Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Ode To The West Wind

Another classic, "Ode To The West Wind", is yet another complex piece of art created (1820) by Percy Bysshe Shelley. This poem is broken down into five different parts, each containing five stanzas. In Part One, Shelley introduces the wind, calling it "thou breath of Autumn's being". As I continued reading through Part One, I found myself reading a certain line again and again. Shelley calls the wind the "destroyer and preserver", making the wind obtain a very contradictory meaning. Shelley labels the wind a destroyer, because its harsh, swift movement. The wind can destroy the most complex of things, yet do it in one of the simplest gestures imaginable. In this case, the writer is referring to the sweeping away of dying leaves from their home on the trees. As the leaves are whisked away, they eventually find the cushion of the ground. Though the leaves may not be alive enough to continue on the tree, they are able to sustain life to the ground. The leaves may decompose, leaving new soil for life to flourish in or may deposit a seed, granting a chance for new life. With the destroying of the leaves from the trees, comes the preserving of new found life. As the reader moves into Part Two, Shelley compares the clouds to the falling leaves. This comparison allows the reader to understand just how untamed the clouds are, along with the leaves. (Note: Shelley likely included this comparison, to show yet another object the wind has control over.) Part Three goes on to explain in depth the effects that the wind has on water, specifically the Mediterranean. In Part Four, the subject of the poem shifts to the narrator, and is no longer focusing on the wind. As I read through Part Four, I could not help but feel that the narrator was unhappy with his life. He asks the wind to make him a leaf or a cloud. Both of the objects both mentioned were portrayed earlier in the poem to be wild and untamed. The last line of the section ends with the narrator asking for death by saying "I fall upon the thorns of life. I bleed!" As you progress towards the last and final section, the narrator is no longer asking to be with the wind but demanding to do so. Shelley makes this clear in line 57, where he says "make my thy lyre" (a stringed Greek musical instrument.) Shelly ends the poem with the line, "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" This line not only signifies the changing of seasons, but solidifies my thought that with death of one thing comes new life to another.
- Kailee Phillips

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