The World Is Too Much With Us

William Wordsworth’s sonnet, “The World Is Too Much with Us” appears in chapter seven of Digging Into Literature in the middle of the discussion about context. On the surface level, the poem might be difficult to interpret because of its direct references and allusions. But a little research on Wordsworth’s background gives clarity to the deeper argument made in the poem. He was an English poet who is credited with being one of the fathers of Romanticism in English Literature during the late 18th century. Romantic literature is characterised by its emphasis on imagination and emotion, specifically its appreciation for the natural world. Additionally, in the late 18th century and well into the 19th century, England, where Wordsworth is from, was having its First Industrial Revolution. This was a time when large machine-operated factories were …show more content…
With industrialization came a greater appreciation for material possessions and less appreciation for the natural wonders of the world. In this poem, The speaker in this poem bemoans this lack of attention that humans are giving to the nature, possibly as a result of their focused attention on industrialized society. The poem, which is structured as a Petrarchan sonnet in iambic pentameter, is standard of the types of work that defined the Romantic age in English Literature.
At first glance, the title, which also happens to be the first line in the poem, “The World Is Too Much with Us” seems like a grammatical anomaly. When I initially read it I thought that it should be “The World Is Too for Us” because in common