Which Way Does The Wind Blow?

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Which Way Does the Wind Blow?
The Aeolian harp in Coleridge and Shelley The Aeolian harp is a simple instrument that sounds music according to the wind. Its music depends primarily on the direction, speed, and strength of the wind, but there isn’t much to the harp other than that. Despite being just a simple instrument with a simple concept, it still manages to make an appearance in many Romantic poems, including the poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley. It’s natural that the Aeolian harp became a Romantic symbol because it lets itself be deeply affected by nature; however, one would think that it is already a solid concept, therefore it would appear to be the same in all Romantic poetry. While Coleridge and Shelley sometimes share ideas about the Aeolian harp, they manage to transform it in a multitude of ways that differ between the two poets and sometimes even in the individual poet’s own poetry. To Coleridge and Shelley the Aeolian harp is much more than an instrument that is played by the wind, it also stands for poetry, or humans themselves, and even the so-called “one life”. The harp and the wind that acts upon it is representative as poetry and the poetic wit, especially in Coleridge. In Coleridge’s poem “The Eolian Harp”, his usage of language such as “desultory breeze,” “sweet upbraiding,” and “sequacious notes” (14-18) imply that the notes from produces by the wind comes together to form actual music. This is further emphasized in stanza
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