Critical Analysis of "The World is Too much with Us." i.e. the sonnet written by William Wordsworth.My interpretation of the poem in comparison to the interpretation of another student.

Essay by Petra1986College, UndergraduateB, April 2004

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"The world is too much with us is a statement about conflict between nature and humanity." I agree with this statement to a large extent because that is exactly the main premise of the poem written by William Wordsworth. The conflict in essence, is the one where the human race no longer appreciates nature and instead exploits it for their own material gain. However, the third sentence within the passage is only half correct. I say this because it starts off sensibly enough, i.e. "He longs for a simpler time..." This is very true. It indeed is. However, the author then proceeds to say, "...when the progress of humanity was tempered by the restriction nature imposed." My reason for disagreeing with this section is that in the olden days, nature was worshipped by the Pagans who were in turn, often ostracized by the rest of the community because of their beliefs.

Nature did not impose any restrictions. Rather, decisions were based upon it because of the human mind and instinct, not because nature conflicted with humanity.

The author then moves on to describe in detail, man's reaction and behaviour towards nature. He states it in an extremely graceful, beautiful way, "'We have given our hearts away' (4) means that we have sold the part of us that is from the earth (man which is from the dust) in order to make other things more important than appreciating life..." (lines 6 - 9). Also, Wordsworth definitely describes human mentality and instinct as "powers", i.e. things of strength. However, as human beings "we lay waste our powers" (line 2). The human race is too concerned with material wealth and would do anything (including immoral actions) to gain such riches. Rather than practice virtue and fortitude, humanity is unethical while trying...