The World is too Much with Us

   
by William Wordsworth
Lines 1-2
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
 The poem opens with a complaint, saying that
the world is out of whack and that people are
destroying themselves with consumerism
("getting and spending").
 "The world is too much with us" sounds odd,
and could mean several things. It could mean
that the world – life in the city, contemporary
society – is just too much, as in "This is too
much for me, and I can't take it anymore."
 The "world" might refer to the natural world
instead of the city, in which case it would mean
that humanity is so busy that they don't have
time for the natural world because "it's too
much."
 It could also mean mankind or society is a
burden on the world, as in "there's not enough
 space for both man and the earth" or "mankind
has upset a delicate balance."
 "Late and soon" is a strange phrase. It could
mean "sooner or later," or it could mean we've
done this recently or in the past ("late") and will
do it in the future as well ("soon").
Lines 3-4
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
 The poem's tone of complaint continues as the
speaker describes a rift between nature and
humanity.
 We get a potential clue as to the identity of at
least one of those "powers" described in line 2:
the ability to feel, which we've lost because
we've given our hearts away.
 The phrase "little we see in Nature that is ours"
is tricky, and can mean several, related things.
We've become so absorbed in consumerism – in
another world – that we no longer seem a part of
nature.
 Alternatively, "Nature" can't be "got" or "spent"
– because it is isn't a commodity that is
 manufactured – so it doesn't seem like it has
anything to offer us.
 A "boon" is a reward, a benefit, or something for
which to be thankful. "Sordid" means "base" or
"vile." The speaker is being sarcastic here,
almost as if he were saying "wow it's so great
that we've handed over our hearts…not!"
Lines 5-8
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
 The poet elaborates on man's alienation from
nature, claiming that humanity is no longer
vulnerable to the influence of the "Sea," the
"winds," and basically everything else in nature.
 "Tune" is interesting. It can mean "out of tune,"
in the sense that we're out of touch with nature,
but it also suggests something like "attuned."
 The sea isn't literally taking her shirt off here;
the speaker is elegantly describing the ways in
which ocean-tides are affected by the moon, or
 just how the sea appears to him in its
relationship with the moon.
 The speaker describes the winds at rest; they are
"sleeping flowers" that will howl when they
wake up. Wait a minute, flowers? Howling?
Weird.
 "For" is more complicated than it looks. It can
mean both that we're not in the right tune "for"
the natural world, in the right frame of mind to
"get it."
 It could also mean "because," as in "because of
these things we're out of tune." The plot
thickens…
Lines 9-10
It moves us not. – Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 
 In some sonnets, including this one, important
things happen in the ninth line; there is a shift or
"turn" that moves the poem in another direction.
 While the speaker reiterates the claim he's been
making all along – humanity and nature are
alienated from one another – he also tells us how
 he wishes things were, at least for him,
personally.
 He appeals to the Christian God (the
capitalization means he has a specific,
monotheistic deity in mind) and says he'd rather
be a pagan who was raised believing in some
antiquated ("outworn"), primitive religion
("creed").
 To wish to be a pagan in 1807 – when the poem
was published – would be like saying, "I wish I
could wear clothes or do things that were in
fashion a thousand years ago."
 Wait a second, he'd rather be a pagan than what?
Than someone who isn't moved by nature?
Seems like it.
 "Suckled" just means "nursed at a breast" or
"nourished."
Lines 11-12
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
 The speaker explains why he would rather be a
pagan. If he were, then he could look at the land
 in front of him and see something that wouldn't
make him feel so lonely and sad ("forlorn").
 A "lea" is a meadow or open-grassland. Wait a
second, wasn't the speaker just telling us about
"this sea"? How did we get to the meadow?
Maybe he's standing in a meadow overlooking
the sea.
 The speaker wants "glimpses" of something, but
we don't know what; he suggests that if he were
a pagan he would only see things in snatches, for
a brief moment, in the blink of an eye.
 And this isn't even guaranteed; he says he
"might" have "glimpses."
Lines 13-14
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
 The speaker elaborates on those potential
"glimpses." He says he might see Proteus
coming out of the ocean or Triton blowing his
horn.
 Proteus is a sea god in Greek mythology. He had
the ability to prophesy the future, but didn't like
doing it. If someone grabbed a hold of him and
 tried to make him predict the future, he would
change his shape and try to get away. The
modern word "protean" – meaning variable or
changing a lot – comes from his name.
 Triton was a son of Poseidon, the Greek god of
the sea. He had a conch shell that he blew into in
order to excite or calm the waves.
 "Wreathed" means something like twisted,
sinewy, having coils; the "wreathed horn" is a
reference to Triton's conch shell.
 The World Is Too Much With Us by William
Wordsworth: Summary and Analysis
 The World Is Too Much With Us is a sonnet
by William Wordsworth is about the loss of
nature caused by humankind. People are
busy on getting and spending. For the
speaker, we waste our powers for
nothingness. For us, nature is little and
incomplete, People have given their hearts
away. This is a sordid boon. As the speaker
feels, the sea is in close relation to the
moon and the winds will be howling at all
hours. But people are out of such tune.
   
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
 Seeing all these, the speaker desires to be
a pagan so that he could stand on the
pleasant island and would have a glimpse of
the beautiful seashore. It would definitely
make him less sad. Similarly, chanting on
the sea land he could see Proteus rising
from the sea or could hear the blow of
Triton.
 The sonnet, ‘The World Is Too Much With
Us', is ironical in its representation of
humans in relation to nature. For the poet,
the nature is vast, large and indefinite
whereas it is incomplete, little and
insignificant to the people. Nature is offering
real pleasure and beauty to the people, but
people are running behind unseen and
artificial pleasure and beauty. It is the real
irony of human life that we never care what
 we have but we always desire for something
probable and possible. The same thing is
taking place in the life of modem people.
They have no time to consider and enjoy
the beauty of the sea, the moon and the
winds. Easily available and universal natural
beauties have been denied by people in the
course of getting and spending something
artificial, temporary, and inanimate. The
relationship between mankind and nature in
the present context is only ironical.
 The World Is Too Much With Us is a sonnet
written in Iambic pentameter. This sonnet is
in the pattern of Petrarchan model. This
sonnet is divided into two parts. The first
part is called octave and the second part is
sestet. The octave follows the rhyme
scheme of ABBA ABBA and the sestet
follows a rhyme scheme of CDCDCD. The
first part introduces the problem, whereas
the second part provides the solution. In this
poem, all the poetic lines are almost equal
in their length. The poet heavily depends on
the use of allusion and mythology. The word
'Pagan' refers to an ethnic man of Germanic
 root. Similarly, Proteus and Triton are the
names of two gods who are closely
associated with the myth of nature. In the
middle part of the poem, the phrase “Great
God” has been capitalized. It means the
speaker feels helpless in the human world
and he desires to be supported by the god.
The rhyme scheme has definitely supported
the poet to make it more persuasive. The
title of the poem has been repeated in the
very first line. By using the pronoun 'we', the
poet is also taking responsibility of such a
loss of nature. Most of the words like
'getting and spending' 'little' and 'forlorn'
indicate commerce and modernity. At two
different places, the poet takes the help of
exclamation mark "sordid boon"! and
"GREAT GOD"!.
 Overall, the poem is well organized with the
selection of proper diction. The poet has
balanced the number of syllabic words.
Wordsworth seems to have consciously
crafted this sonnet with proper consideration
of rhyme, rhythm and musicality.
The world is too much with us”
Summary
Angrily, the speaker accuses the modern age of
having lost its connection to nature and to everything
meaningful: “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!” He
says that even when the sea “bares her bosom to the
moon” and the winds howl, humanity is still out of
tune, and looks on uncaringly at the spectacle of the
storm. The speaker wishes that he were a pagan
raised according to a different vision of the world, so
that, “standing on this pleasant lea,” he might see
images of ancient gods rising from the waves, a sight
that would cheer him greatly. He imagines “Proteus
rising from the sea,” and Triton “blowing his
wreathed horn.”
Form
This poem is one of the many excellent sonnets
Wordsworth wrote in the early 1800s. Sonnets are
fourteen-line poetic inventions written in iambic
pentameter. There are several varieties of sonnets;
“The world is too much with us” takes the form of a
Petrarchan sonnet, modeled after the work of
Petrarch, an Italian poet of the early Renaissance. A
Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two parts, an
octave (the first eight lines of the poem) and a sestet
(the final six lines). The rhyme scheme of a
Petrarchan sonnet is somewhat variable; in this case,
the octave follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA,
and the sestet follows a rhyme scheme of CDCDCD.
In most Petrarchan sonnets, the octave proposes a
question or an idea that the sestet answers,
comments upon, or criticizes.
Commentary
“The world is too much with us” falls in line with a
number of sonnets written by Wordsworth in the
early 1800s that criticize or admonish what
Wordsworth saw as the decadent material cynicism
of the time. This relatively simple poem angrily
states that human beings are too preoccupied with
the material (“The world...getting and spending”)
and have lost touch with the spiritual and with
nature. In the sestet, the speaker dramatically
proposes an impossible personal solution to his
problem—he wishes he could have been raised as a
pagan, so he could still see ancient gods in the
actions of nature and thereby gain spiritual solace.
His thunderous “Great God!” indicates the extremity
of his wish—in Christian England, one did not often
wish to be a pagan.
On the whole, this sonnet offers an angry summation
of the familiar Wordsworthian theme of communion
with nature, and states precisely how far the early
nineteenth century was from living out the
Wordsworthian ideal. The sonnet is important for its
rhetorical force (it shows Wordsworth’s increasing
confidence with language as an implement of
dramatic power, sweeping the wind and the sea up
like flowers in a bouquet), and for being
representative of other poems in the Wordsworth
canon—notably “London, 1802,” in which the
speaker dreams of bringing back the dead poet John
Milton to save his decadent era.