Nature vs. The Modern World in William

Nature vs. The Modern World in William Wordsworth's

"The World Is Too Much With Us"

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was an English poet and writer widely-acclaimed for his literary works during the English Romantic era. Born on April 7, 1770, in Cumberland, England, Wordsworth was born to an affluent family, and grew up in great commune with nature, because Cumbersome is an area that is often termed as a 'rustic society,' and his growing up years was spent within its (Cumbersome) confines. In fact, Wordsworth's love of nature is reflected in his activities while still a young man: he "enjoyed hiking," and tramping along the Cumberland country, and whenever he has the chance, Wordsworth explores nature by trekking along different places (examples of these places are France, Switzerland, and Germany, all of whom he had visited in 1790) (Everett 2000). His love for nature is also deeply reflected in his poetry, and Wordsworth, due to his theme of nature and use of personification in most of his major works in poetry, became known as Romantic Nature Poets (Beal 1991). He was known as a Nature Poet because of his use of different forms of nature in his poems. Further, he personifies each form of nature, giving it a life of its own, and sometimes, becomes the central focus and theme of the poem. Wordsworth is also a Romantic poet because of his use of emotions in most of his poems; and by utilizing different punctuations at the end of each line in his poems, Wordsworth was able to convey his message and feelings effectively, in the same manner that he was able to express his emotions through the use of nature and personifying them. This paper will discuss in depth the style and theme of nature and personification in a sonnet that Wordsworth composed in 1807, which is entitled, "The World is Too Much With Us." The discussion would include an analysis of Wordsworth's message in the poem, and how he was able to use nature as an effective vehicle to illustrate his emotions (anger, sorrow, happiness, etc.). Thus, the poem "The World" will be analyzed according to its use of nature and its personification, and the existence of turmoil in Wordsworth's emotion in the poem.

"The World" starts with the lines that indicate Wordsworth's primary dilemma, which is, that the world has become "too much" with the existence of human beings, although in these lines, he hasn't offered any explanation as to why he exclaimed this statement. However, the next three lines establish his reason for his sorrow: the world becomes too much because of us human beings, because we absorbed ourselves too much in the 'new world,' a world wherein prosperity and happiness can be achieved through material wealth ("Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;). He also comments on the fact that today's modern society sees "little' in nature, which means we do not value nature's importance in our lives anymore, since nature will not provide the people with the material comfort they longed to have. With this line, Wordsworth exclaims, "We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" This exclamation by Wordsworth illustrates his anger to the frivolous people who seem to value more the benefits of the new world (technology and advancement) than the solace and 'child-like' quality of the nature. In fact, when Wordsworth exclaimed, "we have given our hearts away," he meant that the part of us that characterizes nature (peaceful, beautiful, and innocent) were taken away because of our immature behavior towards economic progress. Through these lines in his poem, Wordsworth was able to extend to his readers his preference of nature (a natural world) over the new world and society he lives in. The fifth line of the poem starts now with a personification of nature. Anger and sorrow is evident through nature's personification ("This sea that bare her bosom to the moon / The winds… howling… at all hours / & #8230;gathered now like sleeping flowers / It moves us not."), and most of the actions nature partook in the poem is an expression of grief and sorrow because they are no longer valued and deemed important in the eyes of the people. Wordsworth becomes more expressive of his feelings when he stated that he'd "rather be / A pagan suckled in creed outworn / So might… have glimpses that would make me less forlorn," and in these lines, he tells everybody that he'd rather go back to ancient times when everything and everybody is involved and treats nature with great importance, since pagans are known to be nature-worshippers, and Wordsworth express approval of a pagan-like society (primitive living) than live in a modern one. The poem ends with Wordsworth's use of mythology, an expression of nature's superiority over any other elements in this world. The last two lines of the poem ("Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea / Or hear old Triton blow his wreathes horn") tells the readers that nature will not suffer for long, instead, nature will get back to the atrocities modern society has given them, and their wrath is even more dangerous than what Wordsworth was able to express in this poem. Proteus (a sea god capable of taking many shapes) and Triton (a sea god also, depicted as trumpeting on a shell) are used to illustrate nature's extraordinary power over modernism and advancement (Brians 1998). And in these statements, the poem finally ends with an avenging tone of future destruction if modern society will not refrain from their destructive activities on nature.