Amit mandal

Rc college Ode To the West wind

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the
romantic poets. He is regarded as the
finest lyrics poet in English Language.
Shelley is known for classic poems such
as ozymandias, ode to West wind etc.
Ode to the West wind by Shelley is an
ode which is written in the form of an
address and as well as a lyric poem that
represents deep feelings and emotions.
It was originally published in 1820 by
Charles in London as part of the
collection promethesus unbound , a
lyrical drama. It has followed the terza-
rima form. Terza rima is a three line
stanza with chain rhyme where the
second line of each stanza rhymes with
the first and third line of the next stanza.
It is written in 1819 in Florence, Italy
near the river Arno. It was originally
published by Charles and Edmund
Oliver in 1820.
This poem consist the romanticism
aspects such as imagination, nature, and
individual freedom. Shelley in this poem
wants to express his love to nature by
his words such as winter, spring, leave,
flowers, clouds, rain. The poem begins
with the apostrophe.

1st stanza… .. … … … … … … .
 The addresses the West wind as a
human and then describes it’s activities.
The poet describes the West wind as the
breath of autumn. The West wind
sweeps away the dead leaves like a
magician banishing the ghosts. West
wind seems to symbolize an inspiring
spiritual power that moves everywhere
and affects everywhere. The dead leaves
are multicolored like yellow, black,
hectic red. It seems possible to interpret
the leaves as a symbol of human
downfall. These colours represent
different cultures. These colours seems
almost diseased like the effect with
epidemic.
The wind is described as a chariot that
carries leaves and seeds to their grave
like place in the ground. They will stay
untill the spring wind comes. The West
wind has carried the seeds into the
ground, they lie there all winter and
then they are awaken in spring wind.
The spring wind blows it’s clarion
trumpet. It causes all the seeds to
bloom. It fills the plain and hill with
colours and smell.
The West wind is both the destroyer and
preserver. It brings the death of winter
but also makes the regeneration of
spring.
2nd stanza.. …… … … … … ..
The poet describes the West wind as
having clouds. Leaves fall from the
branches of trees in the same way the
clouds fall from the branches of sky,
which work together like angels of rain
and lightning . The poet describes a
simile while describing the storm that
the West wind is bringing.
The thunderclouds that are spread
through the airy blue-surface of the
West wind in the same way the wild
locks of maenad, a wild savage woman
who is the worshipper of Bacchus, float
in the air.
The poet compares the West wind to a
funeral song sung at the end of the year.
The night that is falling will become like
dark-tomb of thunderbolts, lightning and
rain.
The speaker tells more about West wind.
The Mediterranean Sea remains calm
during summer. Here, Mediterranean
Sea is personified as male-figure. The
west-wind awakened the Mediterranean
Sea. The Mediterranean Sea has spent
his vacation beside a pomice isle(island
made of lava) in baiaes lay(ancient
Roman town situated near the Gulf of
Naples. The Mediterranean Sea has
seen in his dream the old places and
towers, places that is full of plant.
The poet claims that the Atlantic Ocean
breaks itself into chasm for the West
wind. In the depth of the Atlantic Ocean,
the different kinds of plants hear the
West wind and suddenly grow grey with
fear snd harming themselves.
The speaker begins to describe his
desires more clearly. He wishes he were
a dead leaf. Or swift cloud that the West
wind would carry it’s power and
strength. If he can’t be a leaf or cloud he
wishes he could at least have the same
relationship to the wind that he had in
his childhood days. He begs the wind to
treat him the way it does to the natural
objects like wave, leave and cloud. He
explains that the passage of time has
bowed down his spirit.
The speaker wants the wind to turn him
into its lyre, an instrument that nature
will play it’s own tune. The speaker and
the trees of the forest both are decaying.
The trees are losing their leaves and the
poet has been bowed down by life.
If the wind plays both of them as
instruments they will make sweet,
melancholy, music.
Now, the speaker changes his view he
asks the wind to become him. The
speaker compares his thoughts to the
dead leaves. The West wind can drive his
thoughts in the same way it moves the
leaves. The speaker himself is the
unextinguished hearth from which the
speaker fly.
The speaker describes his mouth as a
trumpet through which the wind will
blow it’s own prophecy.
The question literary means the change
of the year. Winter is cold, long,
dreadful. But it must pass away by
spring which is warm and sunny.
Metaphorically, sorrow and sufferings
are to be followed by joys and
pleasures in human life.