Write the critical appreciation of the poem 'The World Is Too Much With Us'.

Write the critical appreciation of the poem ‘The World Is Too Much With Us’.

Ans.

Introduction

This is one of the most famous sonnets of Wordsworth. He wrote this poem in reaction against the ugliness of the growing materialism of the nineteenth century. He wrote it with a view to give a clarion call to people to go back to Nature.

Thought-Content

The poet has condemned the materialistic tendencies of his age for they made people heartless and insensitive to everything that was beautiful and wholesome in life. People became so much occupied with the art of getting and spending that they were. completely alienated from Nature and Art. They gambled away their natural powers for sordid things. The beauties and messages of Nature became meaningless to them in the face of gross materialism. They were completely blind to the beauty of the moon, the sea and the calm evening. The beautiful scenes of Nature failed to make an appeal to their stony hearts. The poet was so much disgusted with the fever and the fret of his age that he preferred to give up Christianity and embrace the Greek Paganism with its worship of Nature inhabited by gods and goddesses. He would, then, establish a spiritual communion with Nature and not feel alienated.

Form

The sonnet is fashioned after the Miltonic sonnet. As such, it consists of two parts: the octave and the sestet. The octave has two quatrains and the sestet two tercets. There is a pause at the end of each quatrain. The turn of thought falls after the octave. The rhyme-pattern of this sonnet is as follows:

a b b a a b b a c d c d e d

Diction

The poem is remarkable for its lyrical flow, poetic beauty and excellence of craftsmanship. The graphic picture of the sea baring her bosom to the moon and the winds upgathered like sleeping flowers, the appropriate use of the Greek mythological allusions, and the simplicity and monosyllabic nature of words-these are some noticeable features of this poem. The poem composed under the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth has high seriousness in thought and grandeur in diction and style.

Moral lesson of the poem

This poem shows Wordsworth’s disgust with the materialistic world and its ways, and expresses his essential faith in the greatness of Nature.

An attack of gross Materialism

The sonnet is a sea-bathing attack on the gross materialism and ironiquent moral and spiritual decay of the people of his times. The poet laments:

“The world is too much with us; late and soon.

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”

Love for Nature

These lines testify how much Wordsworth loved Nature. Here he reminds us that Nature has something for us which no worldly thing can provide. He says that Nature gives us spiritual pleasure and peace.

Conclusion

Thus, we can say that the world is too much with us is one of the very important poems of Wordsworth written on Miltonic sonnet patterns.