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Natural Objects Used Convey A Symbolic Meaning

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Natural Objects used to convey a Symbolic Meaning
Percy Shelley was a writer during the Romantic Era, often known for his lyric poetry. In lyric poetry, the mood is often musical and emotional, often represented in rhythm and rhyme (Portnoy). The writer of a lyric poem uses words that express his state of mind, his perceptions, or his feelings. Shelley composes lyric poetry that makes use of the language, imagery, and metaphors to represent a symbolic meaning of the object he is addressing in each poem (Portnoy). Shelley often uses concrete images in his poetry to convey an abstract idea. Shelley uses natural objects to represent a symbolic meaning throughout Mont Blanc, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, and Ode to the West Wind. In Mont …show more content…

Shelley uses the way water flows through a riverbank to symbolize the way our thought flows through our mind ‘The source of human thought its tribute brings, Of water, - with a sound of half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume, In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever’ (Shelley 871). Thoughts rush into the mind filling the brain, similarly as water rushes down a riverbank, filling the riverbank until it can hold no more. ‘Within this mind human thought brings its tribute, that is, giving the external world what it owes to it, like a brook flowing as a tributary into a mighty river’ (Portnoy). The beginning of the second stanza, Shelley states ‘Thus thou, Ravine of Arve – dark, deep Ravine – Thou many-coloured, many-voice vale’ (Shelley 871) to further symbolize the way our thoughts flow through our mind, just as the River of Arve flows through this ravine. Shelley ‘turns from his own private inward musing to look at the scene in front of him, the ravine of the River Arve at the foot of Mount Blanc’ (Portnoy). Shelley uses the many colours reflecting off the River Arve ‘Thou many-colour, many-voice vale’ (Shelley 871) to symbolize the way our many different memories can affect the thoughts within our minds. The final line of the fifth stanza ends the poem by questioning the vacancy found in silence and solitude ‘And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, If to the human mind’s

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