The World Is Too Much With Us was written by William Wordsworth in 1802 during the Romantic period. Wordsworth was a man who was passionate about nature and was against a period filled with political and logical views. During the Romantic Movement, Wordsworth created romantic poems that could connect with the audience and emphasise the importance of emotion and nature. This poem demonstrates the importance of nature through imagery, personification and allusion.
This poem explores the lack of appreciation humanity has for the natural world, It uses simile to create vivid imagery. An example of a quote would be ”And are gathered up like now sleeping flowers” is a simile which creates visual imagery by visualising people as sleeping flowers. Wordsworth uses this simile to show that humans do not appreciate nature as much as they used to, and that humans are blinded by their man-made world. However, the poet expresses hope as the flowers are only sleeping, not dead, and once they wake up, there might be some light again where they see the beauty of nature. Thus, this shows that people are not appreciating nature as much as they should be, and this characterises Wordsworth as a Romantic. …show more content…
Wordsworth uses capitalisation to demonstrate the significance of nature.
“Little we see in Nature that is ours.” “This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon”
He capitalises the two words Nature and the Sea to demonstrate that they are not just things but living places that are. Evidently, this proves how the poem is related to the romantic era as he has named Nature and
Sea.
In this poem, nature has been personified with human values. For example, “This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon” the sea has been given the female gender. This is more emotive and also creates a visual imagery of the vast ocean facing the moon.
Wordsworth uses allusion to emphasise that the sea isn’t just water which most people see it as. For example, “Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his weather horn.” This shows that the sea isn’t just how we may see it as. It is mysterious, and powerful just like the Greek gods Proteus and Triton. The water is something that should be held in high regards.
In conclusion, The World Is Too Much With Us can definitely be characterised as a Romantic poem as it is filled with rich imageries using similes, allusions, and also personification. All these techniques demonstrate how beautiful and remarkable nature is and why we should appreciate it more than we do.