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Elective English–I

Notes Why Should I Care?

Despite that little gap of about 200 years, the Romantic poets speak to us more than you might
think. Take “The World is too Much with Us” as an example. Possibly now more than ever,
people are obsessed with “getting and spending.” The rise of the Internet has made anything
we want, from groceries to video games, just a click away. If Internet shopping isn’t your
thing, just think about the number of strip malls and stores that you could potentially visit on
any given day. Why bother with nature when you could wander around the mall or download
a movie? That is precisely the attitude that irritated Wordsworth so much.
Now, let’s face it – a lot of us appreciate the natural world, but ever-increasing urbanization
has made nature more and more remote. For some of us, it feels like we have to drive for
hours just to get to a place where there aren’t a ton of street lights obstructing our view of the
stars. Even though the government works hard to preserve some of the choicer parts of the
natural world through natural parks, wildlife preserves, and the like, no one can deny that
cities are getting bigger; bigger cities means more shops, parking lots, and freeways, and a lot
less nature.
William Wordsworth was an advocate for nature, and nowadays there is certainly no shortage
of activists that make similar claims as Wordsworth. Sure, there are a number of differences,
such as the fact that modern-day environmentalists tend to focus on how the ozone layer and
forests are necessary if humanity is to avoid getting skin cancer or running out of fresh air.
While things like pollution and the ozone layer weren’t understood in Wordsworth’s time as
well as they are now, the fundamental issues are the same. Both Wordsworth and his modern-
day ancestors realize that there is something in nature that keeps us alive and healthy, whether
literally (modern activists) or spiritually (Wordsworth).

7.1 The World is Too Much With Us–A Discussion

In “The World Is Too Much with Us,” William Wordsworth offers his reader a sonnet, albeit
an idiosyncratic one that deliberately ignores or adapts the traditional sonnet conventions to
convey its theme. The sonnet is typically a poem composed of fourteen lines that features two
“movements”: an octave, or opening set of eight lines, that presents a dilemma or conflict, the
resolution to which is offered in the closing sestet, or set of six lines. Besides this structural convention,
the traditional Italian sonnet, which is the basic form the poet builds upon, also features an
abba, abba, cde, cde rhyme scheme, in which each letter represents a new end rhyme for each line.
Wordsworth elects, however, to manipulate both conventions and substitute his own formula
instead. Rather than the traditional octave and sestet, there is only a brief break, or caesura,
in line 9 to distance the previous lines from those that follow; the effect is that the reader
immediately is transported into the climactic declaration of line 9. Similarly, the poet also
posits his own rhyme scheme, beginning with the traditional abba form, but ending ostentatiously
with three rhymed couplets.
These decisions to forgo convention are part of the poet’s Romantic temperament and his
thematic tendencies. In effect, the form of the sonnet embodies the poet’s theme. Wordsworth—
the most respectful of tradition among the clan of “rebel spirits” whose poetic company includes
George Gordon, Lord Byron, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge—
nevertheless is concerned with creating his own form and promoting it.
The poet begins with a straightforward declaration, “The world is too much with us,” then
proceeds to explicate the meaning of this maxim. First offered is a comment upon the maxim’s
scope: “late and soon.” Comprehensively, totally, utterly, the poet opines, people are captives
of the world they seek to understand or control.

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