How does Shelley present nature in Ode to the West Wind?

Ans. Nature is a perennial source of inspiration to Shelley as it is to the other poets of the Romantic Revival. But his treatment of Nature is different from that of Wordsworth, the high-priest of Nature. While Wordsworth deals with the simpler and humbler aspects of Nature, he treats its majestic and gorgeous aspects-rocks, caves, cliffs, skies, storms, etc. As a critic says, he presents, like Turner, the pomp and splendour of the evening skies, the wind and the changeful glory of atmospheric effects, the terror of tempest, those rare and more awful manifestations of Nature when she puts on a supernatural grandeur...." He often etherealizes Nature and makes her vague and indefinite. His love of that which is indefinite and changeful makes him enjoy and describe better than any other English poet that scenery of the clouds and sky which is indefinite, elusive and hazy.

Shelley presents Nature as a continuous stream that goes on endlessly untouched by human calamities. Nature suggests to Shelley a relative immortality and as such she is to him greater than man subjected to death and decay.

Shelley makes nature the mere image of his own feelings, the creature of his mood. In other words, he identifies himself with nature. Here he is poles asunder from Wordsworth who always distinguishes himself from her.

Ode to the West Wind illustrates Shelley's treatment of Nature. It treats such mighty, changeful and indefinite aspects of nature as the west wind, the clouds and the seas. It describes the mighty activities of the west wind as it sweeps along in the upper region of the sky scattering the patches of clouds from the horizon to the zenith. The west wind ruffles the calm and transparent waters of the Mediterranean sea and lashes up the Atlantic into rolling waves. The descriptions of the underwater scenes are lazy and misty :

"And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

Quivering within the wave's intenser day"

or

....while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

The sapless foliage of the ocean."

Shelley seeks an identification with the west wind by making it an instrument of himself. He wishes the west wind to spread his revolutionary and reformative ideas all the world over. The west wind, by blowing away the decayed leaves of autumn, brings about the rebirth of vegetation in spring. Similarly it can scatter all over the world his hitherto ineffectual thoughts, and thereby pave the way for the new set of ideas and ideals based on liberty, equality and fraternity. The west wind scatters ashes and sparks from smouldering hearth. Let it similarly cast far and wide his revolutionary ideas now lying almost dead in him, but capable of causing a conflagration in the society, so that the old world with its evils and inhumanities will go, yielding place to a new world, free from exploitations and oppressions-the golden millennium. In short, Shelley wants the wind to help him sound the trumpet of the prophecy that he wants to destroy the present society in order to usher in the millennium.

Shelley presents the west wind as a continuous stream that goes on endlessly untouched by human calamities. It has an everlasting lease of life as compared with man subject to decay and death. The west wind remains as it was in the poet's boyhood. But the poet is not what he was before. He has lost his energy-his boyish impetuosity which made him sufficiently swift to be able to accompany the wind in its violent movements across the sky, Had he the energy of his boyhood,

".........I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need."

But the west wind has not changed a bit. It goes on sweeping over the earth, sky and sea as before.

What is an ode? Consider Ode to the West Wind' as an ode and compare it with other odes - particularly the odes of Keats included in your syllabus.

Ans. The word Ode is simply the Greek for 'song, and was applied by the Greeks to any kind of poetic composition that was written to be sung to music, from a dirge to drinking song - that is to say, to any kind to lyric verse. The Greek idea of lyric poetry was simply "poetry written to be sung to music", i.e., the lyric. Greek odes were of two kinds: those written for a single voice, such as the lyrics of Sappho and Alcaeus, and those written for a choir, of which the best examples are the Odes of Pindar. The former were regular and fairly simple in metre, the latter highly elaborate.

The great English writers of odes before Shelley and Keats were Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Gray, Collins and Wordsworth. The idea of musical accompaniment was lost. It is now applied to one type of lyric poetry. So the definition may be restated as "a lyric poem of elaborate metrical structure, solemn in tone, and usually taking the form of an address", very often to some abstraction or quality.

English odes fall roughly into three classes: regular and Pindaric, regular and simple, and irregular. Gray's Progress of Poesy and The Bard belong to the first group. To the second group belong Spenser's Four Hymns, Milton's Nativity Hymn. Collins' Ode to Evening. To the third group belong Spenser's Epithalamion and Prothalamion, Dryden's Song for Saint Cecilia's Day and Alexander's Feast and Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.

Shelley's To a Skylark and Ode to the West Wind are written in regular stanzas. Keats' odes are also written in regular stanzas. They consist of a group of stanzas of highly complex structure, but regular, or nearly regular, in their resemblance to one another. Ode to a Nightingale consists of regular stanzas of ten lines each: all lines are lambic Pentameter except the eighth in each stanza, which is Iambic Trimeter. The last line of the second stanza is an Alexandrine i.e., Iambic Hexameter. The Ode to the West Wind is an ode of regular type-stanza consisting of fourteen lines with intricate rhyme scheme ending with a couplet. The poem has the solemn grandeur, the stately march of music that characterise the ode. But by its intense personal note, its sweep of elemental passion and magnificent self-revelation, it is a lyric. Keats' Ode to a Nightingale, like Shelley's Ode to the West Wind is a lyric par excellence, rather than the formal type of the ode. It is a poem of genuine personal emotion, enshrining the longings that wring the poet's inmost soul. Ode to Autumn has, however, the objectivity and equable temper of an ode. Here subjective element is totally absent and the poet has made his imaginative surrender to Autumn. Keats, like the Greeks personifies Autumn in the figures of the reaper, the gleaner, cider-maker and a musician. Shelley's Ode to a Skylark is characterised by intense personal emotion than an ode.

SHORT QUESTION AND ANSWER OF THE POEM ODE TO THE WEST WIND BY P.B. SHELLEY.

SHORT QUESTION AND ANSWER OF THE POEM ODE TO THE WEST WIND BY P.B. SHELLEY

Q.1. How does Shelley address the west wind? How it compared? 

Ans. Shelley addresses the wild west wind of Autumn. It is described as the breath of Autumn's being Autumn is thus personified.

Q.2. What is meant by 'hectic red' and 'pestilence-stricken multitudes'? 

Ans. 'Hectic red' means redness produced by decay. It suggests the pale colour which is caused by some consumptive diseases.

'Pestilence-stricken multitudes' mean that the autumnal leaves are afflicted with decay like men suffering from some consumptive diseases.

Q.3. What is meant by 'chariotest' in the context of the poem? 

Ans. 'Chariotest' means drivest (from drive). The word comes from noun chariot, a vehicle for movement. It is used here as verb.

Q.4. Thine azure sister.

        To what does it refer?

Ans. The west wind of spring that blows under a blue clear sky is called the azure sister of the west wind of autumn that blows violently.

Q.5. How are leaves of Autumn described? 

Ans. The leaves of autumn are yellow, black and pale and hectic red. They will be dead when winter comes.

Q.6. Why is the west wind of Autumn called Destroyer and preserver? 

Ans. Violent west wind of Autumn destroys the dead leaves but drives the seeds flying to the black soil in which the seeds lie throughout winter in order to be quickened to life in spring.

Q.7. Explain the simile of flocks and the first stanza. 

Ans. Just as the shepherd takes his flock in spring to feed them, so the spring wind will drive buds from seeds to develop them in air.

Q.8. What is corpse? In what connection is this word used?

Ans. Corpse is the dead body. The seeds lie cold and low in the black soil like dead bodies throughout winter and they develop into life in spring.

Q.9. What role does the west wind of autumn fulfil?

Ans. The west wind of autumn is the destroyer and the preserver. The images of death and rebirth are announced in the first stanza.

Q.10. Who are the angels of rain and lightning? 

Ans. Clouds that gather in autumn are messengers of rain and lightning,

Q.11. How is the west wind compared as it blows in the sky?

Ans. The west wind is compared to a stream on which the clouds are borne, just as a stream carries on its current and leaves of trees are scattered by wind. 

Q.12. The tangled boughs of Heaven and ocean. What is implied here?

Ans. Heaven and ocean are imagined as trees whose boughs are intertwined and clouds like trees are shed from them. The sky and sea seem to meet together.

Q.13. Who is Maenad?

Ans. Maenad is a frenzied woman worshipper of Bacchus, the Greek God of wine.

Q.14. Thou dirge of the dying year. To which Shelley refers? Why is it called dirge? 

Ans. The west wind of autumn is called the dirge. Dirge means funeral song. The year is dying is Autumn. Nature is dead in winter.

Q.15. What is meant by pumice isle?

Ans. It is an island in the bay of Bais on the western coast of Italy between Ostia and Naples. The island is formed by the deposit of lava from vesuvius.

Q.16. The Atlantic's level powers. What is meant by 'level powers'? 

Ans. Level powers mean smooth waves. In summer the seas are calm. The Atlantic flows smoothly.

Q.17. Cleave themselves into chasms. About which is it said?

Ans. The smooth waves of the Atlantic ocean are agitated by the west wind leaving deep hollows between them.

Q.18. What is suggested by 'the oozy words' and 'sapless foliage'? 

Ans. Oozy woods mean marine forests, the vegetation at the bottom of the sea.

Sapless foliage means the leaves and stalks are without sap.

Q.19. The impulse of thy strength. Whose strength is suggested?

Ans. The strength of the west wind of autumn. Impulse here means the violence of the west wind.

Q.20. Why does Shelley pray to the west wind?

Ans. Shelley prays to the west wind to inspire him with strength and impulse so that he can sing the song of liberty of mankind from tyranny. 

Q.21. If my leaves are falling like its own. With whose leaves does Shelley compare? What does he compare?

Ans. The leaves of Autumnal trees are falling due to decay. Similarly, Shelley's strength is decaying due to the struggle with the society.

Q.22. What is meant by dead thoughts? To which they are compared? 

Ans. Dead thoughts mean the thoughts latent in his mind. They are compared to withered leaves.

Q.23. When did Shelley write the Ode to the West Wind what did he say about his actual experience?

Ans. Shelley wrote the ode near Florence in 1819. Shelley writes: this poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno near Florence and on a day when the tempestuous wind was collecting the vapours which pour down autumnal rain. Rain was attended by magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.

Q.24. Like ghosts from an enchanter. Explain the simile.

Ans. The west wind is the enchanter (magician) and autumnal leaves are ghosts. Ghosts flee away from a magician. Similarly, dry autumnal leaves flee away from the wild west wind.

Q.25. What is clarion? Who blows it?

Ans. Clarion is the high-sounding bugle. The poet supposes that the west wind of spring blows over the earth which sleeps in winter and all nature is again filled with life, colours and fragrance. The rebirth image is suggested.

Q.26. Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher. Whose sepulcher is referred to? How will the dome of a sepulcher be formed?

Ans. Sepulcher means tomb. The tomb of the dead year is referred to? The vault of the tomb will be formed by the accumulated mass of vapours in the sky. Vapours rise from water particles and they are converted to clouds from which rain, thunder and lightning burst.

Q.27. Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams. About which is it said? What is meant by coil by his crystalline streams?

Ans. This is said about the calm Mediterranean which is imagined as sleeping in summer. It is caught up in the whirling round of its clear and transparent water.

Q.28. I fall upon the thorns of life I bleed. What is meant by thorns of life?

Ans. Shelley refers to the miseries of his life. He was abandoned by the society and howled down by the critics. Here is the christ image. Christ wore the crown thorns and bled.

Q.29. A heavy weight of hours. What does Shelley mean by it?

Ans. Shelly means the weight of ages miseries and wrongs done to him. He is weakened now. He does not have the strength and impulse which he had before.

Q.30. What is Shelley's prayer to the west wind?

Ans. The withered leaves of autumn burst into new life in spring. In Nature there is the process of death and regeneration. Shelley prays to the west wind to give him strength (he seeks strength from Nature) to awaken his latent thoughts and spread the message of new hopes of regeneration for mankind.

Q.31. What does Shelley mean by trumpet of a prophecy?

Ans. Shelley wishes to scatter his ideas and thoughts like a trumpet just as the west wind blows with tremendous sound. He will scatter his prophetic ideas to regenerate mankind who are now sunk in despair.

Q.32. What is Shelley's hope?

Ans. Shelley is an idealist. He hopes that just as after winter comes spring, so also the rotten world will go and a new order full of fresh and sweet promises will come to redeem the suffering humanity.

Q.33. What is an ode? What kind of ode is Ode to the West Wind?

Ans. The word ode is simply the Greek for song. Greek odes were of two kinds - the lyrics of Soppho and Alcacus and those written for choir of which the most important are those of Pindar. There were regular odes i.e. that is of regular stanzas and elaborate. Shelley's odes are written in regular stanzas of fourteen lines with intricate rhyme scheme.