Ode On The West Wind

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Ode on the west wind, Ode to the west wind is PB Shelley’s call for a revolution. Ww as destroyer and preserver is symbolically imagined as not just a current of air but also serves to symbolize an inspiring spiritual power that moves everywhere and affects everything. The ode was composed in 1819 near Florence. It is composed in 5 sweeping stanziac movements each taking the form of a sonnet. In the poets mind the ww is the seasonal force of renewal in nature. In the “defense of poetry” Shelley wrote that “poets are the unknowledgeable legislatures of the world” Shelley’s minute observations of the wind, water cloud woods and sky expresses themselves in imagery which is simultaneously scientific and mythical. The total effect of the poem is that of transcendent hope and energy achieved through suffering and despair. Shelley identifies ww as the breath of autumn who by its “unseen presence” blows away the sere leaves of the season,” like a ghost from an enchanter fleeing.” The poet describes the leaves as yellow black pale and hectic red appealing to our visual senses. The leaves “dry and wizened are pestilence stricken.” The poet had in mind the pestilence stricken men of the world driven through life with suffering and torture. The wind carrying the leaves also carries the “winged seeds” which lay on their “dark wintry beds dormant under shrouds of snow.” These seeds will lie through the dark winter like a corpse in the grave until the blue sky of spring will arouse them to life again. Here ww like a shepherd driving his flocks to graze just like driving the seeds to fertile soil. The poet here is probably referring to the goddess of spring Demita who awakens nature from her long winter sleep, blows her trumpet over the dormant earth and fills with color and fragrance every corner of the plains and hills. Thus the ww that in tempestuous blasts had driven all seeds
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