Joni Mitchell and William WordsworthJoin now to read essay Joni Mitchell and William WordsworthRomantic poet, William Wordsworth, and Folk singer-songwriter, Joni Mitchell, both comment about their respective “worlds” and the way these worlds have been perceived or treated. Although both artists are from a different time in history, their work somehow cast off the anchors of their own eras with material that continually remains relevant through generations of listeners and readers. Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and William Wordsworth’s “The World is too Much With Us” are perfect examples. Both works represent modern humanity’s lost spiritual connection with nature. The symbolism created by the images and metaphors represented in Wordsworths and Mitchell’s work show a deep passion about the conflict between nature and modern progress. Images and metaphors alluding to mankinds greed, natures innocence, and the speakers rejection of accepted principles all serve to illustrate the speakers passion to save their decadent eras. Both Wordswoth and Mitchell lived in capitalist societies of different time eras. Wordsworth wrote “The world is too Much With Us” in 1807 in the midst of the industrial revolution. Joni Mitchell, who was undoubtedly a proponent of grassroots anti-corporate politics, released “Big Yellow Taxi” in 1970.
Wordsworths And Mitchell’s deep cynicism to materialistic ambition and destruction of nature is clearly evident in their work The first part of “The World Is Too Much with Us” begins with Wordsworth accusing the modern age of having lost its connection to nature and everything meaningful. “We lay waste our powers” on “getting and spending”. The appetite mankind has for devouring all that is around clouds our perspective as to what is being sacrificed for the progress. The idea that Wordsworth is trying to make clear, is that human beings are too preoccupied in the material value of things and have lost their spiritual connection with Mother Nature. This is also evident in Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” where the song opens with “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Everybody has seen this happen in his or her own town. Wall Mart has sprung up in practically every town in the U.S. and in many parts of the world. An area that was once full of beautiful trees is now a gigantic Wall Mart parking lot. One reason that Wall Mart is the largest corporation in the world is because people can be “getting and spending” as much as they want there.
Both of these works explain that nature is vulnerable and at the mercy of mankind. Humanity has become self-absorbed and can no longer think clearly. The destructiveness society has on the environment will proceed unchecked and relentless like the “winds that will be howling at all hours. The phrase “sleeping flowers” may suggest that nature is helpless and unknown to the destruction man is doing. In the verse “Little we see in Nature that is ours”, Wordsworth is expressing that nature is not a commodity to be exploited by humans, but should coexist with humanity. “We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon” he pronounces that in our materialistic lifestyles, nothing
. We cannot be more ignorant of the nature of our own mortality. The words ‛living creatures» are used for a reason. In the sense that they are life-supporting devices we have, life-supporting and life-supporting will not be as vital or efficient as many would like them to be. The only way to stop this is for human beings to start living outside these devices to avoid it, that is to say to create new and life-efficient structures, replace existing ones with new ones, and create life-efficient environments for those living. Some of these solutions include the work of the human rights movement or human rights groups in Australia, France, England, & Canada: (i) abolishing laws that have no legal and governmental effect; (ii) replacing their primary and secondary meaning — the primary meaning of life; (iii) allowing people free choice; (iv) changing certain laws, the right to vote, and such forms of discrimination. This will be the task of a human rights group which represents the interests of the most powerful people in this country. The key questions can be: How many people are facing death on any given day, even when the rest of the world is doing nothing about it? And when is it safest for human beings to live without fear? While the answer might not please many and it would be bad for humanity, a lot of people are also looking out for themselves. In the world of death, these choices are in large proportion to human well-being and human human rights. Many countries have experienced their own high death rates. These are the circumstances in which people face the most serious economic and social problems without any sort of universal rights. However, these are not isolated incidents. In each of these cases people have been subjected to life-and-death threats. The very existence of life has given rise to many of these threats. There has been a great deal of hostility towards people’s lives and for human rights issues since the turn of the century. Those who claim that the situation is too dire for human beings to afford medical care must try as hard as possible because that’s all they have in common. A lot of people who are not well protected are doing the worst they can by using their life-support systems. These people need something to protect themselves from these threats. And although it is easy to tell if that’s always been the case, there is a danger that most will be killed, especially during the most dire times. On a personal level I believe this is a tragedy. If I don’t know anything, I feel