Hi
I need to interpret the poem, The World Is Too Much With Us
I read Ghetto's post and replies, but i do not understand them... They are too hard to follow. I will list the poem below. This is for school and I really need help. It would greatly be appreciated. Thank YOU!!!

"The World Is Too Much With Us"


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!
This 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,
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 wreathed horn.

Go back and read all the responses to the poem listed under Ghetto's post.
Some of them are very simple. Those by Pam Adams are especially astute. To get you going here is a brief synopsis of the poem.

Wordsworth is a nature lover. He thinks the modern world and man's inventions are clouding our view of nature, lately. He says we have given our hearts away for modern conveniences.

He says we are not moved by the sound of the wind and the sea. He further states that he would rather live in a backward undeveloped country than to live in a world where nature is not appreciated.

Les

I need to write a paper about a peom for my 11th grade English class. It is titled: "The Walking" - by Theodore Roethke. I need to explain the poem and what it is about. Basicly - Tell what the poem means. Could you please email me the meaning of the poem and your interpretation of it. THANK YOU!!!

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.


Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair,
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

"stop and smell the flowers"

that's pretty much it !

"What falls away" is the title of Mia Farrow's autobiography. Thanks, Brian, for posting the whole Roethke poem or I might never have figured out where it came from.

"Sop and smell the flowers" is a good summing up. You could also say that the message is: "Relax and BE the flowers."

I'd like to be
under the sea
in an octopuses garden
with you

Brian,

Think about the repetitive structure- why is Roethke doing this?

pam

Looks a bit like a villanelle to me - but I don't think it is - Hugh? Help!!

A villanelle, yes. One of the three best, along with those by Elizabeth Bishop and Dylan Thomas (One Art and Do Not Go Gentle). The first question is why he wakes TO sleep and not FROM it, which seems to indicate it is another poem about death. Those close beside him in the ground supports such an assumption. The lowly worm, despite climbing a winding stair, again is reminiscent of being buried in the earth, food for the wigglers. So, a lot points to that as a theme.

Unfortunately, other things point to different interpretations. Roethke himself states, "To wake here means to be awakened into full awareness: a paradox that this wakening does partake of the nature of an eternal wakening."

About to think by feeling, he says, "This is ... a description of the metaphysical poet who thinks with his body... Those ... who bring their whole sensory equipment to bear on the process of thought grow faster ..."

Dancing ear to ear smacks of grinning that way, and according to TR, "It means that the being of the speaker does its own internal dance within the mind ..."

Regarding this shaking, he says he means the changes of life, i.e. the going, the dance, the walk. On the falling away and is near, he says he means the movement of time, wherein the near present flows constantly away.

I need to find a theme(s) (and an explaination as to why that is the theme) for the poem The Leader of the Synagogue, by MIchael Ventura. Thanks for your help!

Kasey,

Click on NEW TOPIC at the top of this screen and start a new thread. Probably nobody will notice your question way down here at the end of an old discussion.

Is that the song by the Shangri-La's ?

The Unknown Citizen by W.H. Auden 1907-1973

hi!
i need to have the explaination of this poem the unknown citizen bt w.h auden.

Click on New Topic at the top of the screen and start a new thread.
If your question is for your homework, go to the Homework Assistance forum, and start your new thread there.

Click on New Topic at the top of the screen and start a new thread.
If your question is for your homework, go to the Homework Assistance forum, and start your new thread there.

Click on New Topic at the top of the screen and start a new thread.
If your question is for your homework, go to the Homework Assistance forum, and start your new thread there.

Stephen
Moderator

Stephen

Instead of taking in the riches of a natural life, a life of instinct and of feling, we waste ourselves and we waste our world on the triviiality of daily concerns, instead of keeping awake to daily wonders.

Maybe mine is as much a dis-service to the original poem as you might get elsewhere, bu I think the poem itself repays word for word, line for line, uour efforts to relate it, invest it, in your own capacity for fullness and passion.

Good luck,

Peter

We are ourselves what we lose most to the drudge and drain of our existence.