Page 184 - DENG105_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_II

Unit 14: Ode to the West Wind by PB Shelley: Detailed Study

Simile: Comparison of words to ashes and sparks (66-67). Notes

Alliteration: my words among mankind (67).
Metaphor: Comparison of the poet’s voice to the wind as a trumpet of a prophecy (lines 68-69).
Alliteration: trumpet of a prophecy (lines 68-69).
Alliteration: O Wind, / If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

14.3 Structure and Rhyme Scheme

.......The poem contains five stanzas of fourteen lines each. Each stanza has three tercets and
a closing couplet. In poetry, a tercet is a unit of three lines that usually contain end rhyme;
a couplet is a two-line unit that usually contains end rhyme. Shelley wrote the tercets in a
verse form called terza rima, invented by Dante Alighieri. In this format, line 2 of one tercet
rhymes with lines 1 and 3 of the next tercet. In regard to the latter, consider the first three
tercets of the second stanza of “Ode to the West Wind.” Notice that shed (second line, first
tercet) rhymes with spread and head (first and third lines, second tercet) and that surge (second
line, second tercet) rhymes with verge and dirge (first and third lines, third tercet).
Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,

Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
.......All of the couplets in the poem rhyme, but the last couplet (lines 69-70) is an imperfect
rhyme called eye rhyme. Eye rhyme occurs when the pronunciation of the last syllable of one
line is different from the pronunciation of the last syllable of another line even though both
syllables are identical in spelling except for a preceding consonant. For example, the following
end-of-line word pairs would constitute eye rhyme: cough, rough; cow, mow; daughter, laughter;
rummaging, raging. In Shelley’s poem, wind and behind form eye rhyme.
.......Shelley unifies the content of the poem by focusing the first three stanzas on the powers
of the wind and the last two stanzas on the poet’s desire to use these powers to spread his
words throughout the world.

14.4 Meter

....... Most of the lines in the poem are in iambic pentameter, although some of the pentameter
lines have an extra syllable (catalexis). The following tercet from the first stanza demonstrates
the iambic-pentameter format, with the stressed syllables in capitals:
..........1................2..................3.................4.............5
The WING.|.èd SEEDS,.|.where THEY.|.lie COLD.|.and LOW,
..........1................2..............3..............4.............5

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