lyrical Ballads] with Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 * Written in a language that most men understand.
 * [|Romanticism]was a cultural movement during the dual French and Industrial Revolutions that focused on inspiration, the individual, and the[| creative genius].
 * Became Poet Laureate in England.

** Analysis ** > >> > >> > >> >>> >> >>> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >>> >>> >> >>> > >> >> >  >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >>> >> >>> > >> >>> >> >>> > >> >>> >> >>> > >> >> >>
 * Theme **
 * Humans’ technology has prioritized materialism over natural appreciation
 * “Little we see in Nature that is ours” (3)
 * Humans’ destructive ignorance to their surroundings
 * “We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon” (4)
 * Imagery **
 * Visual
 * “This sea that bares her bosom to the moon” (5)
 * Personifying the sea creates a provocative image to showcase the sea’s relationship with the moon to create tides.
 * “Standing on this pleasant lea” (11)
 * A lea is an open meadow and the shift from water to land in the speaker’s descriptions provides glimpses of nature, demonstrating nature’s ever-present beauty.
 * Auditory
 * “Winds that will be howling at all hours” (6)
 * Howling contrasts with the image of the wind sleeping like flowers. This adjustment highlights the turbulence of human interference that has irritated the natural progression of life.
 * Personification
 * “Sea that bares her bosom to the moon” (5)
 * The personification shows a natural relationship between the moon and the sea to create tides, and man depends on those tides to transport goods, yet he lacks appreciation for natural order.
 * Simile
 * Winds “are up-gathered like sleeping flowers” (7)
 * This simile depicts the winds being controlled by an external force, a force greater than humans themselves.
 * Allusion
 * “Proteus rising from the sea” (13)
 * Proteus is a Greek sea god with the ability to form prophecies; however, he could change his shape to avoid giving prophecies.
 * The word “protean” means changing often and comes from this god, similarly the poem identifies consumerism as the changing force in society and the speaker’s desire to change society again.
 * “Triton blow his wreathed horn” (14)
 * Triton was also a Greek god, but he held a conch shell to control the waves.
 * Oxymoron
 * “Sordid boon” (4)
 * Sordid means vile, but a boon is a reward. This contrast shows that Wordsworth is ridiculing the way people have given up nature for consumerism and materialism.
 * Meter **
 * Form
 * Petrarchan sonnet
 * A Petrarchan sonnet contains an octave and a sestet with the ninth line marking a shift in the poem’s direction.
 * Meter
 * Iambic pentameter
 * Most lines have five feet with one unstressed and one stressed syllable. However, there are some lines that begin with a stressed syllable to vary the poem.
 * Structure
 * Octave and sestet with a //volta//
 * The ninth line (//volta//) contains a shift from complaining about humans’ alienation to the way the speaker wishes things could be for him. Petrarchan sonnets often use the ninth line to identify a poetic shift.
 * Rhyme Scheme
 * ABBA ABBA CDCDCD
 * This rhyme structure is characteristic of Petrarchan sonnets, with the ninth line marking the beginning of a new rhyme scheme
 * Emotion **
 * Tone
 * “We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon” (4)
 * Complaining that abandoning natural instinct, the speaker identifies part of the power that is being laid to waste in line 2.
 * Shift in lines 8-9: “we are out of tune” to “I’d rather be/ a pagan
 * The tone shift is indicates that following an ancient religion is more favorable than being someone immune to nature.
 * Mood
 * “We lay waste our powers” (2)
 * People are too materialistic and they are allowing their skills to die because are too focused on new technology and materialism.
 * “Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn” (12)
 * There is also a sense of nostalgia, Wordsworth wants to return to the way life was thousands of years ago when none of the distracting technology existed.
 * Diction
 * “Getting and spending” (2)
 * Getting and spending rather than “buying” implies an intoxicating, wasteful cycle of materialism.
 * “Wreathed” (4)
 * Wreathed literally means twisted or having coils and connotes royalty, like the wreathed crown Greeks wore, and it also identifies Triton’s shell.
 * Connotation
 * “The world is too much with us” (1)
 * Being “too much” connotes a sense of inundating pressure from the city.
 * “World” could indicate nature instead of the city, which would mean that humans are too preoccupied to appreciate nature.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Works Cited

"Romanticism." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2015.

Shmoop Editorial Team. "The World Is Too Much with Us." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 04 Mar. 2015.

"William Wordsworth." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2015.

Wordsworth, William. "The World Is Too Much with Us." Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. By Thomas R. Arp and Laurence Perrine. Fort xxxxxxx Worth: Harcourt Brace College, 1998. 603. Print.