Ode to the West Wind - Percy Byshee Shelley

Question 1

Why was Shelley viewed as a political radical at the time?

Answer 1

-In favour of abolishing slavery
-Developed ideas about using non-violent protest to resist unjust power structures
-Advocated for the Independence of Ireland

Question 2

Why was 1819 a difficult time to be a political radical?

Answer 2

-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

Question 3

How was Shelley’s sense of political defeat due to societies shift back to conservatism shown in this poem?

Answer 3

-Feeling that only the destruction of society as it currently was could pave the way for something new and better

Question 4

How is the West Wind described as powerful and destructive?

Answer 4

-Drives away the summer and brings instead the winter storms, chaos and death

Question 5

Why does the speaker celebrate the West Winds destructive ways?

Answer 5

-Destruction leads to renewal and re-birth

Question 6

how is the speaker’s admiration for the wind shown?

Answer 6

-Wants to adopt/absorb the west winds power

Question 7

Why does the speaker want to help or be the wind?

Answer 7

-Wants to create something new and improved

Question 8

How is newness achieved for the speaker?

Answer 8

-Can’t be achieved through compromise > can emerge only from the cleansing destruction of the wind

Question 9

What is the form of the poem?

Answer 9

Terza rima - three-line stanzas > whole rhyme locks together

Question 10

What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?

Answer 10

-First stanza is ABA and the next is BCB
-Alternate rhyming stanzas = the alternate realities > destruction to cause harmony

Question 11

Who famously used Terza rima ?

Answer 11

-Dante the Italian poet

Question 12

What is the poets form an allusion to?

Answer 12

-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

Question 13

What is significant about the poems metrical variations?

Answer 13

-Feels as energetic and chaotic as the wind itself

Question 14

What does the caesura in the first line symbolise?

Answer 14

-The shift in the seasons > movement to autumn
-Autumn as the season of death so renewal can occur in the spring

Question 15

What is significant about describing the seeds as “each like a corpse within its grave,”?

Answer 15

-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

Question 16

What is significant about “Destroyer and Preserver”?

Answer 16

-alludes to Hindu gods Shiva and Vishnu >west wind combines both aspects
-Spirituality of the west wind > god like sense of power

Question 17

What is significant about the rhyme “Towers” and “flowers”?

Answer 17

-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

Question 18

What is significant about “cleave them into chasms”?

Answer 18

-Breaks references of the past > Destroys what the past embodies > Societal order
-First hint at a political aspect

Question 19

What is significant about “The impulse of thy strength, only less free”?

Answer 19

-Sees the wind as liberating and he wants to be liberated from his pain and suffering caused by the past

Question 20

What is significant about the speaker talking about “boyhood”?

Answer 20

-Childhood nostalgia > mourning his lost youth and freedom
-Youth as a hope for the new future of the world

Question 21

What is significant about the blasphemous like prayer in the poem?

Answer 21

-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

Question 22

What is significant about “weight of hours has chained and bowed”?

Answer 22

-Metaphors > limits of human life have diminished and constrained him

Question 23

What is significant about “make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:”?

Answer 23

-Directly addressing the West wind > asking for help - wants to recover lost freedom due to societal constraints
-wants to become the WW

Question 24

What is significant about talking about the “autumnal tone” and “spirit fierce”?

Answer 24

-Wants resurrection from this age > wants to escape death
-Wants to be the spirit of the WW

Question 25

What does “like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!” explore?

Answer 25

-Paradox at the heart of the poem > Preserver and Destroyer
-Create a new-rebirth
-Natural order

Question 26

What is the meter of the poem?

Answer 26

-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.