21/05/2017
Ode to the west wind was written in the autumn of 1891 in the forest of Arno near Florence (Italy). A storm that was then blowing across this forest inspired Shelley’s own note on the poem,
There are many significant points to remember in this poem…
• The west wind is a symbol of law of life itself which contains creation and destruction, and manifests itself in the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
• In the very first stanza of the poem, Shelley says that the west wind is a wild spirit (unseen presence)
• It destroys only the useless decayed things, dry, dead leaves, that are not green (green symbolizes life) but have sickly colours “black”’pale”,yellow”
• The first lines describes the wind as a destroyer and the next five lines describes it as a preserver.
• It carried the light seeds away from the parent-plants to scatter them everywhere, so that in spring, they will start life of their own.
_________________________stanza __________________
This stanza describes the west wind in its terrible aspect.
• (1) first is the image of the sky filled with storm-clouds and the ocean with high waves, which is wind shakes it like it shakes the trees on the earth.
• The second image is a maenad. (the female votary of Bacchus, the Greek God of wine, the sky took fierce like a maenad whose hair streams in the wind.
______________stanza________________________
• Throughout the summer the value Mediterrarean Sea was so peaceful that is seemed as if the crystal clear water of the winding rivers that flow into it sends it to sleep with their music.
• but under the passage of the wind the smooth waves of the Atlantic are ploughed with deep furrows and the sea-flowers and sapless trees of the sub-marine forest recognize its voice and suddenly grow white with fear. They tremble with fear and in sympathy with vegetation on land, shed off their leaves.
…….in the fourth stanza of the poem a personal note of frustration and harshness of life is introduced. The poet feels he was freer like the wind in his childhood without any social bo***ge and evils.
The fifth stanza is a glimpse of hope and exultation. The Wild West winds inspire Shelley to write poetry and this poetry, in turn, serves as an inspiring message to humanity. This message to humanity would fire human hearts killing the desires for progress and a better world.
____________kernel message of the poem_______ Change is the first article of revolutionary faith and Shelley invokes the west wind, because it brings about change. The second article of such a faith is power. Change can be brought about only by power, and the west wind has this power in full measure. It is so powerful that “it is everywhere” even the mighty ocean yields place before it.
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬Symbolism ………..
• The forces of nature both destructive and preservative
• The resurrection or regeneration of man
• The transmigration of soul
• The revolution
• The reformation of man
• The cycle of seasons
• The idea of the tyranny of life and his profound faith that the world in which we live is a dynamic, growing world, in which the dead past yields place to the living present, and in which there is a constant struggle between the old and the new.
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