The World Is Too Much Without Us Analysis

The romanticism movement was a popular literary movement that celebrated the natural world and its beauty. In the poem The World is too Much Without Us, written by William Wordsworth, these concepts are displayed while at the same time the author mourns the fact that mankind has lost the wonder it once held for the beauty of the natural world. This poem is a perfect example of the romantic movement as it displays a number of characteristics popular in the genre.
Before one can delve into how both the poem at hand and the Romantic era relate, one must first understand what the period itself meant and continues to mean for people and the literary world. Romanticism began in the twentieth century, the genre created in response to both the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. Both events held their own enormous impacts on the societies involved, just as Romanticism continues …show more content…
In it the author complains that the world is now to overwhelming to appreciate the natural world, additionally upset that mankind is so concerned with time and money that all people’s energy is used up. He claims that because people are now so focused on material objects they no longer see anything worthwhile in nature. As shown in line 4, Wordsworth even goes as far as to say that man has sold their hearts and souls to material objects, stating “We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”. Once he has explained his grief to the audience he wishes to be a pagan so he could see the magic that man once did in the world. This desire is meant to convey the message that since men of the old world, such as those who followed the Greek and Roman religions, had magical beings and explanations for everything in their life. They still worshiped and admired the beauty in nature over mechanical, engineered and material objects that Wordsworth condemns people for loving at