pg. 730
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
• (August 4, 1792 – July 8, 1822)
• Major English Romantic poet
• Considered to be among the finest
lyrical poets of the English language
• Unconventional life
• Uncompromising
idealism
• Strong skeptical voice
• Notorious figure during his life
• He is perhaps most famous
for the following:
•“Ozymandias”
•“Ode to the West Wind”
•“To a Skylark”
• Shelley became the idol of
the next two or three
generations of poets
including the major Victorian
and Pre-Raphaelite poets:
•Robert Browning
•Alfred Tennyson
•William Butler Yeats
• He is famous for his association
with contemporaries John Keats
and Lord Byron.
•He was married to the famous
novelist Mary Shelley, author of
Frankenstein.
•Shelley wrote the introduction to
the 1818 edition of his wife’s
novel.
• 1814 – Shelley fell in love
and eloped with Mary, the
16 year-old daughter of
William Godwin and
Mary Wollstonecraft.
•For the next few years, the couple travelled in
Europe.
• 1822 – Shelley moved to Italy and
published the journal The Liberal
with Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron.
• By publishing it in Italy, the three
men remained free from prosecution
by the British authorities.
• The first edition of The Liberal sold 4,000
copies.
• Soon after its publication, Percy Bysshe
Shelley was lost at sea on July 8, 1822, while
sailing to meet Leigh Hunt.
Read pgs. 730-740
Percy Bysshe Shelley – pg. 730
Preview Info – pg. 731
Literary terms:
imagery – descriptive language –
appeals to the senses
Romantic philosophy – link nature
and spirit
Read “Ozymandias” – pg. 733
“Ode to the West Wind” – pg. 734-736
“To a Skylark” – pg. 737-740
pg. 733
The feet of the colossus of
Rameses II on which Shelley's
poem Ozymandias is based.
Logical Structure
*Ozymandias, or Ramese II, was pharaoh
of Egypt in the thirteenth century B.C.
The poem, as an Italian sonnet, can be
divided into two parts:
• the first eight lines (octave)
•
the next six lines (sestet)
Logical Structure
• The octave part describes the fragments of a
sculpture the traveler sees on an ancient ruin.
• The sestet goes further to record the words on
the pedestal and then describe the
surrounding emptiness.
Logical Structure
• The words on the pedestal are in contrast to
both the octave and the last three lines of the
poem.
• The reader must ask:
• “What does Ozymandias want to achieve,
as opposed to what is left behind him?
Irony
•The most obvious kind of opposition
exists (between what Ozymandias said
and what is left behind him).
•This opposition has the effect of
dramatic irony.
Structure of Narration
•Frame story
•The poem contains a story (told by Ozymandias)
within a story (told by the traveler) within a story
(told by the speaker of the poem).
•In the core of this multiple story, the Ozymandias
we know is only a sculpture and the words on it.
NOTES
•Message: power is fleeting – humans cannot
escape effects of time
•Message is relevant – accomplishments,
pride, power
•Lines 1-8: description of statue
•Lines 9-14: irony – wrecked condition
•Heart – longing desire
•Hand – creative aspect
NOTES
•Ironic comment on human pride & ambition
•Inscription: “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and
despair!”
•Remnants of statue
•Empty desert
•Ozymandias’s works – crumbled b/c of time and
nature
NOTES
•Contrast: King’s pride/passion vs. image of
devastation & emptiness
•Most important idea: meaninglessness of
earthly power
•Ozymandias was an actual king of Egypt
thousands of years before Shelley wrote
•Political message: No dictator can ever truly
rule absolutely
NOTES
•A traveler describes crumbling remains of
statue commemorating Egyptian pharaoh
•Statue’s expression: obscured but includes
frown, wrinkled lip, sneer
•Condescending, proud ruler
NOTES
•Lines 10-11:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look
on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
•Words on pedestal convey attitude of pride &
arrogance
NOTES
•Lines 12-14: “Round the decay / Of that
colossal wreck, boundless and bare, / The lone
and level sands stretch far away.”
•Idea expressed: Nature = more powerful than
any human king
•Irony of inscription: Ozymandias expected his
works to last forever.
•The statue and his entire civilization have been
destroyed.
NOTES
•Although Shelley described only what the
traveler saw, the reader should understand the
traveler had other senses as well.
•For example, the traveler very likely felt the heat
from the sun, etc.
“Ode to the West Wind”
pg. 734-736
•Apostrophe: Poem addresses the West Wind
•Poem describes force of West Wind
•West Wind:
•drives dead leaves
•stirs up the ocean
•destroys plants
•announces winter’s arrival
“Ode to the West Wind”
•Shelley:
•in awe of wind’s natural strength
•disillusioned with his own spiritual emptiness
•calls on West Wind to lift him up, destroy him,
and then purify him (similar to changing of
seasons)
•understands that decay will lead ultimately to
the renewal of spring
“Ode to the West Wind”
NOTES
•First two sections (I and II):
•Images of violence, death, decay, and burial
•Lines 16-17: Heaven and the Ocean are like trees.
•Lines 24-25: (Metaphor) Night is a tomb.
•Lines 46-48: Emphasis on driving force of wind’s
strength
“Ode to the West Wind”
NOTES
•Wind associated with autumn
•Leaves & seeds scatter – will bring new life
•Movement of clouds – initiates new weather
•Speaker asks wind to lift him as it would “a wave,
a leaf, a cloud.”
•The “heavy weight of hours” (line 55) prompts
speaker to ask wind to lift him up.
“Ode to the West Wind”
NOTES
•Line 57: “Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is”
•Best expresses speaker’s hopes for West Wind
•Lines 57-63: Speaker sees himself in the autumn
wind. Asks the wind to enable his spirit to be one
with that of the wind.
“Ode to the West Wind”
NOTES
•Shelley is not only examining the wind literally, he
is also examining the wind figuratively speaking as
well.
•The West Wind is an appropriate force to call on
for new birth b/c it marks the changing of seasons:
fall
spring.
•Old is destroyed and replaced by new in the
spring.
“Ode to the West Wind”
NOTES
•Line 70: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far
behind?”
•Even the bleakest situations are followed by times
of renewal and hope.
•Line 70 ties together the poem b/c it sums up the
theme: hope and a new beginning
•Summary: The West Wind’s destructiveness
makes new life possible.
pg. 737-740
“To a Skylark”
NOTES
•This poem is similar to “Ode to the West Wind” b/c
both the wind and the skylark are constantly in
motion.
•Define blithe: cheerful
•Stanza 1: The speaker claims the skylark is not a
bird.
•The point? The bird’s song is something not of
this world b/c the song is so beautiful.
“To a Skylark”
NOTES
•Lines 6-35: images of light – suggest bird is
celestial or other worldly
•Speaker says skylark’s song is heard
everywhere, even in heaven
•Lines 16-20: appeal to sight, sound, and touch
•Overall image presented of skylark: bird is
often invisible – speaker perceives skylark, at
times, only through sense of hearing.
“To a Skylark”
NOTES
•Line 35: image suggests skylark’s music is
everywhere at once
•Lines 36-55 – speaker compares bird to the
following:
•Poet
•Highborn maiden
•Glowworm
•Rose
“To a Skylark”
NOTES
•Lines 36-40: the skylark, like a poet’s hymns, creates
sympathies and fears
•Lines 41-45: the skylark, like a sad maiden, sings songs to
soothe the soul
•Lines 46-50: the skylark, like a glowworm's light, sings a
song that fill the air
•Lines 51-55: the skylark, like the scent of fallen roses,
sings a song that intoxicates the senses
•Each comparison suggests the skylark’s song can
transform the world or even a soul.
“To a Skylark”
NOTES
•Poet believes skylark’s songs are sweeter than
songs of humans
•Skylark does not know annoyance and pain
•Skylark understands death more deeply than
humans, though
•Lines 86-87: “We look before and after, / And pine
for what is not”
Unlike the bird, humans sulk and feel sorry for
what is not and what will not be.
“To a Skylark”
NOTES
•Lines 88-90: “Our sincerest laughter / With some
pain is fraught: / Our sweetest songs are those that
tell of saddest thought.”
Even human laughter has grief.
Human happiness is different from the
skylark’s happiness b/c human happiness is
always tinged with sorrow.
“To a Skylark”
NOTES
•Line 103: “harmonious madness”
•The gladness of the skylark is too pure to be
understood by humans.
•If the skylark’s gladness/happiness were
translated into poetry, the verses would be
startlingly beautiful, but impossible to
understand.
“To a Skylark”
NOTES
•Shelley focuses on:
Limitations of human condition
Poet’s struggle with limitations
•Quality Shelley perceives & praises above all in
the skylark’s existence:
Purity & simplicity of skylark’s joy
•Shelley’s description of nature in all three
poems:
Nature has much to teach us.