Buffl

Lecture 3 - British Literature

JG
by Janina G.

The World is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth (1807)


The world is too much with us; late and soon,

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!

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;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

  • Sonnet 14 lines

  • ABBA ABBA CDCDCD as the rhyme scheme (European Sonnet not in the Style by Shakespeare)

    • octave

    • sestet

  • Iambic Pentameter

    • 5 x unstressed - stressed

  • Enjambment

    • verse that does not come to an end at a line break; rather, it rolls over to the next line

  • Personification

    • attribute human characteristics to non-human

  • Allusion

    • indirect or direct reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, political or literary significance

  • metaphor

    • comparison of things (represents the mother)

  • World is too much for us

    • Humans are too much for the world

    • Critic on rationalism and industrialization

  • We are disconnected from nature

    • Nature is beautiful and we don’t even realize it

    • We don’t own nature

  • Nature is above us

  • Different gods and religious views

    • Spirituality is everywhere and not just in religion

  • Talking about the individual (individual I)


Author

Janina G.

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