The analysis of Ode to the West Wind
Ode to the West Wind is the most famous lyric poem written by Shelley. There are
five stanzas in the poem. In the first stanza, the poet uses the personification like
“breath” to help describe the wet wind scatters the dead leaves and spreads seeds, here the poet gives us a image that the west wind is “destroyer and preserver”. In the next two stanzas, the poet describes how the west wind conquers the sea and the sky, we can see the west wind’s great power. In the last two stanzas, the poet expresses her wish to become the west wind.
From the poem we can see many images are used, such as “the dead leaves, the cloud and the wave”, and they all help to describe the west wind’s power, so is the west wind also just a image? To get the answer we must know the background when Shelley wrote the poem.
The poem was written in 1819 when European worker’s movement and the
revolution were going on. British working class fought with the bourgeoisie for their right to make a living. Concerning this fact we can see that the west wind is not only a image, it is a symbol, namely that the west wind is like the revolution which destroys the old world and creates the new world. In this poem, the poet turn to the west wind for help because in her heart, the west wind stands for the moral and the spirit, it can give people power.
The poem is a ode. The stanza used in this ode was developed by Shelley from the interlaced three-line units of the Italian terza rima: aba bcb cdc and so on. Shelley’s stanza consists of a set of four such tercets, closed by a couplet rhyming with the middle line of the preceding tercet: aba bab cdc ded ee. This kind of rhyme breaks the old rule and describes the west wind’s great power vividly.