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Unit 8: The World is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth—Detailed Study

Death Notes

There aren’t any overt references to death in the poem, but the speaker imagines humanity’s alienation
from nature as a kind of death. In addition, nature has become so alien to mankind that it is...

Paganism and Mythology

The speaker complains that people are no longer moved by the sea and the winds, and he tells
us that he’d rather be a pagan. At least that way he would be able to see something in nature
less depre...

8.5 Meter

Petrarchan Sonnet in Iambic Pentameter
“The World is Too Much with Us” is a sonnet written (mostly) in iambic pentameter. A sonnet
is a fourteen-line poem, the origins of which are attributed to the great Italian poet Petrarch.
There are two main types of sonnets. The Petrarchan sonnet is structured as an octave (eight
lines) and a sestet (six lines). The octave often proposes a problem or concern that the sestet
resolves or otherwise engages. The ninth line—the first line of the sestet—marks a shift in the
direction of the poem and is called the “turn” or the volta (Italian). While the rhyme scheme
of the octave is ABBA ABBA, the rhyme scheme of the sestet is more flexible; two of the most
common are CDCDCD and CDECDE.
The other major sonnet form is the Shakespearean, or English, sonnet; it also has fourteen
lines, but is structured as a series of three quatrains (four lines each) and a concluding couplet
(that’s two lines right next to each other that rhyme). The Shakespearean sonnet is in iambic
pentameter and follows the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
Wordsworth’s sonnet is of the Petrarchan variety; its rhyme scheme is ABBA ABBA CDCDCD.
In the Petrarchan sonnet there is a noticeable shift in the ninth line (the turn or volta mentioned
above). In the ninth line of Wordsworth’s poem, the speaker starts to express his wish to be
a Pagan because he’s sick of the way things are; it’s getting him down.
For the most part, Wordsworth’s poem is in iambic pentameter, which means that each line
contains five (pent) feet or groups that contain an unstressed syllable and a stressed syllable
(in that order). Take line 10 as an example:
A Pagan suckled in a creed out-worn.
While there are a lot of iambs in the poem, there are also several types of beats that give the
poem a sense of variety. Often times, Wordsworth will begin a line with a stressed syllable,
followed by an unstressed syllable, as in the first word of line 2:

Speaker Point of View
Who is the speaker, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?

The speaker in “The World is Too Much with Us” resembles a really smart, environmental
activist guy you’d meet at some remote beach that very few people know about. Somehow,
you and your friends have managed to find this untouched paradise, only to discover that this
guy has beat you to it. You start talking to him; after about five minutes of chit-chat, he starts
going on about the horrible air quality in the nearby metropolis and about how there is so
much noise he can’t even hear the Grateful Dead song that is always playing in his head. After
complaining about the city, he remarks on how beautiful the ocean is and how sad it is that
people care more about their iPods than nature; the ocean and the beach are peaceful and you

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