An Analysis of William Wordsworth’s The World Is Too Much With Us : Mimetic Theory & Expressive theory
In his poem, Wordsworth shows us what he had seen in the society where he belong. By using the art of poetry he gives us a picture of what mankind had done to nature. At first it would be very impossible for the readers to think that what Wordsworth had written a long time ago could really be happening right now. As the rate of industrialization in the world today grows faster, the writer shows to us his personal desire of loving nature and the reality of how most people nowadays do unthinkable acts of destroying his environment without thinking about the future.
The poem also shows us the harsh truth that nature is vulnerable against the power (greed) of humans. Wordsworth is showing us that nature is very essential for us humans that we should take good care of it. It is evident in the poem that the materialistic desires of human and the emergence of industrial revolution makes our world today too much for us to live a happy life with the beauty of nature around us. People nowadays make so much progression just to satisfy their own wants, in that, they had devastated nature without second thoughts. The poem copies the reality that humans did so many changes in their environment to make the world nicer and more comfortable for them but as they do it a lot of nice things turn out bad. It also depicts the doings of those who are seeking more from their lives the things they really need from industry, progress, and financial gain. People had made the world too wild for them to live.
The poem contains symbols and images to reveal the animalistic treatment of humans towards nature. It shows how people bury their responsibilities with ignorance and reflects with the current civilization we have in which man have been suffering the revenge of nature. In this poem, the writer brings his anger about man’s disrespect for nature and his cynism towards the progression man had done. It is not only humanity's inability to "see" anything in nature that so depresses the writer, it is also our inability to be moved by it. Such insensibility is, for the speaker of the poem, a sad sight. The poem is written from a deep feeling of frustration in a way that he is trying to express his great dismay towards the “too much” modernization by blaming it as the reason why humans lost its harmonious relationship with nature. All around him, Wordsworth sees people who are obsessed with money and with manmade objects. These people are losing their powers of divinity, and can no longer identify his divine connection with nature.
Expressive theory
In order to fully understand the poem, I have gathered some knowledge about the writer and how he lived. William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads. In his poems Wordsworth sought to break the pattern of artificial situations of eighteenth-century poetry, which had been written for the upper classes, and to write in simple, straightforward language for the common man. He had traveled in his youth to France and fell in love with a French girl Annette Vallon whom he impregnated. He leaved Annette behind and never met his daughter Anne Caroline until ten years later. He never married Annette but did support her and Anne Caroline throughout his life. The body of his works is vast. Wordsworth defined poetry as the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," intense "emotion recollected in tranquillity."
Wordsworth is one of the Romantic poets, who clearly shows their feelings in their poems and this poem is no exception. Many of his poems were published after his death; however, he didn’t publish much during his life as well. Wordsworth was concerned with the common man and by how the individual was affected by society. He was well educated, traveled extensively, and often dedicated his poetry to people, places and events. William Wordsworth loved nature and based many of his poems on it. He uses very strong diction to get his point and feelings.
He had spent his childhood in a mountainous place where he developed his love for nature and led him to his view that humankind must get in touch with nature in order to progress spiritually. The lifestyle he had reminds him to always remember the deep connection of humans and nature. It also led him to his belief that human beings are born with perfect gifts from nature and that nature should is not something humans should destruct instead it is something humans should together live with harmony. He had lost both of his parents when he was young and remained close to his sister. In his time, Wordsworth was caught in the middle of political misunderstandings. His life by that time must have seemed very noisy and out of control. The term romantic was applied to Wordsworth and his fellows much later by scholars. In his poems, his emotions are evident and his devotion to nature. Like his other poems such as the Daffodils, the used of imagery was also dominant. Wordsworth’s idea and view of life as an adult and his memories of childhood greatly was greatly reflected in this poem “The World Is Too Much With Us” but through this poem, he is able to relive the most important thing to him- a communion with nature.