Theme :- Inspiration in “Ode to the West Wind';
“When composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline'; - P. B. Shelley
Shelley deals with the theme of inspiration in much of his work. However it is particularly apparent in ‘Ode to the West Wind’ where the wind is the source of his creativity. The cycles of death and rebirth are examined in an historical context with reference to The Bible. The word inspiration has several connotations that Shelley uses in this ‘Ode’. Inspiration is literally ‘taking in breath’ and wind, breath, soul and inspiration are all identical or related in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. They are all closely related in ‘Ode to a West Wind’.
Shelley’s adaptation of Dante’s work is evident throughout most of his writing. In ‘Ode to the West Wind’ it is quite apparent. He was writing this poem in a wood on the outskirts of Arno, near Florence, which is Dante’s hometown. The use of the terza rima poem is
Shelley’s most obvious adaptation of Dante and he relies upon Dantesque ideas to write his poetry. The image of the leaves being blown by the wind “like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing';(l.3) depends on the Inferno in Paradiso for the image to have an effect on the reader.
The various cycles of death and rebirth are examined with reference to the Maenads who were fabled to have destroyed Orpheus’s body and spread it around the world. This is the underlying theme to the poem with Shelley alluding to the breaking of Christ’s body on the cross and how that was essential for humanity to reach salvation. The onslaught of Autumn is the ‘Destroyer’ in one sense but also the ‘Preserver’ as it forms an intricate part of the cycle of life and death. Without the death of Jesus Christ the world would not have been saved and so for life to exist so too must death.
Referred to as an “unseen presence';(l.2) the wind is naked to the human eye. However the physical manifestation of the wind can be felt and it’s effect on nature cannot be ignored. The personification of the wind - “thou breath of Autumn’s being';(l.1) - supports its spirituality. T...
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...valence to the poem as Shelley refuses to explain to the reader his meaning and opens it up for greater critical analysis.
The theme of inspiration is one that Shelley deals with in an in-depth manner in ‘Ode to a West Wind’. The wind is the source of his inspiration and he attempts to force a marriage between the wind and his own position in life. However, he is unable to reach that conclusion and the result is that by trying to imitate the power and inspiration of the wind in his poetry he reduces it’s initial impact by doing so. This decline and loss that is associated with composition is a significant part of Shelley’s poetry and leads him to be one of the most despairing poets of his time.
Bibliography
Leighton, Angela Shelley and the Sublime, London, 1984
O’Neill, Michael Shelley, London, 1993
Ridenour, George Shelley, New Jersey, 1965
Solve, Melvin Shelley: His theory of Poetry, New York, 1964
Strong, Archibald Three Studies in Shelley, London, 1921
Shelley uses symbolic meaning to depict the destruction of a statue and the “sands that stretch far away” in relation to the effects of pride, a direct contrast from the words on the pedestal. The images of the deteriorating items gives the readers an understanding of time’s ultimate power beyond both life and pride. However, the cliché use of sands as a means of representing time still explains to readers that the passing of time is prevalent in the poem and related to the destroyed items presents the concept of a useless
All Shelley might be doing both here and in the ‘Mutability’ lines (as also perhaps in ‘Ozymandias’) is describing the imperfection and impermanence of worldly circumstances. Mary Shelley’s purpose in using her husband’s lines might be no more than a device to engender feelings of pathos in the reader’s heart at the series of losses suffered by the protagonist.
Mary Shelley was a creative individual, who changed the structure and the topic of famous works for those who will follow her with their own acclaimed piece of work.
Shelley’s allusions display the creatures anguish of being alone in the world and how it causes him to feel: “ Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence… I was wretched, helpless, and alone.” (93-94), this allusion is crucial because it shows the reader just how awful the influences of solitude are on the creature and how his circumstances have caused him to become grieved and destitute. Another illusion similar to before take place when the monster compares himself to Satan: “Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.” (94), the monster now resents the people of the cottage because they are able to converse and associate with others while the creature is forced to stay secluded from all contact. Allusions such as these enforce Shelley 's purpose of depicting the calamitous effects of solitude on the mind. By now the reader should understand that men need to be around others like themselves because all creatures desire to have a group into which they
... resist change that nothing else can. The text suggests that the poem places mutability and god on a similar level; since Shelley was an atheist, he had not supreme power to observe, but the idea of mutability replaces God in fulfilling such a role. Thus, Shelley’s powerful word choice and his capitalization of such words help express underlying thoughts about mutability and its context to his biography and the Romantic movement.
In the end of the narrator’s consciousness, the tone of the poem shifted from a hopeless bleak
While immersed in its beauty, Victor and his creation escaped worldly problems and entered a supernatural bliss. In short, Shelley presents nature as very powerful. It has the power to put the humanity back into man when the unnatural world has stripped him of his moral fiber. In comparison to the pure beauty of nature, the unnatural acts of man are far more emphasized; therefore, the reader is clearly aware of man’s faults and their repercussions. Unfortunately, not even the power of nature could balance the work of man: “the cup of life was poisoned forever.”
Every artist draws inspiration from somewhere, and the inspiration shows in their work. When looking deeper into the life of Mary Shelley, it is easy to say that the inspiration she drew to create her novel Frankenstein, came from her own personal experiences. Frankenstein is riddled parallels to Marry Shelley’s own life. It was not just by mere coincidences either, Mary Shelley makes various references to family members (specifically by name), places she visited, and situations she faced, herself, all of these experiences are documented in her novel Frankenstein.
It seems commonplace to recognize the importance of the environment when ruminating on the shaping of one’s nature of time. As a daughter of two rebels, Mary Shelley contributed her interest in writing to her big-named parents. When an independent spirit nearly identical to her mother’s, Shelley ran off with her lover at the age of sixteen, resulting in alienation as society and, even her father, reject her. This estrangement was a driving force in the creation of her novel, Frankenstein. Shelley borrowed a line from John Milton’s Paradise Lost when the monster from her novel states, “I was born benevolent; misery made me a fiend.”
“So holy; green leaves, young leaves, in sun’s light” (Bashou 51.) The reader can imagine this scene vividly even from subtle details it’s easy to envision the sun’s rays trickling through new leaves in a tree. A similar idea occurs in a second poem on the same
As each work progresses, a personal change is expressed. The first section of “Ode to the West Wind” presents a speaker —who is also the author— who seems to be intently overserving the wind; however by the final section, he desires to be like the wind. When he writes that the Wind should “Be thou, Spirit fierce, / My spirit! Be thou me” (Lines 61-62), the author expresses a deep desire to be one with powerful force. A few lines later, he asks the wind to “Drive my dead thoughts over the universe / …to quicken a new birth!” (Lines 63-64) “Scatter, as …/ Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind” (Lines 66-67). In this instance, the “dead thoughts” are Shelley’s previous works. By making a comparison between his words and “ashes and sparks” (Line 67), Shelley expresses the idea that even though his previous works are dead and separated from him, he hopes his words will be able to inspire or ignite new thoughts and artistry in others. At the same time, Byron presents a different sort of personal experience. In the first stanza, Byron writes that “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, /…rapture on the lonely shore” (Lines 1-2). He later writes that when he is in solitude, and surrounded by nature, he feels “What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal” (Line 9). By using these descriptions, Byron shows that there is a type of restoring quality that the natural world can have on a person, an
The wind seems to be a symbol of hope. Hope that he has entrusted in the form of nature. A hope that maybe he can trust that there is no such thing as a ghost that is lurking around tapping on his widows and chamber doors. The narrator looks for a way to make the wind the source of his problems instead of the potential cause that he is having repercussions from a broken
Shelley uses the gothic genre to show the dark side of human nature. Victor became so carried away with his with his experiments that he did not consider that it would be evil to try to play God. “I had deprived myself of rest and health” (51, Shelley). It can be seen here that Victor what very involved In his studies of the reanimation of life, he does not think of the moral issues that might arise from his experiments. It is Victor that controls the technology and knowledge of life, but he insists on creating the monster.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “A Defence of Poetry.” The Longman Anthology: British Literature: Volume 2A – The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. Ed. David Damrosch. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 801-810.
Both Shelley, in "Ode to the West Wind," and Wordsworth, in "Intimations of Immortality," are very similar in their use of nature to describe the life and death of the human spirit. As they both describe nature these two poets use the comparison of how the Earth and all its life is the same as our own human life. I feel that Shelley uses the seasons as a way of portraying the human life during reincarnation. Wordsworth seems to concentrate more on the stages that a person goes through during life. Shelley compares himself to such things as clouds, leaves, and waves. He is writing the poem as if he were an object of the earth, and what it is like to once live and then die only to be reborn. On the other hand, Wordsworth takes images like meadows, fields, and birds and uses them to show what gives him life. Life being what ever a person needs to move on, and with out those objects can't have life. Wordsworth does not compare himself to these things like Shelley, but instead uses them as an example of how he feels about the stages of living. Starting from an infant to a young boy into a man, a man who knows death is coming and can do nothing about it because it's part of life.