Characters and speaker

The main characters in the poem “The World Is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth are the speaker and the collective character of the industrial society, which the speaker criticises.

The speaker

The lyrical speaker can be associated with an alter-ego of the poet himself, expressing Wordsworth’s views on the time and age he lived in. 

The speaker is disappointed with the way people in society live, “getting and spending” (l. 2). Notice that the speaker is not only critical of the present, but also of the past and near future – the “late and soon” (l. 1). This indicates that he has a pessimistic view on the world and its evolution.

Even if he cannot pretend that he is not part of this society which ignores nature and feelings, he still feels inadequate. This is why he initially uses the...