The World Is Too Much With Us Personification Essay

Personification in “The world is too much with us”
In William Wordsworth’s “The world is too much with us,” he uses many literary devices to help portray that society is no longer in tune with nature and his aversion for this kind of life. His excessive use of personification helps to express how humans and nature are now disconnected. His distaste for materialist objects is showcased with oxymoronic devices and allusions to Greek idols. In the fifth and sixth lines of the poem, Wordsworth writes, “This Sea that bears her bosom to the moon: / The winds that will be howling at all hours,” (347). Both of these lines use personification with different objects in nature. “This sea that bears her bosom to the moon” helps to connect people and nature by giving the sea a personifiable aspect, i.e., a bosom. Wordsworth does it again when he says “The winds that will be howling at all hours” by giving the wind the animalistic trait of howling. In line seven, he

“The world is too much with us: late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:” This also helps to show the detachment of humans from nature. “The world is too much with us,” could mean many things. Wordsworth uses this line to start the poem, as it shows how the world is being destroyed by the humans who inhabit it. Clearly, the world is not actually being destroyed, but is using the paradox to show what could end up happening with our “getting and spending.” Using two paradoxes in a row; “late and soon” and “Getting and spending,” Wordsworth is indicating that what we have done in the past we will continue to do in the future. Our “getting and spending,” or in other words, our consumerism, is what is making the world “too much.” In line four, Wordsworth also uses the oxymoron “a sordid boon.” Sordid meaning an ignoble act, or rather the worst parts of humanity, and boon meaning the blessings of