535. The World
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; 5
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gather'd 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; 10
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.
by Holle Abee
Created on: January 10, 2009 Last Updated: August 26, 2012
"The World is Too Much with Us, " by William Wordsworth, is a sonnet that examines the speaker's feelings about England's Industrial Revolution and how it changed the nation from a bucolic, more innocent existence into one filled with greed, squalor, and crowded cities. The verses are full of passion, expressing the poet's outrage at how industry and commerce have negatively affected the world in which he lives, as well as the individuality of the common man.
Wordsworth, along with his friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is considered to be the father of English romanticism. Like the subsequent romantic poets, Wordsworth was concerned with the common man and by how the individual was affected by society. He had a deep love for Nature and believed that man could achieve true happiness only through a close relationship with the natural world. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, Wordsworth believed that man's bond with Nature was irrevocably broken.
In order to fully understand the poem, one must have some knowledge of how the Industrial Revolution impacted life in England, the first nation to experience industrialization. Before the factories and manufacturing, Britain was a land of cottage industries and communal farms. People crafted goods in their homes, like candles, lace, carts, wheels, and pots and pans, or either they tended plots of land and sold produce and livestock as their means of subsistence. Most of the population lived on the land, in harmony with Nature.
With the birth of mass production, England changed from an agricultural society to one based on industry. The small family cottage industries were put out of business. Factories could sell the goods at a cheaper price, and could offer brand new items and inventions. Farmers were removed from the land as government took over most of the farms, turning them into private hunting preserves for wealthy land owners. All these unemployed workers were forced to either go on "the dole" or move to the big manufacturing cities to seek work in the very factories that put an end to their livelihood.
While many wealthy business owners embraced the Industrial Revolution and viewed it as a great leap towards civilization, Wordsworth and his fellow poets believed just the opposite. They felt that this so-called civilization was detrimental to the very core of life: Nature.
Big cities like London and Liverpool were crowded and squalid. Factory workers lived and worked in deplorable conditions, often with as many as twenty people sharing a small flat. Because of a "window tax," many of these dwellings lacked windows, so fresh air and sunshine were shut out. Accounts from the period relate how as many as 100 people often shared a toilet. The large cities, unprepared for the population influx, had streets lined with human and animal feces, scraps from butcher shops, and offal of every sort. The Thames was so polluted that the stench often forced Parliament to postpone meetings. Mill emplyees worked long hours in dangerous conditions, and small children were often used as beasts of burden in the coal pits, seeing the sun only on Sundays. The policy of "laissez faire" kept these heinous practices alive.
Wordsworth, like many of the English Romantic poets, was appalled by all of this. A lover of nature and the natural world, Wordsworth felt that man had sold his soul for a few coins and for new mass-produced goods, evident in lines 1-4:
"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!"
A "sordid boon" is a shameful or foul gift. Wordsworth is saying that we have traded our collective hearts for industry.
Lines 5-9 describe how civilization has "defeated" and abandoned Nature, forever changing mankind:
"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..."
The last part of line 9 contains an explosive apostrophe:
"...Great God! I'd rather be..."
Wordsworth goes on to say that he had rather be a pagan than to live life the way his countrymen are. He alludes to Proteus and Triton, two figures from Greek mythology, and says that instead of living during these terrible times, he had rather be able to:
"Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
Wordsworth, through these allusions, reveals that he longs for a simpler time, when man was more in touch with the natural world and was in awe of the great powers of Nature. He feels that mankind has turned its back on Nature, all because of the Industrial Revolution. The lines reveal that the speaker is more than willing to throw away every conventional belief and all the trappings of "civilization" if he could return to the primitive awe and amazement of Nature's wonders.
Throughout much of this poem, Wordsworth's words are filled with anger, sadness, and a feeling of loss. He is obviously disillusioned with what has befallen his country and society as a whole, and especially by the impact forced upon the individual. His tone changes, however, in the last four lines. Here, his words are filled with awe, revealing the contrast between his feelings for the natural world and the material world.
"The World is Too Much with Us" is a powerful insight into the poet's mind. He readily embraces and respects Nature, while he abhors and denounces man's turning his back on the natural world in exchange for money and material goods. To Wordsworth, man is no longer part of the natural world. He has paid the ultimate price for "civilization."
Learn more about this author, Holle Abee.
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