| Umesh Ramjattan 11/20/04 Romantic Poets Professor Bruffee
“The world is too much with us; late and soon.” William Wordsworth.
During the start of the nineteenth century industrialization in Europe occurred. It brought about changes in people’s lives. Social and economic changes occurred. Some people accepted the changes and others rejected them. When people looked around they saw factories and shops that replaced or hid the natural scenery from the area. Prior to industrialization people looked around and saw natural things, but during this period they saw man-made things. The romantic poets rejected the changes that industrialization brought. William Wordsworth felt that industrialization took people’s attention away from admiring and appreciating nature and focused it on “getting and spending,” acquiring money and spending it.
Whereas nature was once worshipped or thought to be a sign of god, the new age took away peoples attention from nature and focused it on non important pursuits. People now worship money. Wordsworth believes that people wasted their effort by putting it towards acquiring money and spending it. He feels that people were becoming too materialistic. People are concerned with the pursuit of money, but in exchange “we have given our hearts away,” meaning that we are no longer compassionate. What people have done is “a sordid boon,” a filthy benefit. They are benefiting monetarily, but this is something that Wordsworth condemns. The way people react to nature or the effects that nature has on people is explicitly stated when Wordsworth says “we are out of tune; it moves us not.” Wordsworth states that he would rather give up his current religion for an ancient pagan one in order to better appreciate nature. This is because the main religions believed in one god and didn’t believe that each aspect of nature has a governing god, which to Wordsworth makes it more difficult to appreciate nature. When one thinks of each aspect of nature as personified nature literally comes alive. Wordsworth makes his case literally with the first four lines of the stanza; the rest of the stanza contains imagery used to enhance the argument.
The imagery used in the poem makes Wordsworth’s argument that much stronger. The sea is personified as it “bares its bosom to the moon.” The wind is recognized as “howling at all hours.” These images makes one think of and appreciate nature more because you are forced to think of the wind as a man and the sea as a woman. Each aspect of nature is personified, and is reminiscent of polytheistic religions that believe that there are separate gods for each aspect of nature. Wordsworth states how he is affected by nature when he mentions that glimpses of nature would make him less forlorn. The image of “Proteus rising from the sea” is magnificent and will draw attention to the sea and make people stop and think for a moment if this image truly is viewable. The image of Triton blowing his wreathed horn is another engaging and enthralling image that puts the mind to work. Appreciating and loving nature has brought much happiness to Wordsworth and he is trying to make people realize the benefits of loving nature. He urges people to stop and realize and love nature before it’s no longer visible due to factories and urbanization. Wordsworth brings awareness to the issue by using images and serious statements to make his point and capture the readers’ attention. The poem even conveys the parallel of rejecting nature to rejecting a mother since nature is personified in the poem. Wordsworth realized that while people are consumed with attaining wealth, we as humans all share the same wealth: nature. To give up a natural beneficial wealth for commodities is not comprehensible to Wordsworth.
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