Ode to the West Wind - Percy Byshee Shelley Flashcards
Why was Shelley viewed as a political radical at the time?
-In favour of abolishing slavery
-Developed ideas about using non-violent protest to resist unjust power structures
-Advocated for the Independence of Ireland
Why was 1819 a difficult time to be a political radical?
-By 1814 King Louis XVII > Bloodshed of FR had resulted in return of a monarchy
-Society in England = more conservative - felt it was moving backwards
How was Shelley’s sense of political defeat due to societies shift back to conservatism shown in this poem?
-Feeling that only the destruction of society as it currently was could pave the way for something new and better
How is the West Wind described as powerful and destructive?
-Drives away the summer and brings instead the winter storms, chaos and death
Why does the speaker celebrate the West Winds destructive ways?
-Destruction leads to renewal and re-birth
how is the speaker’s admiration for the wind shown?
-Wants to adopt/absorb the west winds power
Why does the speaker want to help or be the wind?
-Wants to create something new and improved
How is newness achieved for the speaker?
-Can’t be achieved through compromise > can emerge only from the cleansing destruction of the wind
What is the form of the poem?
Terza rima - three-line stanzas > whole rhyme locks together
What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?
-First stanza is ABA and the next is BCB
-Alternate rhyming stanzas = the alternate realities > destruction to cause harmony
Who famously used Terza rima ?
-Dante the Italian poet
What is the poets form an allusion to?
-Dante’s epic > describes the soul’d decent into hell and its subsequent decent to heaven > represents how society needs destruction in order to be cleansed and reach a state of harmony
What is significant about the poems metrical variations?
-Feels as energetic and chaotic as the wind itself
What does the caesura in the first line symbolise?
-The shift in the seasons > movement to autumn
-Autumn as the season of death so renewal can occur in the spring
What is significant about describing the seeds as “each like a corpse within its grave,”?
-Personification of seeds
-New life in this era of the world only is born into this world of sickness
-Juxtaposition of new life and death
What is significant about “Destroyer and Preserver”?
-alludes to Hindu gods Shiva and Vishnu >west wind combines both aspects
-Spirituality of the west wind > god like sense of power
What is significant about the rhyme “Towers” and “flowers”?
-Moment of calm respite amidst all the destruction in the world > reflected through the rhyme
-Reflection of what he finds in his family away from his pain
What is significant about “cleave them into chasms”?
-Breaks references of the past > Destroys what the past embodies > Societal order
-First hint at a political aspect
What is significant about “The impulse of thy strength, only less free”?
-Sees the wind as liberating and he wants to be liberated from his pain and suffering caused by the past
What is significant about the speaker talking about “boyhood”?
-Childhood nostalgia > mourning his lost youth and freedom
-Youth as a hope for the new future of the world
What is significant about the blasphemous like prayer in the poem?
-Shelley’s rejection of religion
-Feels chained by religion but the liberation of the wind saves him > jealous of the complete freedom of the wind
What is significant about “weight of hours has chained and bowed”?
-Metaphors > limits of human life have diminished and constrained him
What is significant about “make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:”?
-Directly addressing the West wind > asking for help - wants to recover lost freedom due to societal constraints
-wants to become the WW
What is significant about talking about the “autumnal tone” and “spirit fierce”?
-Wants resurrection from this age > wants to escape death
-Wants to be the spirit of the WW
What does “like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!” explore?
-Paradox at the heart of the poem > Preserver and Destroyer
-Create a new-rebirth
-Natural order
What is the meter of the poem?
-Iambic pentameter
- the poem loosely follows iambic pentameter, it mostly employs highly irregular lines.
- imitating the west wind itself > the violent energy of the wind > rushes through the world, sowing chaos > unsteady meter reflects the wind’s energy and violence—and tries to make that energy and violence part of the poem.
