Poetic Reactions: “The World Is Too Much With Us”
The nineteenth century poem that glimpsed the evolutionary mismatch
Cherished English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) grew up in northern England. Orphaned at 13, Wordsworth spent his boyhood wandering the outdoors unsupervised. Many of his poems articulate his love for and fascination with nature. While Wordsworth eventually finished his undergraduate degree at St. John’s College, Cambridge in 1787, he found the institution stifling and overly competitive1.
“The World Is Too Much With Us” (published 1807) ruminates on the disconnect between the natural world and modern edifice that we have erected for ourselves. It rejects the industrial prowess Britain in Wordsworth’s day had achieved in favor of a earlier - even pagan - existence.
The World is Too Much With Us
by William WordsworthThe 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 wreathèd horn.
Wordsworth’s poem rings more true for us today than it did in his own time. Evolutionary biology is rife with examples of our antediluvian instincts no longer serving our best interest: tribalism’s contribution to political polarization; our inclination toward high-calorie processed foods and sugar; dating apps that lead to a miniscule number of men who dominate the “mating” scene.
Yet even in his day, Wordsworth longed for a time primordial, where humans lived at-one with the rhythms nature. That thought, if left scrutinized, is compelling: many of us yearn for a simpler era when the world around us made sense. We crave an environment better suited to our primate minds.
Unfortunately, Wordsworth’s portrait of Rousseau's noble savage is just as anachronistic as Tarzan, himself. The ancient world was anything but blissful. In stark opposition to Wordsworth’s imaginary idealism, violence and deprivation characterized early human society. The average life expectancy of a Neolithic human less than 352. The vast majority died of disease. 15% met a violent end. Only during the industrial revolution did life expectancy breech the 40-year barrier.
Nonetheless, Wordsworth’s advice to regularly touch grass is apt. Standing outdoors, gazing out over the Gaian landscape and pondering the interconnected nature of existence, has been shown to buffer the feeling social isolation that so many experience today3. So while a return to pre-modern comforts might be less than ideal, making time to appreciate the “pleasant lea” and behold the might of “winds that will be howling at all hours” may be enough.
“William Wordsworth.” Poetry Foundation.
Lee Goldman, “Three Stages of Health Encounters Over 8000 Human Generations and How They Inform Future Public Health.” American Journal of Public Health, 2018.
Benjamin D. S. Cartwright, Mathew P. White, Theodore J. Clitherow, “Nearby Nature ‘Buffers’ the Effect of Low Social Connectedness on Adult Subjective Wellbeing over the Last 7 Days.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2018.