Written in 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley's “Ode to the West Wind” is a politically charged poem; The speaker is obviously generally dissatisfied with the world around him and wishes he could enact some sort of change. Taken in context with another of his poems written roughly the same time, “England in 1819”, we see the continuous theme of Shelley's politics, expressed in two distinct and directly opposite styles. In “England”, he openly displays his distaste for the monarchy, portraying the King as “old, mad, blind, despised, and dying”, the Princes as “the dregs of their dull race” (402) and calls for an end to the monarchical system, as he believes Kings are “Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, / But leech-like to their fainting country cling” (402), they act very much like a parasite, using up the resources of their country while contributing nothing. Compared to “England”, Shelley's “Ode to the West Wind” is more subtle and mature in the conveyance of its message, and relies less on outrageous and explicit statements. Instead, and more effectively, “Ode” uses its external form –specifically rhyme pattern and printed structure- and imagery, which is evoked by the poet's diction and phrasing, to aid in its communication. These formal aspects aid the reader in engaging more deeply with the poem, as well as gaining a clearer understanding of its content and message.
The poem is divided into five distinct sections, each containing four tercets of terza rima –rhyming aba bcb cdc ded- and a concluding rhyming couplet which uses the end rhyme of the middle line in the last tercet (Collins 7). Usually, as with Dante's use of the terza rima, each stanza conveys a complete thought. With “Ode to the West Wind”, Shelley has altered this common form; “Shelley's terza rima stanzas are rarely syntactically complete” (Haworth 74) and rarely contain complete thoughts or end punctuation –only three stanzas end with full stops- which quickens the pace of the poem and forces the reader to pass through the spaces between stanzas quickly. Because of this choice of form, it becomes necessary to read each section of the poem as a complete thought, or as its own distinct sonnet. In his article, “The Stanzaic Pattern of Shelley's “Ode to the West Wind””, Collins suggests “that each stanza of the poem is a sonnet carrying the rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc ded ee” (7). Each section of the poem does contain fourteen lines –the same amount as the sonnet- and, more importantly, concludes with a rhyming couplet, which is congruent with the Shakespearean sonnet form. Shelley's combination of the printed pattern and rhyme scheme of terza rima” and “the rhetorical pattern of the sonnet” (Haworth 74) presents a duality of form which “increases the tension within the poem” (74). This tension can be seen in the speaker's impression of the West Wind: “Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere; / Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!” (13-14). The speaker has cast the wind in a dual role of destroying the earth and ushering in Autumn as well as preserving the “winged seeds” which “lie cold and low” until “Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow” (7-9). “Thine azure sister” is not an entirely different entity, but a second side to the destructive wind of autumn.
The existence of the wind's dual personality is explained in Henry S. Pancoast's article, “Shelley's Ode to the West Wind”: “with the Autumnal equinox comes the West Wind from the Atlantic, heavy with moisture and putting Summer to rout with storms and Autumnal rains” (Pancoast 98). This provides evidence of the destructive aspect of the West wind, while his statement, “During the early part of February, the conqueror of Summer returns to conquer Winter; it comes to bring life as, a few months earlier, it has brought death.” (Pancoast 98), shows how the West Wind performs a preserving and, as the “azure sister of the Spring” (9), creating role. The duality of the Western wind in Italy –where Shelley composed the poem- is carried over to “Ode” in the poem's content as well as its form. The lines “O thou, / Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed / The winged seeds,” (5-7) show how the wind simultaneously destroys the earth to bring about winter and prepares the earth for renewal, or spring, while “Thine azure sister of the Spring” (9) –the creator- “shall blow / Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth” 9-10), which brings the seeds out of their “dark wintry bed”(6), and fills the earth “With living hues and odours plain and hill” (9-12). This role is one the speaker –and possibly even Shelley himself- wishes he could assume. The lines “Be thou, Spirit fierce, / My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!” (61-62) show the speaker's yearning to participate in the act of regenerating mankind and the earth and a longing for a revolution.
The duality of the wind is mirrored by the duality of the poem's form. By restructuring the Shakespearean sonnet –a traditional English form- Shelley alludes to a longing for revolution –and a restructuring of England; it implies the speaker's belief in the need to remove the traditional system of monarchy and replace it with a new form of government. Because the sonnet symbolizes tradition, Shelley can be seen as searching for an escape from the repression of the traditional form and symbolizes this yearning to be free in the speaker's repeated calls to the West Wind: “If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; / If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee” (Shelley 386). By superimposing the rhyme structure of the terza rima over the rhetorical structure of the Shakespearean sonnet, Shelley has carried out this dual role of destroyer and preserver; he has kept the basic idea of the English sonnet –as well as the concluding rhyming couplet- and introduced the rhyme structure of the Italian terza rima. Throughout the poem, the speaker is “identifying himself with the wind, and what it stands for” (Fogle 220). In each of the sections, we are given a different insight into the power of the West Wind. Shelley begins his “Ode” by displaying the Wind's power over the earth, using the leaves, “Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, / Pestilence-stricken multitudes” (4-5) and the “winged seeds” (7), which are sent “to their dark wintry bed” (6) to wait for Spring, to symbolize the whole of mankind. Yellow, black, pale, and red possibly refer to the four colours of man, and the seeds are those who flourish in the regenerated world or society. Shelley ends section one with a call to the “Wild Sprit, which art moving everywhere” (13), and introduces the concept of the wind's dual role as destroyer and preserver. In section two, the focus of the wind's power moves from the earth to the sky. “The mingled menace, power, and beauty of the clouds, agents of the unseen wind, are symbolized in complex personifications” (Fogle 222); Shelley is describing the sky on the verge of a summer storm, with “Angels of rain and lightning” (18) personifying the storm, and lending familiarity to the concept of the impending revolution.
As section one was concerned with the preparation of the earth for the revolution, the second section focuses on the revolution itself, which is portrayed as “even from the dim verge / of the horizon to the zenith's height, / The locks of the approaching storm” (21-23). Shelley recognizes the violent and terrifying aspect of revolution and what the cost will be to mankind:
...Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre
Vaulted with all thy congregated might.
(24-26)
The imagery of the “vast sepulchre” (25) –a vast tomb- implies an astonishing death toll. This section particularly makes use of the imagery of nature to depict the scene of revolution. Shelley does not downplay the violent side of revolution, stating that “Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst” (28). The implied scene of revolution is “full of movement and force, applied to the solid structure of the “vaulted dome” of the sky” (Fogle 222). The cadence of the poem also climaxes in the rhyming couplet of section two. With the first two sections containing only six full stops –three in each-, “Sections I and II, reproducing the wind's long blast, move swiftly” (Haworth 76), the third section, in keeping with the elemental theme begun by the first two, deals with the wind's power over the ocean. “The exquisite calm of the blue Mediterranean must be rudely shattered” (Fogle 223), as Shelley ponders the wind's path from the far West.
As the first two sections embodied the speed and urgency of the wind, the third section “rocks sleepily with the warm seas” (Haworth 76). Even though section three lacks full stops, it is the language which slows these lines to the melodic rhythm of the ocean. In particular, the line “Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams” (31) proceeds lazily, with emphasis placed on the words “Lull'd”, “coil”, the first syllable of “crystalline”, and finally “streams”. This dactyc meter mirrors the crests of the waves. Also, the lines “while far below / The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear / the sapless foliage of the ocean” (38-40) cause the reader to slow his cadence, stumbling over the assonance of “blooms” and “oozy woods”. The general cadence of the terza rima is reigned in through the third and fourth sections, as section four “is further slowed by the declarative structure” (Haworth 76). The presence of two full stops in the very first tercet of section four succeeds in bringing the poem to a grinding halt as the speaker becomes more integrated and involved in the poem. The leaf, cloud, wave pattern is revisited in the first stanza of section four, where the speaker cries to the wind, “If I were a leaf thou mighest bear; / If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; / A wave to pant beneath thy power” (43-45). He “prays that he, like leaf, cloud, and wave, may undergo the power of the wind in order to achieve his own regeneration” (Kapstein 1070). We gain even more insight into the situation of the speaker later in section four, as he reveals “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! / A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd / One too like thee” (54-56). The speaker is mourning his youth, when he was able to act as a force of change, much like the West Wind. Section five strengthens this cry to the wind, calling for the speaker to be made “thy lyre, even as the forest is” (57) and for the Spirit of the wind to “Be thou, Spirit Fierce / My Spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!” (61-2). the Speaker, “In the fifth stanza prays that from his dead thoughts driven over the earth by the wind there will arise in the cycle of the seasons a regenerating influence upon mankind” (Kapstein 1070), and from this regeneration mankind can achieve a higher level of being.
“The West Wind is free and uncontrollable. Shelley calls for a like though lesser freedom –not egotistically, but through the power of self-dedication to a cause- to become ...the trumpet of a prophecy not his own”.
(Fogle 226)
“Ode to the West Wind” is, in its essence, a call to arms –or rather, a call to revolution- from Percy Shelley to humanity. He likens the people of earth to the leaves of the forest and the clouds of the sky, both of which are subject to the whim of the west wind; the force of change. We have evidence of Shelley's repeated attempts to catalyse social change in his other poetry, most obviously “England in 1819”, but none are as skillfully and elegantly executed as “Ode to the West Wind”. The combination and inherent contrast of the poem's printed and rhetorical form help to convey the internal struggle of the speaker, as well as the conflict of the wind in its dual role as destroyer and preserver.
