Subject: English Poetry (18-19 century)

Topic: Ode to west wind

Semester: 6th
Submitted to: Mam Samina Yasmin

Submitted by: Muneeb Ahmad

Ode to the West Wind

 By Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Ode to the West Wind" is a lyric poem that addresses the west wind as a powerful
force and asks it to scatter the poet's words throughout the world. (A lyric poem
presents the deep feelings and emotions of the poet rather than telling a story or
presenting a witty observation. An ode is a lyric poem that uses lofty, dignified
language to address a person or thing.) Charles and Edmund Ollier published the
poem in London in 1820 in a volume entitled Prometheus Unbound: a Lyrical
Drama in Four Acts with Other Poems. Prometheus Unbound is a four-act play
(intended to be read but not performed) that was the featured work in the volume.

Setting and Background Information:

The time is autumn of 1819. The place is western Italy, from the Mediterranean
coast inland to Florence. Shelley makes a specific reference in the poem to the city
of Baiae (Italian, Baia), called Aqua Cumanae by ancient Romans. Its favorable
climate attracted vacationing Roman dignitaries to the city, including Julius Caesar
and Nero, who constructed villas there. Volcanic eruptions plunged part of the
ancient site into the sea, as alluded to in the poem in lines 32 and 33. Shelley wrote
the poem inland, in a forest on the Arno River near Florence. His notes on the the
poem explain that he received the inspiration for it one fall day when the strong
west wind swept down from the Atlantic and through the Tuscan landscape of
west-central Italy:

This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near
Florence, on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild
and animating, was collecting the vapors which pour down the autumnal rains.
They begin, as I foresaw, at sunset, with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended
by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.

SUMMARY

Canto 1
Addressing the west wind as a human, the poet describes its activities: It drives
dead leaves away as if they were ghosts fleeing a wizard. The leaves are yellow
and black, pale and red, as if they had died of an infectious disease. The west wind
carries seeds in its chariot and deposits them in the earth, where they lie until the
spring wind awakens them by blowing on a trumpet (clarion). When they form
buds, the spring wind spreads them over plains and on hills. In a paradox, the poet
addresses the west wind as a destroyer and a preserver, and then asks it to listen to
what he says.

Notes, Canto 1

1. The accent over the e in wingèd (line 7) causes the word to be pronounced in
two syllables—the first stressed ....and the second unstressed—enabling the poet to
maintain the metric scheme (iambic pentameter).

2. clarion: Trumpet.

Canto 2

The poet says the west wind drives clouds along just as it does dead leaves after it
shakes the clouds free of the sky and the oceans. These clouds erupt with rain and
lightning. Against the sky, the lightning appears as a bright shaft of hair from the
head of a Mænad. The poet compares the west wind to a funeral song sung at the
death of a year and says the night will become a dome erected over the year's tomb
with all of the wind's gathered might. From that dome will come black rain, fire,
and hail. Again the poet asks the west wind to continue to listen to what he has to
say.

Notes, Canto 2

3. Mænad: Wildly emotional woman who took part in the orgies of ....Dionysus,
the Greek god of wine and revelry.

4. dirge: Funeral song.

5. congregated: Gathered, mustered.

Canto 3
At the beginning of autumn, the poet says, the the west wind awakened the
Mediterranean Sea—lulled by the sound of the clear streams flowing into it—from
summer slumber near an island formed from pumice (hardened lava). The island is
in a bay at Baiae, a city in western Italy about ten miles west of Naples. While
sleeping at this locale, the Mediterranean saw old palaces and towers that had
collapsed into the sea during an earthquake and became overgrown with moss and
flowers. To create a path for the west wind, the powers of the mighty Atlantic
Ocean divide (cleave) themselves and flow through chasms. Deep beneath the
ocean surface, flowers and foliage, upon hearing the west wind, quake in fear and
despoil themselves. (In autumn, ocean plants decay like land plants. See Shelley's
note on this subject.) Once more, the poet asks the west wind to continue to listen
to what he has to say.

Notes, Canto 3

6. The accent over the an in crystàlline shifts the stress to the second syllable,
making crystàl an iamb.

7. In his notes, Shelley commented on lines 38-42:

The phenomenon alluded to at the end of the third stanza is well known to
naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes,
sympathizes with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently
influenced by the winds announce it.

Canto 4

The poet says that if he were a dead leaf (like the ones in the first stanza) or a
cloud (like the ones in the second stanza) or an ocean wave that rides the power of
the Atlantic but is less free than the uncontrollable west wind—or if even he were
as strong and vigorous as he was when he was a boy and could accompany the
wandering wind in the heavens and could only dream of traveling faster—well,
then, he would never have prayed to the west wind as he is doing now in his hour
of need.

.......Referring again to imagery in the first three stanzas, the poet asks the wind to
lift him as it would a wave, a leaf, or a cloud; for here on earth he is experiencing
troubles that prick him like thorns and cause him to bleed. He is now carrying a
heavy burden that—though he is proud and tameless and swift like the west wind
—has immobilized him in chains and bowed him down.

Notes, Canto 4

8. Skiey is a neologism (coined word) whose two syllables maintain iambic

pentameter. The s in skiey alliterates with the s in speed, scarce, seem'd, and
striven.

Canto 5

The poet asks the west wind to turn him into a lyre (a stringed instrument) in the
same way that the west wind's mighty currents turn the forest into a lyre. And if the
poet's leaves blow in the wind like those from the forest trees, there will be heard a
deep autumnal tone that is both sweet and sad. Be "my spirit," the poet implores
the wind. "Be thou me" and drive my dead thoughts (like the dead leaves) across
the universe in order to prepare the way for new birth in the spring. The poet asks
the wind to scatter his words around the world, as if they were ashes from a
burning fire. To the unawakened earth, they will become blasts from a trumpet of
prophecy. In other words, the poet wants the wind to help him disseminate his
views on politics, philosophy, literature, and so on. The poet is encouraged that,
although winter will soon arrive, spring and rebirth will follow it.

Themes Analysis:

Mortality:

In this poem, the west wind is considered as the wind of autumn that brings the
season of winter with itself. As winter is the sign of death, the speaker tries to
portray the image that west wind will become the reason of the death of old
conventions and defunct norms from the English society.

Additionally, speaker says that after every winter there is spring. Similarly, after
the death of old ideas, the spring will arrive and the flowers of freedom, peace and
change will bloom.

Speaker refers to the monarchic system of his society where people were becoming
materialistic and immoral.
Revolution:

Shelly is a revolutionary poet of Romantic era, so this theme is obvious in his

poetry. He believes that his ideas can bring a huge change in the society and he can
bring revolution by spreading his word throughout the world.

In this poem, he addresses to the west wind to help him spread his revolutionary
ideas throughout the world so that people can break the chains of slavery and set
themselves free. He wishes that west wind could treat him the way it drives the
leaves, clouds and waves so that he share his thoughts wherever the wind takes
him. He also asks wind to make him its harp and play the music on him, the music
of his ideas, that everyone will listen to and act upon.

The Power Of Human Mind and Ideas:

Shelly believes that the thoughts and ideas can change the world. He considers
poets as the influencers who can influence people with their great views.

We can clearly understand how the speaker appeals the west wind to spread his
word across the world so that it brings a change in the old conventional society of
his time. It shows his belief that human mind has the power to make positive
changes in the world; one’s way of thinking can mold the society and can bring a
change. Especially poets because they influence people through their powerful
poetry.

The poet desires the irresistible power of the wind to scatter the words he has
written about his ideals and causes, one of which was opposition to Britain’s
monarchical government as a form of tyranny. Believing firmly in democracy and
individual rights, he supported movements to reform government.

Figures of Speech and Rhetorical Devices:

Canto 1

Alliteration: wild West Wind (line 1).

Apostrophe, Personification: Throughout the poem, the poet addresses the west
wind as if it were a person.

Metaphor: Comparison of the west wind to breath of Autumn's being (line 1).

Metaphor: Comparison of autumn to a living, breathing creature (line 1).

Anastrophe: leaves dead (line 2). Anastrophe is inversion of the normal word
order, as in a man forgotten (instead of a forgotten man) or as in the opening lines
of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Kahn": In Xanada did Kubla Kahn / A stately
pleasure dome decree (instead of In Xanadu, Kubla Kahn decreed a stately
pleasure dome). Here is another example, made up to demonstrate the inverted
word order of anastrophe:

In the garden green and dewy

A rose I plucked for Huey

Simile: Comparison of dead leaves to ghosts.

Anastrophe: enchanter fleeing (line 3).

Alliteration: Pestilence-stricken multitudes (line 5).

Alliteration: Pestilence-stricken multitudes (line 5).

Alliteration: chariotest to (line 6).

Alliteration: The wingèd seeds, where they (line 7).

Metaphor: Comparison of seeds to flying creatures (line 7).

Simile: Comparison of each seed to a corpse (lines 7-8).

Alliteration: sister of the Spring (line 9).

Personification: Comparison of spring wind to a person (lines 9-10).

Metaphor, Personification: Comparison of earth to a dreamer (line 10).

Alliteration: flocks to feed

Simile: Comparison of buds to flocks (line 11).

Anastrophe: fill / . . . With living hues and odours plain and hill (lines 10, 12).

Alliteration: Wild Spirit, which (line 13).

Paradox: Destroyer and preserver (line 14).

Alliteration: hear, O hear (line 14).

Canto 5

Apostrophe, Personification: The poet addresses the west wind as if it were a

person.

Metaphor: Comparison of the poet and the forest to a lyre, a stringed musical
instrument (line 57).

Metaphor: Comparison of the poet to a forest (line 58).

Alliteration: The tumult of thy mighty harmonies (line 59).

Alliteration: Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, (line 61).

Metaphor: Comparison of the poet to the wind (line 62).

Alliteration: Drive my dead thoughts over the universe (line 63).

Simile: Comparison of thoughts to withered leaves (lines 63-64).

Alliteration: the incantation of this (line 65).

Simile: Comparison of words to ashes and sparks (66-67).

Alliteration: my words among mankind (67).

Metaphor: Comparison of the poet's voice to the wind as a trumpet of a prophecy

(lines 68-69).

Alliteration: trumpet of a prophecy (lines 68-69).

Alliteration: O Wind, / If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Structure and Rhyme Scheme:

The poem contains five stanzas of fourteen lines each. Each stanza has three tercets
and a closing couplet. In poetry, a tercet is a unit of three lines that usually contain
end rhyme; a couplet is a two-line unit that usually contains end rhyme. Shelley
wrote the tercets in a verse form called terza rima, invented by Dante Alighieri. In
this format, line 2 of one tercet rhymes with lines 1 and 3 of the next tercet. In
regard to the latter, consider the first three tercets of the second stanza of "Ode to
the West Wind." Notice that shed (second line, first tercet) rhymes with spread and
head (first and third lines, second tercet) and that surge (second line, second tercet)
rhymes with verge and dirge (first and third lines, third tercet).

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,

Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning! There are spread

On the blue surface of thine airy surge,

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20

Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith's height,

The locks of the approaching storm, Thou dirge

All of the couplets in the poem rhyme, but the last couplet (lines 69-70) is an
imperfect rhyme called eye rhyme. Eye rhyme occurs when the pronunciation of
the last syllable of one line is different from the pronunciation of the last syllable
of another line even though both syllables are identical in spelling except for a
preceding consonant. For example, the following end-of-line word pairs would
constitute eye rhyme: cough, rough; cow, mow; daughter, laughter; rummaging,
raging. In Shelley's poem, wind and behind form eye rhyme.
 .......Shelley unifies the content of the poem by focusing the first three stanzas on
the powers of the wind and the last two stanzas on the poet's desire to use these
powers to spread his words throughout the world.

Meter:
Most of the lines in the poem are in iambic pentameter, although some of the
pentameter lines have an extra syllable (catalexis). The following tercet from the
first stanza demonstrates the iambic-pentameter format, with the stressed syllables
in capitals:

..........1................2..................3.................4.............5

The WING.|.èd SEEDS,.|.where THEY.|.lie COLD.|.and LOW,

..........1................2..............3..............4.............5

Each LIKE.|.a CORPSE.|.with IN.|.its GRAVE,.|.un TIL

.......1............2..........3..............4..................5

Thine AZ.|.ure SIS.|.ter OF.|.the SPRING.|.shall BLOW

Here is a line with catalexis:

........1...............2.............3..............4.............5............

Of SOME.|.fierce MAE.|.nad, E.|.ven FROM.|.the DIM.|.verge

.......

And here is a line that does not follow the format. It is in iambic hexameter:

..........1................2..................3.................4.............5......

Shook FROM.|.the TANG.|.gled BOUGHS.|.of HEA.|.ven

..6

AND.|.o CEAN
Conclusion:

This poem is a highly controlled text about the role of the poet as the agent of
political and moral change.[citation needed] This was a subject Shelley wrote a
great deal about, especially around 1819, with this strongest version of it
articulated the last famous lines of his "Defence of Poetry": "Poets are the
hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows
which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they
understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire;
the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged
legislators of the world."