A Quick Review Of The Poem ‘The World Is Too Much With Us’ By William Wordsworth

“The World Is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth Response

William Wordsworth’s poem, “The World Is Too Much With Us,” relates unexpectedly well with what is happening today in the world. Writings about nature were very popular during the late 18th to early 19th century and Wordsworth is known to focus heavily on it. Since his childhood in rural England he became obsessed with what nature has to offer and what humankind has to the ability to ignore in nature. He says clearly from the title, and the first line, “the world is too much with us…getting and spending, we lay waste out powers,” meaning that mankind cannot handle nature and will remain focused on getting more and more stuff, wasting all of our energy up. What I believe he was witnessing was the development of industrialized England, whose focus was an increased rate of production, not a focus on the wonders of nature.

If William Wordworth were alive today he would be heartbroken. Not only are we out of tune with nature because of the focus on, “getting and spending,” but we are intentionally destroying it and clearly don’t care that we are doing so. He criticizes people for how mindless they had become, to only care about what they can “own,” rather than the simple things in life (in nature). Wordworth saw the future and our present, and just like us, he didn’t want to believe it. While mythological Gods are a fun topic for the classroom, I don’t recommend the world’s governments taking it up in order to paint the beckoning shitstorm a nicer color.

From climate change with the ice caps melting, to the vast number of threatened or endangered species, and even ozone layer depletion, when will we open our eyes to see that the world isn’t just doing this on its own? Every day the world is one step closer to a huge catastrophe and not just because of the political and social injustices, but because we have been taking advantage of something we need to survive.