“ode to the west wind” by percy bysshe shelley shelley wrote this as a romantic, english...
TRANSCRIPT
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Shelley wrote this as a Romantic, English expatriate, living in Italy. He wanted to feel connected to the powerful social movement.
He belonged to a philosophical movement called neo-Platonism. Basically there is an ideal world existing. There is an over soul, source of our being
that we are all connected to.
Form: “Ode to the West Wind”
Ode: lyrical stanza of praiseTerza Rima (like the Divine Comedy)
ABA BCB CDC DED EE Generally iambic pentameter This poem is also in poetic chapters, called
Cantos (like DC)Play on the sonnet form within cantos
14 lines 4 tercets and a couplet instead of 3 quatrains and
a couplet
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
IO wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
What poetic devices to you notice?
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
IO wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Apostrophe, Personification, Enjambment, Simile
What is the effect?
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
IO wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
The West Wind has power: power to move.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
As the “breath of Autumn’s being” the WW moves the ominous dead
leaves.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,Each like a corpse within its grave, untilThine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Like “hectic red” in the previous stanza, “cold and low” has a musical
sound due to assonance.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,Each like a corpse within its grave, untilThine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
The West Wind brings seeds to place, but they must be in the grave “like corpses” (simile) until azure
Spring.
Note colors: Winter- yellow, black, hectic red. Spring- blue
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill(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!
Spring will see a rejuvenation period.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill(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!
This invocation to hear (apostrophe) calls WW “Destroyer
and Preserver”. How does this work?
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill(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!
The WW banishes winter, but prepares for spring. How might this
relate to Shelley?
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
IIThou 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,
The speaker compares the West Wind’s clouds to dead leaves in a stream.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spreadOn the blue surface of thine airy surge,Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim vergeOf the horizon to the zenith's height,The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
A storm is brewing…
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spreadOn the blue surface of thine airy surge,Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim vergeOf the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
A Maenad is a mythical, wild haired participant in the cult of Dionysus. What is the effect of this simile?
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spreadOn the blue surface of thine airy surge,Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim vergeOf the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
The storm is wild and all encompassing with a center.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
Of the dying year, to which this closing nightWill be the dome of a vast sepulchreVaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphereBlack rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!
The speaker calls the WW a dirge (funeral song) and says that the storm will be the tomb to the dying year (metaphor and imagery)
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
Of the dying year, to which this closing nightWill be the dome of a vast sepulchreVaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphereBlack rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!
Another invocation, this time associated with black rain and fire and hail.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
IIIThou who didst waken from his summer dreamsThe blue Mediterranean, where he lay,Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,And saw in sleep old palaces and towersQuivering within the wave's intenser day,WW also has power to wake the Mediterranean and Baisae’s bay who dream about the past (personification)
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
All overgrown with azure moss and flowersSo sweet, the sense faints picturing them! ThouFor whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far belowThe sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wearThe sapless foliage of the ocean, know
WW even moves the Atlantic. Also, notice more assonance.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
Invocation of the WW who is so powerful that it frightens the ocean life who in turn hurt themselves trembling.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
IVIf 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 speaker wishes to be a dead leaf or cloud so that the WW could move him.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
The impulse of thy strength, only less freeThan thou, O Uncontrollable! If evenI were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speedScarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven
He would settle for his boyhood belief that he could companion and outrun the WW
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowedOne too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
Time has weighed him down and slowed him down, but not broken his spirit.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
VMake 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!
The speaker asks to be WW’s instrument (metaphor) or even come into the speaker entirely.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike withered leaves to quicken a new birth!And, by the incantation of this verse,
His thoughts may only be fertilizer or decomposing leaves (simile), but they can “quicken a new birth”
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearthAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
I may be run down to “ashes and sparks” but they can still start a fire!
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearthAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Change must be coming…
“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Inspired by the ruins of a statue of Egyptian Pharaoh, Ramses II (AKA Ozymandias) Ramses II challenged anyone to surpass him in
greatness. Napoleon tried to get it in the 1790s, but it
weighed too much (7.5 tons)The British museum acquired it in 1817Shelley and a friend (Horace Smith) had a
little sonnet competition with it as the subject. The poem looks at what happens to tyrants
and despotic rulers.
“Ozymandias” by Percy B. Shelley
“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Form: Modified Petrarchan Sonnet14 linesOctave-Sestet StructureVariation comes in rhyme scheme and meter
“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
Sets the scene that this statue is from antiquity.
“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
All that is left of him now: legs and an eerily accurate facial expression.
“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
The sculptor may have been able to tell something about the Pharaoh that even he didn’t know.
“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
And on the pedestal, these words appear:My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal Wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Inscription: Irony
“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
And on the pedestal, these words appear:My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal Wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Not only has the statue decayed, there is also complete abandonment and isolation. (Alliteration adds to this effect)
Journal Prompt for Gilgamesh Reading Log
How does the poem “Ozymandias” relate to Gilgamesh?
How does this poem relate to Gilgamesh’s story?
How is this poem a rebuttal of Gilgamesh’s speech at the end of The Epic of Gilgamesh?