Page 97 - DENG104_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_I

Elective English–I

Notes “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.”
• 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 him.

8.9 Keywords

Late and soon : Our fixation on materialism has been a problem in the past and
will continue to be a problem in the future.

Sordid boon : Shameful gain; tarnished blessing. This phrase is an oxymoron, a
form of paradox that juxtaposes contradictory words.

Answers: Self Assessment

1. (b) 2. (a) 3. (c) 4. (b)

8.10 Review Questions

1. What is the meaning of “The World is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth?
2. What are the themes of “The World is Too Much with Us”?

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