Language exercise related to William Wordsworth : The World is Too Much with Us.
The text below is from the internet. It is a non-native English attempt at analysing “The World is too much with us”.
1. Improve the language by correcting mistakes with red, and/or rewrite passages in order to make the text fluent and grammatically correct English.
2. Comment on the content of the analysis below
"The world is too much with us" What does he mean by the "world"? Theworld refers to material world. And the second line's "getting and spending"
shows modern people's values. People are busy spending money to get things
they want. What connect between man and man is merely the "exchanging of
material", and gradually people's hearts dying because they don't feel love
and warmth in this material world. That's why in the 12th line the speaker
mentioned "Have glimpses that would me less forlorn". Only money and advantage
stuff up this world, he feels lonely so he find Nature to be his companion.
He thinks people's hearts are preoccupied with materialism so they don't know
how to appreciate Nature. He said "We are out of tune". Why? because in our
hearts we build a wall(which is materialism) between Nature, and then we
become not knowing to correspond to Nature. So he said he would rather be a
Pagan--to escape the creeds of material world. The image of sea can be compared
to "a mother of earth". Under its tender nursing, creature grows. And "The winds
that will be howling at all hours" can be compared to 'lullaby". Every creature
is nursing in this cradle(sea) and sleeps with lullaby(winds). Men are aiso a
kind of creature, so he thinks people should go back to Nature, just like him--
to be a Pagan to escape the material world. If we do, we can stand on the pleasant
lea and have glimpses that make us less lonely and we might see Proteus rising
from the sea or hear old Triton blow the wreathed horn.(just as what he mentioned
in 11th~14th line) The mythological allusions to Proteus and Triton may implies
that if we discard the materialism in our heart and go back to Nature, we may gain
back our lost innocence as if return to the ancient Greek to get close to seagods(
Nature)