Summary
The speaker addresses the soul of the dead poet John Milton,
saying that he should be alive at this moment in history, for England
needs him. England, the speaker says, is stagnant and selfish, and
Milton could raise her up again. The speaker says that Milton could
give England “manners, virtue, freedom, power,” for his soul was
like a star, his voice had a sound as pure as the sea, and he moved
through the world with “cheerful godliness,” laying upon himself
the “lowest duties.”
Form
This poem is one of the many excellent sonnets Wordsworth
wrote in the early 1800s.
Sonnets are fourteen-line poetic inventions written in iambic pentameter.
There are several varieties of sonnets; “The world is too much with
us” takes the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, modeled after the work
of Petrarch, an Italian poet of the early Renaissance. A Petrarchan
sonnet is divided into two parts, an octave (the first eight lines
of the poem) and a sestet (the final six lines). The Petrarchan
sonnet can take a number of variable rhyme schemes; in this case,
the octave (which typically proposes a question or an idea), follows
a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, and the sestet (which typically answers
the question or comments upon the idea) follows a rhyme scheme of
BCCDBD.
Commentary
The speaker of this poem, which takes the form of a dramatic
outburst, literally cries out to the soul of John Milton in anger
and frustration. (The poem begins with the cry: “Milton!”) In the
octave, the speaker articulates his wish that Milton would return
to earth, and lists the vices ruining the current era. Every venerable institution—the
altar (representing religion), the sword (representing the military),
the pen (representing literature), and the fireside (representing
the home)—has lost touch with “inward happiness,” which the speaker
identifies as a specifically English birthright, just as Milton
is a specifically English poet. (This is one of Wordsworth’s few
explicitly nationalistic verses—shades, perhaps, of the conservatism
that took hold in his old age.)
In the sestet, the speaker describes Milton’s character,
explaining why he thinks Milton would be well suited to correct
England’s current waywardness. His soul was as bright as a star,
and stood apart from the crowd: he did not need the approval or
company of others in order to live his life as he pleased. His voice
was as powerful and influential as the sea itself, and though he
possessed a kind of moral perfection, he never ceased to act humbly.
These virtues are precisely what Wordsworth saw as lacking in the
English men and women of his day.
It is important to remember that for all its emphasis
on feeling and passion, Wordsworth’s poetry is equally concerned
with goodness and morality. Unlike later Romantic rebels and sensualists,
Wordsworth was concerned that his ideas communicate natural morality
to his readers, and he did not oppose his philosophy to society.
Wordsworth’s ideal vision of life was such that he believed anyone
could participate in it, and that everyone would be happier for
doing so. The angry moral sonnets of 1802 come
from this ethical impulse, and indicate how frustrating it was for
Wordsworth to see his poems exerting more aesthetic influence than
social or psychological influence.
