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An Analysis Of Shelley's Ode To The West Wind

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An Analysis of Ode to the West Wind

Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" appears more complex at first than it really is because the poem is structured much like a long, complex sentence in which the main clause does not appear until the last of five fourteen line sections. The poem's main idea is held in suspension for 56 lines before the reader sees exactly what Shelley is saying to the west wind, and why he's saying it. In the first four sections Shelley addresses the west wind in three different ways, each one evoking the wind's power and beauty. And each section ends with Shelley asking the West Wind to "hear, oh hear!" The reader's curiosity is therefore both aroused and suspended, because we know the west wind is supposed to …show more content…

We only know that Shelley cries out, "Destroyer and preserver: hear, oh, hear!" (14)

The second stanza shifts emphasis to another image, not the dead leaves of autumn and the "wingèd seeds" that will germinate in the spring, but the roiling autumn clouds that promise storm and rain. This image is less complex than the wind that drives the leaves and seeds, because little is evoked except for the terrific power of the wind. It shakes the clouds "from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean" (17). Here, the clouds take on a leaf-like aspect&emdash;a clever technique Shelley uses to connect the west wind of part one with the west wind of part two. The image in this second stanza focuses more clearly on the death of the year proclaimed by the powerful storms that the wind blows in. The clouds are "Angels of rain and lightning" (18) and, torn to shreds by the fierce wind, look "Like the bright hair uplifted from the head/ Of some fierce Maenad" (20, 21). The ominous, death-like aspect of the winds sound to Shelley like the "dirge/ Of the dying year" (23, 24). All of this emphasizes death, but also the power of the west wind to bring about vast change. So two features of the west wind have become clear in the first two stanzas: it destroys and preserves; it profoundly changes things. It is clear that Shelley's apostrophe is addressed to a powerful force, but we do not yet know why he asks it "oh, hear!"

The mystery is only deepened in stanza

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