William Wordsworth's sonnet, "The World is Too Much with Us," was first published in Poems, in Two Volumes in 1807, a collection characterized by its romantic exaltation. of nature. While the sonnet has often been read primarily as a critique of 19th-century society's discord with the natural world, this essay will argue that the poem is in fact an ode to the imagination that nature inspires. The crumbling creative union of man and nature, the historically varied interpretations, and the value placed on divine experience by Wordsworth will be examined. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay At first, Wordsworth identifies the union between man and nature, which traditionally facilitates the capacity for imagination, as being in peril. Classically, Petrarch's sonnet features a speaker extolling the virtues of his beloved. However, in the sonnet, Wordsworth overturns these conventions, lamenting humanity's ignorance of the romantic feelings that its "beloved" nature is capable of engendering. This is evident in the octave when Wordsworth uses fractured lineation to highlight the complacent concerns of humanity: "In obtaining and spending we waste our powers." Here, through the use of caesura, Wordsworth structurally introduces the poem's parallel themes of humanity's materialism and subsequent loss of imaginative power. Through the use of the present participle combined with the plurality of the speaker's rhetoric, Wordsworth suggests that the relentless nature of consumerism undermines our figurative creative powers. To achieve this, in a direct demonstration of such imaginative capacity, Wordsworth draws on his own poetic powers in a triplet of natural vignettes: “This sea that bares its breast to the moon; /The winds that will howl at all hours, /And gather now like sleeping flowers.” The alliterative and assonant elemental motif demonstrates the extent of nature's imaginative potential. By personifying nature in three contrasting states: sexual, powerful and peaceful, man's ability to draw inspiration from nature's extremes is evident, highlighting the creative loss if the beauty of nature is neglected in favor of materialism. This is reinforced by the exclamatory volta, “it does not move us – Great God” which marks a turning point both in the rhyme and in the voice. Through the combined change in rhyme scheme and shift from a plural voice to a personal, "me too" voice, Wordsworth represents the speaker as his ideal. Having achieved freedom of imagination through the sestet, freed from societal decadence, the speaker is no longer part of the majority who are “out of tune.” In comparison, not only does Wordsworth criticize worldly materialism through the structure of the Italian sonnet, but it can be argued that he also condemned modern Christianity, contributing to the decline of natural inspiration. This criticism is evident at the beginning of the poem, through the different interpretations of the emphatic metaphor: "We gave our hearts, a sordid bargain!" ". At first glance, as Tianyu Ma understands it, the oxymoron “sordid windfall” can simply be interpreted as an immoral gift, with “windfall” being defined as “a gift […]; an appreciated benefit, a blessing, an advantage” (OED). In this regard, humanity wastes its own imaginative capacity, giving free rein to its innate appreciation of nature: "From the 17th century […] the term 'windfall' could refer to any gift that is given , even if it is not actively.”.