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.

An Analysis of William Wordsworth’s The World Is Too Much With Us: Objective/Formalistic Theory

In the poem “The World Is Too Much With Us”, the writer uses a lot of imagery and figures of speech in his poem to deliver to us the underlying message of the poem. The poem is filled with the author’s passion for nature and his plea towards the society. In the opening line of the poem- “The world is too much with us; late and soon,” the writer shows to us how each man is connected to nature. In the first line, the words which Wordsworth used describes the changes happened. The word late refers to the past generation when people live simply while the word soon refers to what may happen in the future.

         We can infer in the poem the imagery used by the writer by the lines -“This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon”. - this line suggests that nature is given to us freely by the heaven. It is evident in the lines -“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!" that the writer is in dismay of man’s action towards nature. He cite out the greed acts man had done just to have the earthly possessions he wants but in-exchange man had destroy the beauty of nature and sold his substancial task to protect his environment.

         Wordsworth points out that people’s mentality had been covered by the measure of practicality, in that, mankind had become too much obsessive in making progress abandoning nature by the changes brought by materialism. In the 6^th, 7^th and 8^th line of the poem he emphasizes the changes in our environment (such as pollution) and how mankind destroyed the harmonious relationship between man and nature. The writer is trying to tell us that man have become insensitive to the need and beauty of nature and the vulnerability of nature in the power of man over them in the line “And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;”. It may also signify that the writer wants the people to realize the importance of nature. The 8^th line of the poem shows the punishments given to us by God in the form of calamities and disasters, but still amid it all people are still deaf to the cries of nature-“For this, For everything, we are out of tune. It move us not”.

         The lines-“Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;” shows the great disgust the writer felt towards his fellowmen. He may felt that he may rather be an uncivilized person without a wholesome belief and intelligence than to be a part of a society where people are destroying nature. In his poem, Wordsworth also made use of figures of speech as what was depicted in the line “we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon”. It is ironic since he made use of the contradicting words such as sordid and boon. The word sordid means morally degraded or selfish while the word boon means something that is useful and beneficial. This gives us the idea that the significance of the 4^th line is that human materialism and progress could be beneficial for us as these things gave us pleasure. On the other hand, these things may also bring us pain and destruction. The last four lines shows us the point wherein the writer hopes for humankind to bring back their relationship towards the natural world like how we treat nature before mankind had succumb into industrialization-“So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;” , this line also gives the readers a picture of the Wordsworth standing at a point where he can clearly see the wonderful sites of nature which helps him forget his melancholy for the nature whom people in contemporary societies have gradually destroy. A view he was clearly in-touch with nature. In the 13^th and 14^th line of the poem, he made use of an allusion using two characters from Greek mythology. The first one was Proteus - is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea" and the other one was Triton- a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the sea. Proteus is known for his capability to transform himself in many shapes. Triton is often described as a God who trumpets on a shell. In his poem, he used the images of sea Gods as messengers of nature. I guess the writer selected sea gods as messengers to represent life or birth. It is because water has always been a symbol of new beginnings and when the sea gods rise from their watery depths to correct the excesses of humanity, a great change will take place. By the allusions used by the writer, what I infer from the last two lines is the plea or message of the writer to the modern era. The writer may not be totally against with the changes bought by industrializations and materialism but what he wanted is that humans should be able to handle variety of changes but not forgetting the gift of life.

          The speaker in "The World Is Too Much With Us" could be an environmentalist or someone who also have deep passion for nature. Somehow, by the way the poem is written I think the writer himself is the speaker of the poem. Wordsworth wants people to celebrate the gifts given to us by the Gods amidst of the modern time we have. By the words used by the writer and how the poem was formed, greed, materialism and lack of respect for nature came in my mind.