Rigato Laura - III A
The Life
• Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 – July 8, 1822)
was one of the major English Romantic poets and he is
widely considered to be among the finest lyrical poets
of the English language.
• He was the son of a rich landowner;
•He was expelled from Oxford University because he wrote a
pamphlet against religion;
•In 1816 Percy married Mary Godwin;
•July 8, 1822, shortly before his thirtieth birthday, Shelley drowned in a storm
while attempting to sail from Lerici to La Spezia, in Italy
The Profile
 Percy Bysshe Shelley was an interesting figure for his time: he
spent his whole life in his hope to change the world. He
advocated equality of rights for all men and men’s right to
change the form of government. His ideas led him to
sympathise with the oppresed, the persecuted and the weak,
to attack monarchs and tyrants.
 Another important aspect in Shelley’s profile is the role of
Imagination, in fact it represents “the great instrument of
moral good.” For him, poetry was the best expression of the
power of Imagination: the poet is the one who can best access
this creative power. Consequently the poet has a social
mission of prophet, teacher, singer towards mankind.
“A poet is a nightingale,
who sits in darkness and
sings to cheer its own
solitude with sweet
sounds.”
Political commitment
Role of the poet as
a prophet
Key
Ideas
Power of
Imagination
Liberal and
Democratic
Ideals
Some of Shelley’s works include
•
“Ozymandias”
•
“Ode to the West Wind”
•
“The Masque of Anarchy”
•
“To a Skylark”
•
“Prometheus Unbound”
“O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's beingThou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes!—O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed..”
General Introduction to Ode to
the West Wind
 The poem first appeared in 1820and it was conceived in a wood near Florence on a day in
which a violent storm was approaching. It is divided into five stanzas.: In each stanza Shelley
describes the effects of the wind on the surrounding nature, a wind that is considered a
cosmic power that affects the whole universe. In the first stanza the wind is described as an
essence of seasonal change, as a “Destroyer” and a “Preserver”. The poet described its effects
on earth,on the sea and in the sky. In the fourth stanza the poet implores the wind to lift him
and rescue him from prostration. In the last stanza the poet identifies him-self with the wind,
thus becoming the prophet of a change for humanity. In the ode there are many similes,
metaphors and symbols. Some key-words of the poem are destroyer and preserver, which
synthesize the main concepts of the ode: the death and the rebirth of human society. We also
have two nice imagies of the Wind as a charioter and an enchanter which emphasise its
supernatural essence.
 We can divide the ode into two parts: in the first part the poet deals with the effects of this
magic Wind on the whole nature, in the part the poet identifies himself with it. The first three
stanzas all conclude with the vocative Oh hear. This introduces the beginning of the second
part. The link is mediated by the final two lines of the fourth stanza in which the poet
confesses his own frailties and implores the Wind to give energy to his own spiritual and
political regeneration and for the political regeneration of Europe.
This concept of a new birth implies a negative view of society and underlines the prophetic
role of the poet. Eventually in this ode the poet shows his desire for personal renewal and for
the successful spreading of his revolutionary ideas.
First Stanza
 Stanza 1 describes the effect of the wind on the earth first in
autumn and then in spring time. In the former season the wind is
presented as a destroyer of the previous season and its action is
characterized by images of death.
 This function changes in spring when the wind is seen as a
preserver, thus restoring the life that autumn had taken away
from the land. The images change accordingly and words which
evoke rebirth and life are introduced. Right from stanza 1 the
wind is addressed directly, through the use of the second-person
pronoun thou. This personification is further developed through
the attribution to the wind of verbs denoting human faculties,
like wakest, hear, etc.
Second Stanza
 In stanza 2 the action of the wind shifts from the land to
the sky, but the images the poet uses are still linked to
the preceding ones. The clouds in fact are compared to
leaves and boughs. These clouds are angels, in the sense
of messengers, of the rain and lightning that will come at
nightfall. Also in this case, however, the wind is presented
in autumn and its function is a destructive one, because it
deals with rain, hail and storm. To add to its destructive
force, the wind is also addressed as dirge and sepulchre,
which are associated with death.
Third Stanza
 In stanza 3 the spring wind is described in his creative action on the
sea. The sea is seen as the place where in ancient times civilisation
was born. The Calm and peace, the poet talks about, is the one
typical of the Mediterranean sea. This one is also personified as a
languid form, “lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams”, and
reflecting “old palaces and towers” lazily like a person asleep. The
first part of stanza 3 is characterized by a softer atmosphere and
sweet colours (the azure and crystalline sea) and by the presence of
flowers. Moreover, soft consonants and falling cadences have
replaced the earlier harsher consonants. Towards the end of the
stanza, however, a gloomier mood re-emerges and the scene shifts
from the Mediterranean sea to the Atlantic Ocean, described in
powerful and frightening terms, whose level powers cleave
themselves into chaos and whose vegetation in the depths of the
sea shakes as with fear.
Fourth Stanza
 Stanza 4 describes the poet’s identification with the wind and
introduces a more personal tone. He draws together the dead
leaves of the first stanza, the clouds of the second and the
power that the waves have, so that he could combat the evils
he wanted to destroy. He speaks about his childhood when he
ran after the wind, thus contrasting his past energy with his
present misery. He feels that he has lost his boyhood’s
freedom, when everything seemed possible to him, and that
the passing of the time has tamed and enslaved him. Shelley is
concerned with the loss of his personal physical and spiritual
energy. That’s why he then asks the wind to help him regain
the energy he has lost.
Fifth Stanza
 Such a prayer reaches its climax in stanza 5, when he asks the
wind to be his lyre, to renew him, to reanimate his spirit, so
that his “dead thoughts”, blown about the universe, will come
to new life, like the seeds blown with the dead autumn leaves.
His message is one of hope for mankind: autumn heralds the
approach of winter, representing death, but spring,
representing the regeneration of mankind, will follow after.
However, the very end of the poem is in a certain sense
perplexing. We expect another exclamation but the poem
closes with a question. Shelley is not quite so certain as his
build-up suggested and at the final moment a doubt vexes his
mind. Can regeneration arrive so mechanically?