Page 185 - DENG105_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_II

Elective English–II

Notes Each LIKE.|.a CORPSE.|.with IN.|.its GRAVE,.|.un TIL

.......1............2..........3..............4..................5
Thine AZ.|.ure SIS.|.ter OF.|.the SPRING.|.shall BLOW Here is a line with
catalexis:........1...............2.............3..............4.............5............

Of SOME.|.fierce MAE.|.nad, E.|.ven FROM.|.the DIM.|.verge And here is a line that does
not follow the format. It is in iambic hexameter:..........1................2..................3.................4.............5............6
Shook FROM.|.the TANG.|.gled BOUGHS.|.of HEA.|.ven AND.|.o CEAN

14.5 Theme and Historical Background

Irresistible Power

.......The poet desires the irresistible power of the wind to scatter the words he has written
about his ideals and causes, one of which was opposition to Britain’s monarchical government
as a form of tyranny. Believing firmly in democracy and individual rights, he supported
movements to reform government. In 1819, England nobility feared that working-class citizens
besieged by economic problems, including high food prices would imitate the rebels of the
French Revolution and attempt to overthrow the established order. On August 16, agitators
attracted tens of thousands of people to a rally in St. Peteru Field, Manchester, to urge parliamentary
reform and to protest laws designed to inflate the cost of corn and wheat. Nervous public
officials mismanaged the unarmed crowd and ended up killing 11 protesters and injuring
more than 500 others. In reaction to this incident, Shelley wrote The Masque of Anarchy in the
fall of 1819 to urge further non-violent action against the government. This work was not
published during his lifetime. However, “Ode to the West Wind,” also written in the fall of
1819, was published a year later. The poem obliquely refers to his desire to spread his reformist
ideas when it says, “Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth / Ashes and sparks, my words
among mankind!” Shelley believed that the poetry he wrote had the power to bring about
political reform: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World,” he wrote in another
work, A Defence of Poetry.

Self Assessment

Choose the Correct Options:
1. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote “Ode to the West Wind” while living in Florence in

(a) 1810 (b) 1819
(c) 1859 (d) None of these
2. The speaker compares his thoughts to the dead ......... ;
(a) leaves (b) trees

(c) animals (d) None of these
Complete the following lines
3. And saw in sleep old palaces and .........
(a) palaces (b) towers

(c) forts (d) None of these

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