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Unit 13: Ode to the West Wind by PB Shelley: Introduction
Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University

Unit 13: Ode to the West Wind Notes

by PB Shelley: Introduction

CONTENTS
Objectives

Introduction
13.1 Ode to the West Wind
13.2 Form

13.3 Analysis
13.4 Summary
13.5 Keywords

13.6 Review Questions
13.7 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this unit, you will be able to:
• Discuss about Percy Bysshe Shelley, the son of Sir Timothy Shelley;

• Introduce the poem Ode to the West Wind.

Introduction

Percy Bysshe Shelley, the son of Sir Timothy Shelley, the M.P. for New Shoreham, was born
at Field Place near Horsham, in 1792. Sir Timothy Shelley sat for a seat under the control of
the Duke of Norfolk and supported his patron’s policies of electoral reform and Catholic
Emancipation.
Shelley was educated at Eton and Oxford University and it was assumed that when he was
twenty-one he would inherit his father’s seat in Parliament. As a young man he was taken to
the House of Commons where he met Sir Francis Burdett, the Radical M.P. for Westminster.
Shelley, who had developed a strong hatred of tyranny while at Eton, was impressed by
Burdett, and in 1810 dedicated one of his first poems to him. At university Shelley began
reading books by radical political writers such as Tom Paine and William Godwin.
At university Shelley wrote articles defending Daniel Isaac Eaton, a bookseller charged with
selling books by Tom Paine and the much persecuted Radical publisher, Richard Carlile. He
also wrote The Necessity of Atheism, a pamphlet that attacked the idea of compulsory Christianity.
Oxford University was shocked when they discovered what Shelley had written and on 25th
March, 1811 he was expelled.
Shelley eloped to Scotland with Harriet Westbrook, a sixteen-year-old daughter of a coffee-
house keeper. This created a terrible scandal and Shelley’s father never forgave him for what
he had done. Shelley moved to Ireland where he made revolutionary speeches on religion and

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