Page 142 - DENG104_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_I

Unit 14: Ode to the West Wind by PB Shelley
Gowher Ahmad Naik, Lovely Professional University

Unit 14: Ode to the West Wind by PB Shelley Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives

Introduction
14.1 Introduction to the Poet

14.2 Ode to the West Wind
14.3 Detailed Explanations
14.4 Commentary
14.5 Analysis

14.6 Rhyme, Form and Meter
14.7 Speaker Point of View
14.8 Theme

14.9 Summary
14.10 Keywords
14.11 Review Questions

14.12 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this unit, you will be able to:
• Know about PB Shelley;
• Understand the poem Ode to the West Wind;
• Discuss the devices and themes of the poem;
• Make analysis of the poem.

Introduction

This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence,
and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating,
was collecting the vapours which poured down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw,
at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and
lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.

The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists.
The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the
land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it.

14.1 Introduction to the Poet

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded
as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Considered too radical in his poetry

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