‫‪Ode to the West Wind‬‬

‫‪By Percy Bysshe Shelley‬‬

‫مادة الشعر ‪ /‬المرحلة الثالثة‬

‫كلية المأمون الجامعة ‪ /‬قسم اللغة االنكليزية‬
 Name:
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Life:
Born in England in 1792, and died
About drowning at sea in 1822.

Reputation:
Shelley was a rebel against
accepted ideas, social institutions,
and conventional morality.
His Themes

Typical Shelleyan themes includes:

★ Search for the ideal and perfection.

★ Ideal and passionate love.
★ Revolt against oppression.
★ The creative power of poetry.
Q: What are the features of Shelley’s poetry?

❏ He felt the need to reform the world and envisaged a utopian future for
mankind where the world is saved by love.
❏ Revolutionary spirit is another feature of Shelley’s poetry.
❏ He realized the social and political evils of his time. Several of his political
poems give evidence of his realistic vision.
❏ Many of his poems have a dramatic form.
❏ He modified the forms of odes, sonnets, and ballads.
 An ode is a type of lyrical stanza
. It is an elaborately structured
poem praising or glorifying an

The Ode event or individual, describing

nature intellectually as well as
emotionally.
Ode to the West Wind
(1819, 1820)

Page 86
Stanza 1

In stanza 1, the wind is presented as a destroyer and as a preserver. The images

of autumn show it as bringing death to Nature. The colors create the death-like
atmosphere. Yet the dying leaves are in continual movement and they are driven
together with “the winged seeds” which signify the possibility of new life.

The next lines depicts the Spring which revives flowers. Thus, the theme of death
and rebirth is introduced. Life and death are closely connected - spring is the
sister of autumn.
Stanza 2

In the second stanza, the wind becomes the spirit of the Tempest, but like in the
first stanza, it is linked with the dying year. This metaphor shows Shelley’s
characteristics of myth-making. His use of imagery shows his ability to abstract
ideas from natural phenomena or objects.

He uses the image of the Maenad to describe the West Wind. In Greek Mythology,
the Maenads are followers of Dionysus who roam the mountains in a frenzy. The
West Wind which was destructive and regenerative at the beginning of the ode
now evokes the inspiration of a storm.
Stanza 3

In stanza III, the poet describes the impact of the wind upon the
Mediterranean coast line as well as the Atlantic ocean. In apostrophe, the
poet, in awe, addresses this wind that moves the water and undersea
vegetation in a similar way to its movement of the landscape.

It is this effect of the natural force of the wind that Shelley calls upon to drive
his "dead thoughts over the universe" in order to "quicken a new birth" of fresh
thoughts, renewing his intellect as nature is renewed.
Stanza 4

After showing the power of the Wind to renew life, to inspire men with poetic
spirit and to create beauty, the poet now turns to himself and speaks of longing
to share the wind’s qualities. He says that if her were a leaf, or a cloud, or a wave,
he could be blown by the power of the west wind. He could share the qualities of
the wind. He longs to be a leaf or a cloud, and not be "chained and bowed" but
"tameless, and swift, and proud."

At the same time he feels his weakness and gives expression of self-pity, which
is a frequent image in his poetry. The image of himself he presents here sum up
the main features of the romantic hero.
Stanza 5

In his final invocation to the Wind, he dreams of the great role he could play as a
poet. He shares with the other Romantics the common belief that poetry can
regenerate mankind, can be an instrument of revolution.

He wishes he could sing the wind's song, just like the forest does. He tells the
wind to be his spirit, to be him, to "drive my dead thoughts over the universe"
and to "scatter...my words among mankind." He wants to be "the trumpet of
prophecy" just like the wind heralds the coming of spring.
There is a political prophecy in the
last two lines:

Winter (the time of oppression and

reactionary governments in Europe)
will be followed by Spring (the time of
the rebirth of nations). Shelley’s
revolutionary views are connected
with his organic vision of the world.
He understand political liberty as as a
law of the universe of nature.
Symbols in
Ode to the
West Wind
The West Wind

Shelley uses the West Wind to symbolize the power of nature and of the

imagination inspired by nature. The West Wind is active and dynamic in poems,

and it is an agent for change. Even as it destroys, the wind encourages new life

on earth and social progress among humanity.

Autumn

Shelley sets many of his poems in autumn, including “Ode to the West Wind.” Fall is

a time of beauty and death, and so it shows both the creative and destructive powers

of nature, a favorite Shelley theme. As a time of change, autumn is a fitting backdrop

for Shelley’s vision of political and social revolution. In this poem, autumn’s brilliant

colors and violent winds emphasize the passionate, intense nature of the poet, while

the decay and death inherent in the season suggest the sacrifice and martyrdom of

the Christ-like poet.

Questions…
 Throughout most of the poem, the
natural world is transforming to winter.
The most obvious transformation that
How is the natural the speaker notes is the west wind
becoming powerful and blowing the
world being leaves off the trees, moving the clouds
across the sky at high speeds, and
transformed in churning up the waves of the sea.

“Ode to the West As the speaker witnesses the powerful

west wind blowing the leaves—and the
Wind”? waves and the clouds—everywhere, he
wishes with all his heart that the wind, or
some spirit like it, could lift him up and
scatter him (or his poetry) everywhere.
 In "Ode to the West Wind," Shelley
What message conveys the message that he would
like the words he writes on leaves
does Shelley want of paper to be scattered as far and
wide as the West Wind scatters the
to convey in "Ode leaves that fall from the trees in
autumn. He is punning on leaves of
to the West paper and leaves on a tree. He also
wishes he himself could have a
Wind"? spirit as fierce and robust as the
West Wind and powerfully blow his
ideas around the world.
More Questions...

★ What stages of life do spring, summer, and winter stand for in the
poem?
★ How are the leaves and clouds affected by the wind?
★ How is the poem, "Ode to the West Wind" an embodiment of the ro
mantic period? How is the writer an embodiment of the romantic p
eriod?