Ode to the West Wind
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
• Born August 4, 1792, at Field Place, a place near Horsham, Sussex,
England.
• One brother and four sisters
• Went to Oxford University
• First publication was a Gothic novel, Zastrozzi
• He loped to Scotland with Harriet Westbrook, sixteen
• The family line can be traced back to one of the followers of William of
Normandy.
• he challenged the authorities of Oxford, and for his publication of “ The
Necessity of Atheism he was expelled from Oxford University.
"Percy Bysshe Shelley." Poets.org - Poetry,
Poems, Bios & More. Web. 07 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/179>.
The Poem
I
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being
Thou 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
5 Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
10(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill;
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!
Paraphrase
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like a sorcerer might frighten away spirits, the
wind scatters leaves.
the winds of inspiration make way for new talent
and ideas by driving away the memories of the old
The colors named here might simply indicate the
different shades of the leaves, but it is also
possible to interpret the leaves as symbols of
humanity's dying masses
the wind is a chariot that carries leaves and seeds
to the cold earth
11
The leaves are people within their graves
12
The spring wind is feminine
13
the wind is the powerful spirit of nature that
incorporates both destruction and continuing life
14
without destruction, life cannot continue
Gupta, Prasoon. "Ode to the West Wind." Creativeteensclub.org. Prasoon Gupta, 12 Mar.
2008. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.creativeteensclub.org/ctc/node/37>.
"610. Ode to the West Wind. Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Oxford Book of English Verse."
Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More.
Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.bartleby.com/101/610.html>.
Poem continued
II
Paraphrase
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!
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The wind blows around the clouds and
shakes rain from the heavens and the
oceans.
The wail of the wind is a song of grief
As the year draws to a close, Nature
prepares for the funeral
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This last day ends in darkness, under
storm clouds.
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Gupta, Prasoon. "Ode to the West Wind." Creativeteensclub.org. Prasoon Gupta, 12 Mar.
2008. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.creativeteensclub.org/ctc/node/37>.
"610. Ode to the West Wind. Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Oxford Book of English Verse."
Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More.
Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.bartleby.com/101/610.html>.
Poem continued
III
Paraphrase
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystàlline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
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The Mediterranean Sea is smooth and tranquil,
sleeping alongside the old Italian town of Baiae
the peace of the seascape reminds the West
Wind of its power to churn up wild, whitecapped
surf.
The lush sea foliage is aware of the wind's ability
to destroy; remembering the havoc of cold
weather storms, the vegetation is drained of
color, as a person turns pale with fear, or as
plant life on Earth fades in the fall
The natural cycles of death and regeneration
continue underwater, with the aid of the West
Wind.
42
Gupta, Prasoon. "Ode to the West Wind." Creativeteensclub.org. Prasoon Gupta, 12 Mar.
2008. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.creativeteensclub.org/ctc/node/37>.
"610. Ode to the West Wind. Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Oxford Book of English Verse."
Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More.
Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.bartleby.com/101/610.html>.
IV
Poem continued
Paraphrase
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision—I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.
44
If he were a dead leaf or a swift cloud, he would fly with
the wind and share its power.
45
He would have more strength, like he was in his boyhood.
46
he used to "race" the wind and win, in his own mind. But
now, as an older man, he could never imagine challenging
the wind's power.
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the patterns of sea, earth, and sky are recalled as he asks
to be raised from his sorrows by the inspirational West
Wind
his life experiences have been heavy crosses for him to
bear and have weighed him down. And yet there still seem
to be sparks of life and hope within him. He can still recall
when he possessed many of the wind's powers and
qualities.
56
Gupta, Prasoon. "Ode to the West Wind." Creativeteensclub.org. Prasoon Gupta, 12 Mar.
2008. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.creativeteensclub.org/ctc/node/37>.
"610. Ode to the West Wind. Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Oxford Book of English Verse."
Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More.
Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.bartleby.com/101/610.html>.
Poem continued
V
Paraphrase
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
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he seems to accept his sorrows and sufferings; he
realizes that the wind's power may allow him to add
harmony to autumn's music. He is still sad, but he
recognizes a sweetness in his pain: he is part of a natural
cycle, and will have a chance to begin again as both man
and poet.
The wind blew leaves over the forest floor, fertilizing the
soil; now, he asks the wind to scatter his timeworn ideas
and writings across the earth in hopes of inspiring new
thoughts and works.
He is echoing the idea of the mind in creation is as a
fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an
inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness.
He asks to become the poet-prophet of the new season of
renewal.
he has made his case and plea to assist the wind in the
declaration of a new age but he has not yet received an
answer. he breathlessly awaits a "yes", delivered on the
wings of the wind.
Gupta, Prasoon. "Ode to the West Wind." Creativeteensclub.org. Prasoon Gupta, 12 Mar.
2008. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.creativeteensclub.org/ctc/node/37>.
"610. Ode to the West Wind. Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Oxford Book of English Verse."
Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More.
Web. 08 Feb. 2011. <http://www.bartleby.com/101/610.html>.
Diction
• The poem uses formal abstract vivid diction.
• It does create vivid expressions by using semantics.
Tone and mood of poem
• the emotion of awe and astonishment at the wind is
conveyed. The Author creates an atmosphere of awe at what
the wind does.
• this poem is ecstatic
• the poem invokes happiness and peace in us
"275. Ode to the West Wind. P. B. Shelley. The Golden Treasury."
Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics
and Hundreds More. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.bartleby.com/106/275.html>.
Rhetorical Situation
• Who is speaking? The speaker might be the author himself.
• To whom? He is trying to invoke the west wind to hear him.
• For what purpose? The author is intending to express his
ideas about the power, import, quality, and effect of aesthetic
expression.
• Speaker’s relationship to us: We are being ignored by the
speaker.
"275. Ode to the West Wind. P. B. Shelley. The Golden Treasury."
Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics
and Hundreds More. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.bartleby.com/106/275.html>.
Figurative Language
• similies- compares seeds to a corpse within its grave. “The
wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a
corpse within its grave”
• metaphor- compares the west wind to the breath of autumn.
“O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being”
• personification- the year is given the human quality of death.
“Thou dirge Of the dying year”
"275. Ode to the West Wind. P. B. Shelley. The Golden Treasury."
Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics
and Hundreds More. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.bartleby.com/106/275.html>.
Imagery
• Creates a picture of leaves flowing in the wind
• Hear: wind blowing, leaves crinkling, and the
trumpet
• Smell: rain, burning fire, and the ocean
• Touch: wind and rain
• Rhyme: it has approximate repetition of final
sound
• Repetition: Repetition of the letter “O” in
context of “O Wild West Wind” and “O Wind”
• Alliteration: there is no repetition of consonant
sound in the beginning of the word, however
there is in the example: “Dead” and “Red”
• Onomatopoeic: there is no onomatopoeia
Structure
• It has 5 stanzas
• The way this sonnet is structured is with
“ABAB CB DEDE FE FG” form.
Conclusion
• The author of this poem did a good job at
showing the impact of the wind and its
power.
• It was very descriptive with lots of imagery.
• The rhyme scheme contributed to the
poem because it was a subtle but effective
way to rhyme. The rhyming was not
overbearing and forced.
Personal reactions
• We thought that the poem was too long
and drawn out but had a lot of description
about the wind.
• The idea of the poem had relation to us
because like Shelly, we have the same
drive to spread our ideas.