The poet offers that the wind over the Mediterranean Sea was an inspiration for the poem. Shelley spent the majority of his life in England where he was born to an upper class family. For example, why do the dead leaves seem more completely dead when the West Wind whisks them away? Living by example and principle, even if it meant expulsion from Oxford, exile from London society, and being disowned by his family, like it or not, Shelley used his poetry to dare his readers to act upon the ideas he was promoting. This gives the reader an image of sheer power produced by the Wind. A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
All these images are conjured up in one thing-the poet-prophet figure. Death, represented often through water and reference to Greek mythology in his works, is a common occurrence in Shelley's canon. Both are constantly trying to reinvent themselves. The speaker continues to praise the wind, and to beseech it to hear him. Humans are chained to the passing years; which becomes the enemy of youth and life.
Nature is a very interesting and powerful force and the way Shelley portrays it in this poem really caught my attention. Finally,the poet describes the imagery of the fourth element, the fire. We can be one with nature and feel the freedom of our life as we transform to our spring season. The wind is, therefore, seen as a spirit because of its lack of being. I fall upon the thorns of life! In 1817, Shelley produced Laon and Cythna, a long narrative poem that, because it contained references to incest as well as attacks on religion, was withdrawn after only a few copies were published.
He was one of the epic poets of the 19th century. Be through my lips to unawakened Earth The trumpet of a prophecy! On the other hand, he is a bard devoted to altruistic goals and especially freedom--calling upon a revolutionary voice much greater than his own--and a radical willing to sacrifice his own reputation for the betterment of mankind. He uses extensive imagery so that we can see and feel the pertinent message. In most of the cultures, there is the fifth element as well which describes something which is beyond the material world. One may examine the excellence in the usage of imagery through the way it progresses from the beginning till the end. This tercet acts as an introduction and a foreshadow of what is to come later. When Shelley wrote this Ode he was not only grieving for his son but the lives lost in his home country of England as this was also written shortly after the Peterloo Masacre.
Thus he feels comfortable being vulnerable to the Wind even though it is wild. Shelley then begins to use human like characteristics to relate nature to our stories and experiences. They are buried like a corpse in the grave. He acknowledges the Wind as a formidable ally and demonstrates why its powers are suited for his humble plea. However this scene is also sweet and comforting.
It possesses great powers and for this very reason Shelley can pray to it for what he feels he is deeply in need of. It is also used to show a sense of fear which seems to be the most common mood and emotion in this poem. This helps Shelley begin to work towards a final climax. Stanza 4 As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Water is associated with the ability to feel and intuition to know. Again, he uses soft sounding words, but this time it is used to lull the reader into the same dream-like state of the Mediterranean. A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
The West Wind awakens the sea that itself is highly violent. The Wind has taken form in the summer within the Mediterranean waves as the engine for stream. In punishment, according to Hesiod's account, Zeus chained Prometheus on a mountain and gave him unending torment, as an eagle fed from his constantly restored liver. The wind is described as carrying seeds because it represents here as dead leaves, how the dead leaves are spreads over graveyard during the autumn season as the same this wind carrying the seeds to the grave like places in the ground, and those seeds will stay until the spring wind comes and revives them. Shelly is mainly noted as the most passionate of the Romantic writers and for his usage of experimental styles in poetry. Stanza 2 The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O Uncontrollable! This is a concept I found quite intriguing. But still the west wind dominates it as well.
Could line 34, also be a comment on Shelley himself? A Poem 1832 The Necessity of Atheism 1811 The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley 1839 The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley 1870 The Wandering Jew. The speaker feels himself decaying there is nothing new but the fact is whoever born as-as human being and born with flesh and blood has to decay and die one day. In my research, I found that when Shelley wrote this poem he was visiting Italy. In 1822 Shelley drowned in a boating accident in the Gulf of Spieza. In the end, however, the poet triumphs because his art is immortal, outlasting the tyranny of government, religion, and society and living on to inspire new generations. I chose the poem Ode to The West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley because I was attracted to the many images Shelley painted in the poem.
The spring Wind fills the earth with living hues and sweet odours. Shelley Shelley deals with the theme of inspiration in much of his work. Explanation of Ode to the West Wind — Stanza Five In the fifth canto the poet expresses the desire to mingle with his fierce source of inspiration. Now Shelley admits that this is an emotional prayer spotted with apprehensive pain. Be thou me, impetuous one! It is Shelley's extravagant fondness for metaphorical language that makes him all too often obscure and his subject matter thin. The Wind encompasses all the elements without exploiting them. It influences the water not only at its surface level but also deep inside the sea.
Shelley realizes that he cannot in actual life, rise to the height of imaginative perfection, which was his dream. The following January, Mary bore another son, named William after her father. The wind is thus a destroyer and a preserver. The fierce storm with its lightning and thundershowers seem to be the funeral song of the dying year with the vapors being the dome atop its grave! As a result the poem is filled with death of both human and nature mortality. Traveling and living in various Italian cities, the Shelleys were friendly with the British poet Leigh Hunt and his family as well as with Byron. This is not a peaceful nor beautiful description of the fall leaves. He doesn't want bleak mortality but like the leaves experience the seasons.