The World Is Too Much With Us Thesis

In William Wordsworth’s “The world is too much with us,” an unidentified speaker laments that society is disconnected from nature. He speaks longingly of nature…Sonnet… Thesis! Something involving the need for nature in order to get close to God.
The tone is not nostalgic, something that is pretty rare for Wordsworth. The poem makes no mention of a time when things were better than they are now. The speaker is longing for a different world instead of longing for a time gone past. Thus, the tone is melancholy.
The world that Wordsworth is referring to in the titular line is the secular world; the world that does not have to do with God. The speaker is concerned that society is getting too wrapped up in the world. It is a problem that has been
going on for some time already and it is not going away anytime soon. The speaker believes that consumerism is to blame for this cultural shift, saying that the obsession with “Getting and spending” has made people forget the power they hold when they work with nature. In-text Citations!
Not only are these undiscovered powers not doing any good, their neglect has led to their deterioration. Society can no longer “see in Nature that [which] is [theirs].” They have become blinded to the spiritual world and can no longer see the hand of God in nature. Worse than that, they have “given [their] hearts away” as “a sordid boon.” The speaker is saying that people have given their souls to the world in a filthy, twisted variation of an offering to God. In-text Citations!
In the next four lines, the speaker elaborates on the disconnect between civilization and nature. Nature is still out there, still just as beautiful, but no one even notices. The “Sea bares her [breasts]” but the moon is the only observer. “The winds that [howl] at all hours” are easily ignored and when they stop howling they are still ignored. The speaker compares the wind to a collection of “sleeping flowers” to show that society is so far removed from nature that the absence of an ever-present wind is overlooked just as easily as flower bulbs are overlooked when they are dormant in winter. In-text Citations!
They “are out of tune,” like a radio. Nature is on the AM frequency, but society is no longer tuning into that station. No matter how hard they look for nature, they are not going to find it on an FM station. This in turn means they are not going to find God, a revelation that does not even move them. In-text Citations!
It is at this point that the speaker breaks off from the crowd with the exclamation “Great God!” The speaker is crying out to God for help, but he does not expect a reply because he knows he would not recognize one.
If God is to be found in nature then surely Pagans are closer to God than his current consumeristic society.

The speaker loves nature, but he also really wants to conform. This is a conflict because the materialistic worldview of society is causing apathy toward nature. The speaker feels like he cannot connect with nature because of his society and since he really wants to connect with nature he wishes he lived in a Pagan society where he could connect with nature, even if he was following an outdated creed and everything he believed in was a lie. At least then he would have nature.
The audience is linked to the format of the poem. Petrarchan sonnet, inherited form. Typical format, octave introduces the problem and the sestet introduces the answer. In this case, the problem is an existential crisis- moment when a person questions their foundations of life because this is a personal crisis the speaker focuses inward. The solution offered in the sestet is not a traditional one. He doesn’t actually have an answer/there isn’t an answer. He asks God for help, which is something that is very personal/individual, but he doesn’t actually expect
help.
The use of “we” in the octave shows the speaker’s desire to belong to the community and that he is bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. The use of “I” in the sestet shows how the speaker is wary of using such a personal solution for a societal problem It also shows that he doesn’t want to speak for everyone else, who is he to speak for them? They haven’t even noticed the problem yet.
Titans, weight of the world, Atlas, a curse that writers bear.
The fall of the titans mimics the events of “Paradise Lost.” Other assorted mythology.
The basic mythology is pretty much close enough to the same that he’d be okay switching because he can’t have any nature in this society he is in.