Essay of Poetry
“GOD’S GRANDEUR” & “THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US” FOR A CONTRAST AND COMPARISON
Each poem written in Petrarchan sonnet form begins with “The world.” Each poem is an expression of their concern related to the impact of the industrial revolution on the natural landscape. Equally, they express that it is polluted and abused for economic gain. The difference by which they address their concern is that one man speaks from his true faith and the other injects mythological fantasy to get his point across. Wordsworth embellishes sympathy for paganism which is an ancient religion prior to Christianity. He writes, “Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,” which is to say that he would rather be raised as a spiritual pagan in what he considers to be an outdated tradition. Pagan gods control the power of earth, sea, sun, sky and various other elements of nature. Hopkins, a Catholic priest of the Jesuit order, expresses frustration towards modern men losing touch with spirituality through the sin of greed or gluttony.
In “The world is too much with us,” Wordsworth complains that the human race is a burden to the world. He might have believed that modern man and nature cannot coexist in perfect harmony. Hopkins writes, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” So, God created earth out of goodness. In line 2 of stanza 1, Hopkins writes that “It will flame out, like shook foil.” The writer is telling us that the world is temporary. Hopkins wrote a letter to Robert Bridges explaining the imagery and compared it to tinsel, sheet or fork lightning describes the way that light flickers when you move reflective material in front of it. If you turn the foil away from the source the light, the reflection of light is gone.
In lines 3-4, Wordsworth expresses the belief that we have no claim to natural resources and abuse towards nature suggests that people have sold their souls for a “sordid boon” or ill-gotten gains; whereas...