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Stanza analysis of ode to west wind
Shelley defence of poetry summary
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It has been said that each and every one of us experience different seasons of life throughout our time here on Earth. One might experience times of deep despondency and a lack of faith, which stay true during the winter months, but then be rejuvenated by the promises of new life and beauty that the spring brings. The poem “Ode to the West Wind,” by Percy Shelley is an irrefutable representation of these seasons of life and what the speaker does in order to ensure that he is delivered from a desperate time. Shelley’s poem paints a melancholic picture of a man who has completely lost his way in life and in his time of utter hopelessness seeks guidance from the West Wind. The speaker acknowledges that the Wind is one of the most powerful forces of nature and he pleads with the Wind to just listen to his cries in hopes that others will be effected by what he is feeling and exclaiming. Shelley utilizes an anomalous structure and rhyme scheme, picturesque imagery, mythological, geographical, and biblical allusions, and many instances of figurative language throughout his poem in order to evoke precise emotions from the reader and elucidate the importance of understanding that tomorrow is a new day.
Shelley constructed his poem in a very unique way that is unrecognizable to most. “Ode to the West Wind” is a collection of five cantos which are the Italian poetry equivalent of chapters (Shmoop Editorial Team). These so-called “chapters” each contain fourteen lines of four-three line stanzas and a one-two line couplet signifying the end of the present canto. The rhythm throughout the poem is clearly iambic pentameter, which, along with the fourteen lines in each canto, resembles that of an English sonnet. There is a diversion, however, t...
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...n experience that every individual must face at least once in their lives. Everyone holds the desire to know if there is really something more to life and once one comes to the realization that hardships in this life are inevitable, they reach their full potential and become more exceptional people than before they entered into the turmoil.
Works Cited
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Gruenwald, Christine. “The Hindu God Brahma: Introduction on Brahma, Member of the Most
Famous Hindu Trinity.” Sanatansociety.org. Sanatan Society. n.d. Web. 3 April 2011.
New International Version. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers & Zondervan Publishing House,
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Shmoop Editorial Team. “Ode to the West Wind Analysis.” Shmoop.com Shmoop University,
Inc., n.d. Web. 3 April 2011.
In “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why?” Edna St. Vincent Millay says that “the summer sang in me” meaning that she was once as bright and lively as the warm summer months. In the winter everyone wants to bundle up and be lazy, but when summer comes along the sunshine tends to take away the limits that the cold once had on us. She uses the metaphor of summer to express the freedom she once felt in her youth, and the winter in contrast to the dull meaningless life she has now. There are many poets that feel a connection with the changing of seasons. In “Odes to the West Wind” Percy Bysshe Shelley describes his hopes and his expectations for the seasons to inspire the world.
Many people who have succeeded in life have faced hardships. Hardships give people the opportunity to overcome difficulties and came back stronger. That is why hardships can strengthen a person.
It is the challenges we face that make it look dark and gloomy. The key to a productive existence is not the emotions we feel when presented with adversity, but in our ability to overcome, grow and evolve. In comparison, examine the Spoken Indian searching for hope in hardships, or the extraordinary taste and smell of the wine connoisseur who lacks sight. See the trial & errors or the young man growing to love both parents, and the college student whose heart is blistering with pain from the loss of his mother, but finds healing in his new home as an emerging scholar. We are all exploring methods to handle
For many people, the early hours of the morning can hold numerous possibilities from time for quiet reflections to beginning of the day observations to waking up and taking in the fresh air. In the instance of the poems “Five A.M.” and “Five Flights Up,” respective poets William Stafford and Elizabeth Bishop write of experiences similar to these. However, what lies different in their styles is the state of mind of the speakers. While Stafford’s speaker silently reflects on his walk at dawn from a philosophical view of facing the troubles that lie ahead in his day, Bishop’s speaker observes nature’s creations and their blissful well-being after the bad day had before and the impact these negative thoughts have on her psychological state in terms
The sun has been an endless source of inspiration, both physical and spiritual, throughout the ages. For its light, warmth, and the essential role it has played in the maintenance of the fragile balance of life on earth, the sun has been honored and celebrated in most of the world's religions. While the regeneration of light is constant, the relative length of time between the rising and setting of the sun is affected by the changing of the seasons. Hippocrates postulated centuries ago that these changing patterns of light and dark might cause mood changes (9). Seasonal downward mood changes of late fall and winter have been the subject of many sorrowful turn-of-the-century poems of lost love and empty souls. For some, however, “the relationship between darkness and despair is more than metaphoric (6).
John Hollander’s poem, “By the Sound,” emulates the description Strand and Boland set forth to classify a villanelle poem. Besides following the strict structural guidelines of the villanelle, the content of “By the Sound” also follows the villanelle standard. Strand and Boland explain, “…the form refuses to tell a story. It circles around and around, refusing to go forward in any kind of linear development” (8). When “By the Sound” is examined in regards to a story, the poem’s linear development does not get beyond the setting. …” The poem starts: “Dawn rolled up slowly what the night unwound” (Hollander 1). The reader learns the time of the poem’s story is dawn. The last line of the first stanza provides place: “That was when I was living by the sound” (3). It establishes time and place in the first stanza, but like the circular motion of a villanelle, each stanza never moves beyond morning time at the sound but only conveys a little more about “dawn.” The first stanza comments on the sound of dawn with “…gulls shrieked violently…” (2). The second stanza explains the ref...
Within the second stanza the clouds in the sky are compared to the “earth’s decaying leaves” (16) and the “Angels of rain and lightning” (18) are a fusion of both a guardian and a killer. The third stanza extends the power and presence of the West Wind allowing it to penetrate the depths of the Atlantic Ocean which causes the “sea-blooms” and “oozy woods” (39) to shed their “sapless foliage of the ocean” and to “despoil themselves.” (40, 42) This compares the sea-leaves to the earthbou...
Wordsworth shows the possibility of finding freedom within his poem by choosing to write within the Italian sonnet’s rules. What makes an Italian sonnet unique is the division and pattern of its rhyme scheme. It is usually structured in an ABBA, ABBA, CDE, CDE pattern, and broken into two main parts, the octave (the first eight lines) and the sestet (the final six). The meter of “Nuns” can be labeled as iambic pentameter, yet along with the meter, the poem differs from the norm in two more ways. The first difference is in the rhyme scheme. In a typical Italian sonnet, the sestet follows a CDE, CDE pattern, in “Nuns” however, it follows the pattern CDD, CCD. It’s minute, but adds emphases to the 13th line, which contains the poem’s second anomaly. All the poem’s lines have an ...
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "A Defense of Poetry." In English Romantic Writers. Ed. David Perkins. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1967. 1072-087.
This poem describes a story told you by a passing traveler of a ruined statue of a king, Ozymandias, seemingly in a desolate desert. On the statue in is inscribed, “‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’/Nothing beside remain” (“Ozymandias” 10-12). Upon examination of the surrounding land, we realize that the once vast kingdom around the statue has been taken back by the desert, leaving the ironic message on the statue. This poem shows Shelley’s ideas of how all is temporary, especially mankind and our achievements. Showing romantic values, Shelley believed nature is much greater than man and no matter how big your kingdom, mather nature will always take back what was always
Arthur Yvor Winters, an American poet and literary critic stated "This is a remarkably beautiful poem on the subject of daily realization of the imminence of death" it’s a poem of departure from life, an intensely conscious leave-taking. And Allen Tate, a distinguished American poet, teacher, and critic called this "An extraordinary poem".
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
In conclusion, we learn in life we have to face these challenges in each accomplishment to give us a sense of unity through our family members. In life, we have to go through these challenges everyday and some days it will be easy and some days it will not but as long as we have our friends, family and friends to point us to the right direction we can achieve basically anything we want too. Life there will be things that will hurt us or we can't be able to due, but we will soon overcome all these challenges in life and it will open a new doors for us.
Shelley, Percy. Selected poems found in The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Volume 2, 7Th edition (2000): 698-798.
“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.