Characteristics of the poem
Sonnet
The rhyme scheme: ABBA ABBA CD CD CD, making it a Petrarchan sonnet.A Petrarchan sonnet is a poem with fourteen lines. The first 8 lines, which is the octave is used to propose a problem while the remaining six lines, the sestet, are to tender solutions to the pre-problems.
Metre: Iambic pentametre
Tone: Anger
Mood: Reflective
Period: Romantic poetry
One Important thing to know before journeying into the analysis of the poem is the importance of Nature in romantic poetry.
Mother Nature is the undeletable almighty character when dealing with romantic poetry. Nature is seen as a god, pure, distinct and a gateway to man’s damned mind. Romantic poets believe that man’s heart has been drawn too much to what has made them become what they now are and only the born-again man into the Nature family can be saved and it starts with the renewal of the mind. Here, nature in the only thing that makes sense. The language of romantic poetry is simple, down-to-earth, because it’s the language of the peasant. The peasant were believed to be people who were more drawn to nature that any other man, because they were unmixed with the act of man, they were undiluted and unpolluted. Therefore the language must be that of the lowly people; simple and assessable to all.
Mother Nature is the undeletable almighty character when dealing with romantic poetry. Nature is seen as a god, pure, distinct and a gateway to man’s damned mind. Romantic poets believe that man’s heart has been drawn too much to what has made them become what they now are and only the born-again man into the Nature family can be saved and it starts with the renewal of the mind. Here, nature in the only thing that makes sense. The language of romantic poetry is simple, down-to-earth, because it’s the language of the peasant. The peasant were believed to be people who were more drawn to nature that any other man, because they were unmixed with the act of man, they were undiluted and unpolluted. Therefore the language must be that of the lowly people; simple and assessable to all.
Subject matter
In the poem, the personae complains of man’s destructive act. Man’s heart is so much drunk with the affairs of the world that he no longer remembers himself, denoting the title of the poem ‘The World is too much with Us’.
Analysis
Line 1-2:
The world is too much with us; late and soon
Getting and spending, we lay waste of powers
These two lines explain how man’s desire to acquire wealth steams in his heart but after acquiring wealth, the desire to spend it overshadows his heart, therefore making the antecedent of his struggle which is getting, be overpowered by the desire to spend, which is laying to waste.
The ‘late’ and ‘soon’ in line 1 means ‘past’ and ‘future’, that is, man has, for a long time being getting in the past and as he makes it to the future, he’s still thirsty to lay it to waste.
Power in line 2 means resources, this particularly roadmaps the act of industrial man.
Power in line 2 means resources, this particularly roadmaps the act of industrial man.
Line 3-4
‘Little we see in nature that is ours’
‘We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!’
‘Little we see in nature that is ours’
‘We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!’
This two lines complains of the rotten relationship between man’s act and nature’s act. The lost and lust heart of man towards unworthy things, which is against the way of Mother Nature.
The personae complains of man’s inconsiderable attitude towards the natural world: ‘little do we see in nature that is ours’.
Nature does a lot for man, and the least man can do is identify with these. but instead, man turns blind eye on them. Nature gives oxygen, light, water food, man but does not appreciate these, because man’s heart is drawn away from purity.
Nature does a lot for man, and the least man can do is identify with these. but instead, man turns blind eye on them. Nature gives oxygen, light, water food, man but does not appreciate these, because man’s heart is drawn away from purity.
The poet uses oxymoron to sugar his point in line 4: ‘sordid boon!’
‘Sordid’ means immoral or dishonest while ‘boon’ means benefit. Merging the two words together we have ‘dishonest or immoral benefit’. This simply infers that man is eaten deep into immorality which is blossoming immoral benefits, ills and horrors. And immorality is not found in nature, hence man has failed to learn from it.
Line 5
‘The sea that bears her bosom to the moon
This means that the moon shines light upon the sea at night, revealing the beauty in it. This shows togetherness and unity, that unity helps to do good works.
Line 6-7
‘The winds that will be howling at all hours;’
‘And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers’
These lines tell the ever-active work of the wind as it blows on without resting, making sure everything in nature receives its beautiful work. This contradicts man. Although the industrial man works with eyes open, forgetting about time, yet what he produces is immoral benefits or ‘sordid boon!’ The wind uses its time to make good, while man does the inverse.
Line 8
‘For this, for everything; we are out of tune’
This forms the end of the octave and revelation of the real problem.
The personae tells man that what man only makes of all his unnatural attitude is untuneness, unrightness and this only causes harm to man. Being out of tune is ‘what man has made of man’.
Lines 9-14
The personae tells man that the work of nature should make man realise of how good it is to live an upright and sound life.
‘It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be’ (line 9)
‘A pagan suckled in a creed outworn’ (line 10)
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea’ (line 11)
Have glimpses that would make less forlorn (line 12)
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea (line 13)
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn (line 14)
England was where the writer was born. William was born into Christianity, hence paganism was an abomination. But the personae speaking in the poem is frustrated at the ways of men that he screams upon God, telling Him it’s better to be a pagan who will be of the opposite faith, the one they count as ‘outworn’ or improper, so as to help him heal this sorrow inside of him.
The personae feels that if he were to be a pagan, he will be able to, without being nailed on the cross of backsliding, sight Proteus rising from the sea and Triton blowing his horn. Proteus and Triton are Greek sea gods. Triton has the body of both a human and a fish, the upper level is of man and the lower of a fish. Triton uses a spiral shell, according to the Greek mythology as a trumpet. He prefers to see Triton who despite is man-like body solely depends of the greatest gift, nature, as he can’t move without the sea.
LITERARY DEVICES
- Oxymoron
The poet uses oxymoron to bring together the two worlds; of man and nature, so as to compare them. The whole poem in fact is a contrast between nature’s goodness and man’s ungratefulness.
Line 1 ‘late and soon’: depicting past and future of man
Line 2 ‘getting and spending’: Telling of man’s inability to think of nothing but wastefulness, gathering something with blood and throwing it away on a platter of nothing.
Line 4 ‘sordid boon!’ meaning immoral benefit.
- Simile
Line 7: up-gathered now like sleeping flowers
- Personification
Line 5 ‘this sea that bares her bosom to the moon;’ personifies the sea
- Imagery
Lines 11 to 14 are all portrayal of images that creates the pictures of those scenes in the minds of readers.
Line 13: ‘Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea’ is a visual imagery (eyes)
Line 14: ‘or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn is an auditory imagery (ears)
- Enjambment
Line 9: ‘It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be’
Line 10: ‘A pagan suckled in a creed outworn’
ⓒ Mide Benedict 2014
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