Ode To The West Wind Analysis

Ode to the West Wind
In his writings, Percy Shelley strays away from neoclassical writing and writes some of the greatest Romantic Literature of his time. Using this new style of writing he uses metaphors, especially negative ones to further the message he’s trying to convey and to make to poem more readable and draws on the wind from the poem for inspiration in an unconventional way. 0
Percy Shelley was born in 1792. He studied at Oxford, where he was later kicked out for writing an insulting pamphlet about Atheism that was directed towards the people in charge. Soon after he was kicked out of Oxford he married his first wife and they had two kids. He began to have an affair with a women named Mary Wollstonecraft, and his wife committed suicide

Unlike the neoclassical writers who favored the safe and calm nature of pastures and meadows, Shelley favored the dark unpredictable and intimidating side of nature. For this reason he wrote about the west wind (autumn wind) in his poem Ode to the West Wind. The west wind comes after the summer time and announces the coming of autumn and then goes into the winter. The wind is violent and dark; it harkens death and suggest the upcoming winter. It’s not a happy wind. This violent wind is something that would have been feared by neoclassical writers and would have never been written about. Since Romantics didn’t like to use rhyming couplets, Shelley wrote Ode to the West Wind as a lyrical Ode. It consist of 14 lines and follows the rhyme scheme of aba bcb cdc ded ee. Shelley writes a lot about melancholy in Ode to the West Wind a trait commonly found in Romantic writers. He expresses his growing sadness and unhappiness throughout the poem. Romantic writers were fascinated with the idea of Revolution, because the American Revolution had just occurred and the French Revolution was an ongoing event. In Ode to the West Wind some ideas of revolution can be seen, where Shelley is praising the wind for being different and going

Metaphors make poem more readable and lyrical sounding.
“O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn 's being (Shelley citation). This is a metaphor comparing the wind to autumn’s breath and compares autumn to a living breathing creature, giving the wild wind qualities of life.
Wind=metaphor for natures awe inspiring spirit 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!
Metaphor that describes the winds power and compares the wind to a funeral song to mark the death of the old year and the beginning of winter and the coming of spring. My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
This is a metaphor comparing the poet to the wind.
Be through my lips to unawaken 'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
This is a metaphor comparing the poet’s voice to the wind. The poet uses these two metaphors to draw comparisons between himself and the