ODE TO THE WEST WIND This is one of Shelleys most lyrical poetic prophecies.

Like England in 1819 its subject is the need for some form of revolution to renew a dead and corrupt world full of suffering and injustice. But while in England in 1819 he concentrates on the cruelties of the present, here the focus is on the force of renewal itself. And this force takes the form of the West Wind. A crucial aspect of Shelleys verse is that while present conditions are named with great precision and concreteness, the forces of change inevitably remain abstract. The wind is first a breath, then a trumpet call, then a spirit, then a voice. It remains invisible and intangible. In revolutionary terms, the wind is evoked as an element that is beyond human control, a symbol of the cycle of nature where every cold winter is inevitably followed by spring, and death and destruction is inevitably followed by new life and renewal. Shelleys vision of the wind as simultaneously destroyer and preserver means that destruction and creation are inseparable. One gives birth to the other. In the passage from autumn to spring, through the action of the wind, the dead leaves of the old world are transformed into airborne seeds and will bloom in the spring of the new world. In terms of the poems historical context, these dead leaves might allude to the movement of people, anticipating the mass emigration of Europes oppressed poor to the United States. However, Shelleys prophecy of revolution is not simply related to the creation of another society or another nation. As the poem continues, we see that his desire is for the wind of revolution to keep things up in the air and not to limit itself to any precise form of realization. For Shelley, the winds strength as a revolutionary force is in its perpetual movement, the fact that it never rests or arrives at any final form. In the last section of the poem, Shelley, understanding that the wind cannot hear his words, expresses a desire to be carried himself on the current of the wind and to become its instrument and voice. In this sense, he sees his own words like the dead leaves which are scattered over the world by the wind to become seeds of renewal planted in the minds of readers. This desire is linked to a wish to break free of the limits of his mortal human body, to become himself like the wind, a pure spirit of eternal prophecy.

STYLISTIC FEATURES The form of Ode to the West Wind is an interesting hybrid which combines elements of the Elizabethan sonnet with those of Dantes terza rima. This form also contributes to our sense of the poems meaning. The poem is divided into 5 sonnet-like blocks, each of fourteen lines, with a rhyming couplet at the end, so we have the impression of the poem stopping and then starting again in a series of flights and rests. Meanwhile the use of terza rima, in which the second line of each verse generates the rhyme of the first and last lines of the following verse, conveys the idea of perpetual movement and renewal that Shelly associates with the wind. In terms of its languages, the poem is extremely inventive. Shelly uses different sense and sound associations to express the elusive qualities of the wind. There are also frequent exclamations such as O uncontrollable! and the repeated O, hear!, where he asks for the impossible, for the wind to listen to him. At these moments we feel Shelley trying to break the boundaries of language that separate him from the wind

Examples of Figures of Speech and Rhetorical Devices

Alliteration: wild West Wind (line 1). Apostrophe, Personification: Throughout the poem, the poet addresses the west wind as if it were a person. Metaphor: Comparison of the west wind to breath of Autumn's being (line 1). Metaphor: Comparison of autumn to a living, breathing creature (line 1). Anastrophe: leaves dead (line 2). Anastrophe is inversion of the normal word order, as in a man forgotten (instead of a forgotten man) or as in the opening lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Kahn": In Xanada did Kubla Kahn / A stately pleasure dome decree (instead of In Xanadu, Kubla Kahn decreed a stately pleasure dome). Here is another example, made up to demonstrate the inverted word order of anastrophe: In the garden green and dewy A rose I plucked for Huey Simile: Comparison of dead leaves to ghosts. Anastrophe: enchanter fleeing (line 3). Alliteration: Pestilence-stricken multitudes (line 5). Alliteration: Pestilence-stricken multitudes (line 5). Alliteration: chariotest to (line 6). Alliteration: The wingd seeds, where they (line 7). Metaphor: Comparison of seeds to flying creatures (line 7). Simile: Comparison of each seed to a corpse (lines 7-8). Alliteration: sister of the Spring (line 9). Personification: Comparison of spring wind to a person (lines 9-10). Metaphor, Personification: Comparison of earth to a dreamer (line 10). Alliteration: flocks to feed Simile: Comparison of buds to flocks (line 11). Anastrophe: fill / . . . With living hues and odours plain and hill (lines 10, 12). Alliteration: Wild Spirit, which (line 13). Paradox: Destroyer and preserver (line 14). Alliteration: hear, O hear (line 14).

Apostrophe, Personification: The poet addresses the west wind as if it were a person. Metaphor: Comparison of the poet and the forest to a lyre, a stringed musical instrument (line 57). Metaphor: Comparison of the poet to a forest (line 58). Alliteration: The tumult of thy mighty harmonies (line 59). Alliteration: Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, (line 61). Metaphor: Comparison of the poet to the wind (line 62). Alliteration: Drive my dead thoughts over the universe (line 63). Simile: Comparison of thoughts to withered leaves (lines 63-64). Alliteration: the incantation of this (line 65). Simile: Comparison of words to ashes and sparks (66-67). Alliteration: my words among mankind (67). Metaphor: Comparison of the poet's voice to the wind as a trumpet of a prophecy (lines 68-69). Alliteration: trumpet of a prophecy (lines 68-69). Alliteration: O Wind, / If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
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Structure and Rhyme Scheme

.......The poem contains five stanzas of fourteen lines each. Each stanza has three tercets and a closing couplet. In poetry, a tercet is a unit of three lines that usually contain end rhyme; a couplet is a two-line unit that usually contains end rhyme. Shelley wrote the tercets in a verse form called terza rima, invented by Dante Alighieri. In this format, line 2 of one tercet rhymes with lines 1 and 3 of the next tercet. In regard to the latter, consider the first three tercets of the second stanza of "Ode to the West Wind." Notice that shed (second line, first tercet) rhymes with spread and head (first and third lines, second tercet) and that surge (second line, second tercet) rhymes with verge and dirge (first and third lines, third tercet).

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20 Of some fierce Mnad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge .......All of the couplets in the poem rhyme, but the last couplet (lines 69-70) is an imperfect rhyme called eye rhyme. Eye rhyme occurs when the pronunciation of the last syllable of one line is different from the pronunciation of the last syllable of another line even though both syllables are identical in spelling except for a preceding consonant. For example, the following end-of-line word pairs would constitute eye rhyme: cough, rough; cow, mow; daughter, laughter; rummaging, raging. In Shelley's poem, wind and behind form eye rhyme. .......Shelley unifies the content of the poem by focusing the first three stanzas on the powers of the wind and the last two stanzas on the poet's desire to use these powers to spread his words throughout the world.