“Ode to the West Wind” - Questions/Analysis

 

 

25 April 2005

Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Ode to the West Wind”

 

1. What is the idea of the Wind?

 

           Shelley conceived this poem in a tempestuous windy day in the Arno, near Florence, Dante’s hometown. The opening of Shelley's “Ode to the West Wind” is written in terza rima (note), the form of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Zephyrus was the West Wind, son of Astrœus and Aurora.

           From this note, I infer that the idea of the Wind is spirit of nature which is the same idea of “Intellectual Beauty.” The Wind’s imagery is repeated with different ｅxpressions in this poem: “breath of Autumn’s being,” “Wild Spirit,” “Destroyer and preserver,” “thou mightest bear,” “thy power,” and “The trumpet of a prophecy!”

 

2. What does Wind represent?

 

Wind represents an absolute power of spirit, the idea of freedom which is Shelley’s longing for. As an element of nature, wind conveys free spirit in various ways “moving everywhere” constantly: “Thou, … Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,” “Angels of rain and lightning,” “Like the bright hair uplifted from the head,” and “Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst.”

In Stanza II, Shelly illustrates how much the wind wants to show people the truth of freedom, spirit of nature which states,

 

Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotions,

Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

 

3. What problem does poet face?

 

Shelley faces the dark reality “Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere,” yet people, like an “unawakened earth,” can not aware of spirit of nature: what should be the way created by nature. He sees the people, as if they are spiritually serious ill or dead dwelling in dark cave, in their own narrow minded world which states, “Pestilence-stricken multitudes” and “Each like a corpse within its grave.”

Moreover, Shelley faces another problem that dismays him on his inability as a poet. He can not find the right words to the world expressing how people suffer from “their dark wintry bed.” In other words, he wants to appeal his insight of nature, spirit of freedom. He only sees people imprison themselves without understanding spirit of nature. Shelley states in Stanza II,

 

           Of the dying year, to which this closing night

           Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher,

           Vaulted with all thy congregated might

 

           Hence, Shelley invokes the West Wind giving him abilities to find right words for his poem. He wants to deliver spirit of nature to the world, where people can not perceive the truth, the way should be. Desperately, he states,

 

           Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

           Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!

           And by the incantation of this verse,

 

           Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth

           Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

           Be through my lips to unawakened earth

 

           Shelley wants to educate people as a poet yet as a teacher, like Plato who directs people to find the right way of living and to away from the secular world, who tells people to focus on spiritual life and to aware of “Intellectual Beauty.”

 

4. How does poem call for revolution?

 

            Shelley believes that artists including poets should lead culture, the way of life, exposing unseen spiritual ideas that enlighten humans. Thus, Shelley exposes “a vision” of spiritual power not only to inspire the audience but also to appeal “the comrade” through “Ode to the West Wind.” Especially in Stanza IV, Shelley emphasizes what the artist should do to the world.

 

           A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

           One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

 

           Shelley indicates the importance of the role of art in a culture formed by artists’ insights.

 

5. What role does “art” have in a culture?

 

Culture is formed by the way of people’s life combined with their traditions, customs, religions, and art. Speaking of art, it reflects the world’s sprit that contains various thoughts and ideas. Notably, art is produced by artists’ insight that comes from cognitions of past and awareness of present. Therefore, as a significant role in culture, art leads people to open their eyes in spiritual life not only for their present life but also for their future generations’ life.

 

6. What connection can you make to “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”?

 

           “Intellectual Beauty” is a spiritual idea that leads human to be free from their dark realities into spiritual world. In “Ode to the West Wind,” Shelley represents the Wind as the same idea of “Intellectual Beauty” which conveys spirit of nature. Both of his poems emphasize spirit of nature that it can only free human from suffering and lead them to mindfulness, enlightenment.

 

 

 

 

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Note

 

terza rima:

A three-line stanza form borrowed from the Italian poets.

The rhyme-scheme is­… aba, bab, cdc, ded, etc.

In other words one rhyme-sound is used for the first and third line of each stanza and a new rhyme introduced for the second line, this new rhyme, in turn, being used for the first and third lines of the subsequent stanza.

 

The opening of Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind," which is written in terza rima, illustrates it:

 

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,                  a

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead              b

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,                 c

 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,                                  b

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,                               c

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed                               b

 

The terza rima has been popular with English poets, being used by Milton, Shelley, and Byron, among many others. With variations in meter and the use of rhymes, it has been widely used by contemporary poets, particularly Archibald MacLeish, W. H. Auden, William Carlos Williams (in "Yachts"), and T. S. Eliot.

Williams's "Yachts" is indebted to the terza rima of Dante’s Divine Comedy, which influenced Shelley's use of the form as well.

 

The American poet Robert Pinsky has retranslated Dante's Inferno, retaining the terza rima (no easy trick).

Pinsky is the only one who challenge of an English-speaking Dante.

 

 

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/terza.html