The World Is Too Much With Us William Wordsworth

Poem The world is too much with us; late and soon, 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!

Poem 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;

Poem 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;

Poem Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Poem Analysis Type of Poem; Sonnet Meaning; The first line, “The world is too much for us”, there’s too much in the world for us to be able to appreciate everything. It is overwhelming, at the same time we are not putting in effort to appreciate what is around us, we are too busy working our lives away and too concerned about money and materialistic goods. Poem Analysis

Imagery - IMAGE: “Little we see in Nature that is ours” (line 3) MEANING: We our too busy wasting our time and energy, we have no time to see and appreciate what’s around us, like nature. - IMAGE: ”Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” (line 2) MEANING: All we do is work, get money, and spend it. We are too materialistic, it’s a waste. None of this actually matters. - IMAGE:” We have given our hearts away” (line 4) MEANING: All we do is work and slave away, we are no longer individuals. We are all the same, trying to fit into society and to assimilate. Imagery

Lyric Qualities Rhyme scheme a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a, c-d-c-d, c-d. Alliteration; “The winds that will be howling at all hours” (line 6) The W is repeated in winds and will. Assonance: “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” (line 2) The e sound is repeated throughout this line. Lyric Qualities

Simile and personification; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers (line 6-7) Meaning; That nature is always around us at all hours but we never notice any of it, like sleeping flowers. Metaphor: “We have given our hearts away” (line 4) Meaning: Comparing our hearts to our liveliness. We have given everything we love away, we only work. Metaphor: For this, for everything, we are out of tune (line 8) Meaning: our society is out of tune, we are out of touch with each other and the rest of the world. Figurative Language

Theme Theme We are too busy trapped in our work, that we are unable to appreciate the simple things in life that surround us everyday. Our society needs to stop over working and not concentrating on materialistic goods.