With all the excessive advances in technology in the past decade, specifically in the social media like Facebook and Twitter, there have been a lot of concerns about us losing touch with the real world. Interestingly enough, even though “The World is too Much with Us” was published over two centuries ago, its theme is synonymous with the same idea of losing touch with nature. Right from the beginning the poet, William Wordsworth, is straightforward about his message. “The world is too much with us” he says “late and soon” (line 1). He points out that it is not just the problem of his time. With “late” he implies that this has happened before; adding on “soon” implicating that it will continue to happen in the future, and evidently, two hundred years later as we can see, he was right.
One way that Wordsworth portrays his sadness about how things are in the present and how they will be in the future is by consistently referencing the past. He uses his imagination and talks about the Greek gods Proteus rising from the sea and Triton blowing his shell horn. With these last two lines of the poem, Wordsworth accomplishes so many things. He draws an image of a simpler time where everyone was so in tuned with nature, such as, a god who controlled the sea and also the people that believed in that god. In doing so, Wordsworth himself is becoming one with nature as he looks across the sea.
Wordsworth does not ignore the fact that the theme of the poem, man versus nature, is probably very unpopular. In fact he acknowledges it. He easily says that he would “rather be a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn” emphasizing how terrible the times are now (lines 9 and 10). Although, I agree with Wordsworth, it is after reading his poem that I’ve changed my mind on this issue. I used to think that technology is the reason why we have lost touch with nature, but as we can see from this poem, we have had this problem even before all of these new inventions and ideas. I think what Wordsworth is trying to say is that the cause of this problem is not any worldly thing, but “us” ourselves.
I agree with you — the theme of the poem is nature. The whole poem shows that Wordsworth is a worshiper of Nature. In the poem, Wordsworth describes the sea and winds as human beings, he wants people to spend more time to getting along with nature. It just likes to make friends with them. In addition, Wordsworth helps readers paint a imagination of majestic seascape. However, he feels regretful because people seems that they can not be a part of nature because of their selfishness even they stand in the nature. On the contrary Wordsworth says that “I’d rather be a Pagan”, in order to express that he wish to be a part of the nature to enjoy his life.
I want to add something for you.
The author tells us to get along with nature and also appreciate it. “The World is too Much with Us” could also reflect a message that human beings are taken too much materials from nature, as he said “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”- People are too greedy, who want to take all the possible resource (food, woods, water, etc) from nature without appreciate it, and then we even waste it and destroy it. As a result, the author wants to raise our awareness and attention by telling that the Greek gods Proteus rising from the sea and Triton blowing his shell horn as a warning, if we do not take care of the nature and appreciate it, then the gods will punish us.
The author definitely feels sad about the current world, and he was right. Even today, some people still do not appreciate the resource that we have from nature. Instead, they are polluting and getting even further away from nature.
It intrigues me to see Wordsworth use the word ‘with’, and not ‘for’ in “The World Is Too Much with Us”. The wording is just a little detail but upon a closer inspection it seems to reveal Wordsworth’s intentions very well. If he chooses to write ‘For Us’ it would mean that the world is too much for us to bear, whereas “With Us” implies that the world itself is already sufficient and magnificent, and us human beings are redundant and helpless. The world is too much with us human beings, and therefore it emphasizes further the theme that we should not attempt to change nature.
However, we human beings are stubborn. Despise the fact that we are ‘wasting out powers’ in getting and spending, and there is ‘little in nature that is ours’ such as the sea, the moon and the winds, in other words, ‘for everything, we are out of tune’, ‘it moves us not’! We are not moved but the overwhelming powers of nature and still attempt to manipulate our surroundings. To this fact, Wordsworth exclaims “Great God!’ as we would rather be different, be something else, a Pagan whose chief beliefs and actions are to move with the flow and see the world at it is, primitive and pristine, with “Proteus rising from the sea” and “Triton blows his wreathed horn”.
I agree completely with your blog post especially your intro where in our current society, we are fixated on technology and refuse to acknowledge the beauty around us which is nature. “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” (Line 2). We continue to advance our society but at the same time, we continue to lose touch with nature. We build more buildings and roads but at the cost of trees, flowers, and every possible natural resources we can get our hands on. In the end, through our selfishness, we will slowly drive nature out of our lives. William Wordsworth predicted it two centuries ago and it wouldn’t be surprising if two centuries later, this poem continues to hold true. With how society is today, us devoid of nature in the near future would not be astonishing.
You make an interesting, blunt assertion when you say that what he says holds true today, 200 years later. My only problem with that is that 200 years ago, the world was a different place and people had less things going on in their lives. 200 years ago there was no technology to divert your attention from the world around you. There were only the things you did every day and you had no choice but to be in a less-developed society with much less pressure than there is now. Wordsworth would likely be suicidal if he lived today, because he would not be able to live in a world where the beauty of nature is far from prevalent in society today.