The World Is Too Much For Us Tone

The World Is Too Much For Us In his poem, “The World Is Too Much For Us,” William Wordsworth demonstrates a Romanticist point of view when he tells the reader that the world is too focused on materialistic items to appreciate what nature has to offer. Wordsworth’s message comes through clearly with his use of vivid imagery and strong tone in his poem. Overall, “The World Is Too Much For us,” is an Italian Sonnet, which means it is written in iambic pentameter. Wordsworth's poem consists of one octave and a sestet. The speaker’s tone is the most dynamic and prominent during the octave. His tone first comes across as stern when his opening lines consist of antitheses. The speaker says, “late and soon,” and “Getting and spending,” showing that the world is too focused on consumerism presently, just like it had been previously and most likely in …show more content…
The sestet begins with a hyperbole when the speaker says, “I’d rather be a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn.” This hyperbole puts a vivid image in the reader's mind of the kind of life the speaker would prefer to live rather than ignoring the beauty of nature. Later, another image is portrayed when the speaker mentions standing on a “pleasant lea.” This word choice displays an image of nature at it finest, further encouraging the need for appreciation of the environment. It also contradicts the image of what the world was becoming and the nature that was being destroyed because of buildings and factories during the time the poem was written. At the end of the Sonnet, Wordsworth alludes to Proteus and Triton to further conclude his image of Paganism. His choice to drag this image on for the entire sestet emphasizes his feelings about nature being taken from him. He even states, “glimpses that would make me less forlorn,” to show that materialism cannot be as big as a benefit to the average person’s happiness as naturalism can