The World Is Too Much With Us Connotation Essay

Literary Device One- Connotation Connotation is “what it suggests beyond what it expresses: its overtones of meaning.” (Arp 41) Basically, connotation is the associations that people make with words that go beyond the dictionary or literal definition. The following demonstrates the use of connotation in William Wordsworth’s The world is too much with us. “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!” (Wordsworth 1-4) The poem begins with a complaint, saying how humanity focuses on materialistic items. “The world is too much with us;” (Wordsworth 1) means that life everyday is just too much to handle. Often people are not able to
This conveys the human connection between nature and how its less appreciated and how the loss of respect for nature could end badly. “Getting and Spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in nature that is ours;” (Wordsworth 2-3) People often use all their energy chasing money and wanting more time but they cannot appreciate the wonderful things that nature gives us like sunsets, and a moon shining across the ocean. People want to acquire things possibly because they are unable to attain anything or possess anything in nature. The little things in nature are often overlooked because the world is too much with us. This enhances what the writer is conveying because it makes the reader critically think or reflect on how nature impacts their life and if they had overlooked the little things in life. The writer is trying to show the reader about the beauty in nature and wishes for things to go back like it was when people respected nature and sort of worshipped its beauty. As we harvest and keep using all the resources on earth, we show no compassion towards nature just wanting the end product from it and not