Ode to the West Wind

Ode to the West Wind by Percy Shelley is considered to be an influential poem in that he hoped to spread the word of reformation and change through the wind. Wind in this poem becomes symbolic for the extension of a message or emotion in different locations. At the same time of the writing, Shelley was going through emotional turmoil, having just lost his son Charles.

Ode to the West Wind is made up of five cantos; the first three describe the effect that the wind has on the natural elements earth, water and air. In the final two cantos, Shelley invites the wind to offer him power and a chance to become like a leaf floating around his surroundings. The implication of Shelley asking for the wind can also represent the blowing around of his ideas, and spreading them over the world.

Ode to the West Wind allows Percy Shelley to invoke the beauty of the natural world and all it has to offer and this type of poem differs from others of his time in that previous Romantic poets used thoughts of nature as an experience, and those of Shelley's generation used nature and the beauty it contained as an aesthetic experience. Throughout this poem, Shelley uses nature as a metaphor to express thoughts, ideas and to provide the reader with images of beauty and aesthetic pleasure.

In the opening Lines 1-3 of the poem, Shelley proclaims:

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

Despite the possibility of this Ode sounding upbeat or positive, it starts out quite the opposite and exposing the reader to the first of many ominous natural elements such as the leaves fleeing from something that may be frightening. The first canto continues on describing colors for the reader to imagine, "yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes" in Lines 4 and 5. These colors are not of aesthetic beauty, but rather of death brought to many people. There are many contradictions throughout this first canto, comparing "black" and "pale", "corpse within its grave" and "azure sister of the spring". In lines 13 and 14 Shelley writes,

Wild Spirit, which are moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear. Oh hear!

The wind represents both the destroyer, since it causes the leaves to fall off the tree and the preserver because when the spring comes, new life will form from the scattered leaves over the land.

Ode to the West Wind uses many references to the landscape, as well as metaphors to explain other things. In the second canto for instance, Line 18 describes "Angels of rain and lightening", indicating that clouds can be considered messengers from heaven, as well as providing assistance to change with the nurturing aspect that rain may have on the seeds and leaves blown away by the wind. In the second canto, Shelley also turns his subject away from the earth and leaves to focus more on the heavens and skies.

The third canto seems to focus more on transcendence or reminiscing, whereas his first two cantos were about the acceptance of changes in life, including death. Shelley also suggests that things may not be as they appear, and that living in harmony will not last forever in Lines 36-42:

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: oh hear!

The fourth canto is no longer focused on the wind, but rather the speaker. Throughout the entire poem until this point, the reader is picturing landscape and nature as though the writer was anonymous but the poem becomes more and more about Shelley towards the end. There are many uses of pronouns which make this poem a more personal experience for Shelley and his surroundings. In the fourth canto, Shelley asks the wind to lift him up as a leaf, wave or cloud and then fall upon thorns to bleed, possibly meaning that he wishes to die, and then be reborn. Towards the final verse in the fourth canto Shelley writes "A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd" possibly describing the years that have gone by with many locked up during the pursuit of freedom.

In the fifth and final canto, Shelley becomes demanding of the wind and asks to become an instrument of it. He calls upon the wind in Lines 62-68:

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my 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

It is as though Shelley is the tree, wanting a wind to come through and blow his leaves away so that new ones can appear and thrive with the spring.

While Ode to the West Wind is a poem that describes nature in an aesthetic way as opposed to those before it, there is an underlying theme of not only the physical change of seasons and new cycles but also of life, death and a possible re-birth. Throughout the poem, Shelley offers insight to struggles that happened in past, but also that they can be almost wiped away and re-done. It enlightens the readers to the thought that even after problems arise, there is always hope that a solution will not be much further than the next season. Shelley also shares with the reader the idea of rebirth, and that it can be done with spiritual growth. In the final verses of the fifth canto, Shelley makes it clear that where there is a winter, the spring is not far behind- alluding to an idea of re-birth or regeneration.