The World is too Much With Us – Class 11 English Chapter 13 Notes & NCERT PDF

About the Poet

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) spent most of his life in the Lake District of northern England. His wanderings in the hills and woods produced some of the finest nature poetry. Lyrical Ballads (1798), written with Coleridge, is regarded as the beginning of the English Romantic Movement. He chose subjects from nature and rustic life and believed the language of poetry should be simple and natural.

The Poem — Meaning

Lines 1–4: Lost to materialism

The World is too much with us; late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: / Little we see in Nature that is ours; / We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

People are too absorbed in worldly affairs — "getting and spending" money — from morning to night. We waste our powers (spiritual and imaginative). We no longer feel connected to Nature; we have "given our hearts away" to material things, a "sordid boon" (a shameful, worthless gift).

Lines 5–8: Out of tune with Nature

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; / The Winds that will be howling at all hours, / And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, / For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

The sea reveals itself under the moonlight; the winds howl but are now calm "like sleeping flowers". Yet we are "out of tune" with all this beauty.

Lines 9–14: The poet's wish

It moves us not.—Great God! I'd rather be / A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; / So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, / Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; / Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; / Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Nature "moves us not". In frustration the poet would rather be a Pagan raised in an old, outdated belief. Then, standing on a meadow ("lea"), he might see nature as alive and divine — glimpsing Proteus rising from the sea or hearing Triton blow his conch-shell horn — and feel less lonely and sad ("forlorn").

Mythological References (as glossed in the book)

Theme

Materialism destroys our bond with Nature. Modern people, busy with money and possessions, lose the capacity to feel wonder and spiritual joy in the natural world.

Form

It is a Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet: an octave (8 lines, ABBAABBA) presenting the problem, and a sestet (6 lines, CDCDCD) giving the poet's response. The volta (turn) comes at "It moves us not.—Great God!" Compare it with Shakespeare's sonnet (three quatrains + couplet, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG).

Literary Devices

Word Power

Exam Focus

From Understanding the Poem and Try This Out:

Common Mistakes