Wednesday, March 2, 2016

What qualities of the West Wind are glorified in Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind"?

In the last line of the first canto, the speaker calls the wind a "destroyer and preserver," observing that it transports leaves and "winged seeds" to the places they'll lie dormant until the autumn wind's spring sister reinvigorates them.

In the second canto, the speaker observes that the wind is capable of carrying clouds, rain, lightning, and hail, other awe-inspiring forces of nature. Shelley utilizes a simile that likens the wind to the hair of a Maenad.


The third canto describes the wind's power to turn placid seas into fearsome forces that even strike fear into the sea's underworld flora as Shelley employs a pathetic fallacy.


In the fourth canto, the speaker confesses his desire to be one with the wind, imploring it to "lift [me] as a wave, a leaf, a cloud" and deliver the speaker from a life that "has chain'd and bow'd" him.  The speaker identifies with the wind's "tameless, and swift, and proud" nature.

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