"The world is too much with us" centers around how industrialization and consumerism continue to ruin what Nature provides us with. I'm minoring in Environmental Science, so I (presumably) know at least a decent amount about this kind of issue. For many years, the majority of people seemed to hold a primarily biocentric worldview. This means that the world revolves around humans more than anything and our needs are the most important. However, we have thankfully entered a time where people hold a far more ecocentric worldview, meaning that they care primarily about the Earth. This poem is incredibly honest about the issues with people ignoring and even destroying Nature. I'm so unbelievably lucky to be part of the generation that cares so deeply about the environment, and I really think that this poem fits the current political climate quite well.
Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" is secretly about Cotton-Eyed Joe. We often talk about how poems resemble songs, so why can't the plots of short stories do the same? In the case of "Bartleby", I think that he as a person can easily be likened to our dear old pal CE Joe. We don't know where he came from, we don't know where he went (in the biblical sense). He has an air of mystery about him. He messes with the narrator's personal life. I know that this is silly, but I think it's fun to relate things that you don't necessarily enjoy to things that you do. If anyone can think of other parallels between the two, please feel free to comment them below.
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