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Unit 4: Ode to the West Wind by P B Shelley

8. The last line of the poem is often quoted. What do you understand the line to mean—other Notes
than that one season follows another?
9. What characteristics does Ode to the West Wind reveal?

10. An ode is an elaborately structured lyric poem praising and glorifying an individual,
commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally.
Odes originally were songs performed to the accompaniment of a musical instrument.
Describe the main feature & Odes with an example.
11. Personification is giving human characteristics to an inanimate object or animal. Poets
commonly use this technique to create images in their writing and to give their writing a
greater sensory appeal. In this poem, the poet has personified the west wind. Whom do
you think he has personified as the west wind?
12. Symbolism is yet another poetic device that is used to represent or recall something else
possessing similar qualities especially an object representing an abstract thought or quality.
In Ode to the West Wind the west wind is symbolic of both death and rebirth. Find instances
from the poem to bring out this symbolism.
13. Dead leaves are mentioned, not once, not twice, but five times in this poem. Why is this
speaker so obsessed with dead leaves?

14. Why is wildness so important here? The West Wind is wild, the clouds it blows around are
like the hair of crazy Mænads, and the speaker wishes he were also “uncontrollable.”
What can be created through wildness that is not possible with control? Why does a poem
that emphasises wildness have such a controlled form and meter?

Answers: Self Assessment

1. William Godwin 2. Adonias
3. S T Coleridge 4. Terza rima

5. Dante

4.13 Further Readings

Books Bieri, James. (2004) Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Biography: Youth’s Unextinguished Fire,
1792-1816. University of Delaware Press.

Coleman, Elliott. (1967) Poems of Byron, Keats, and Shelley. International Collectors
Library, New York.
Edited by Barcus, James E. (2003) Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Critical Heritage.
Routledge.
Singh, Sarita. (1988) P.B. Shelley’s Philosophy of Love. Mittal Publications.

Online links http://blogs.dickinson.edu/romnat/2011/06/07/percy-bysshe-shelley/
http://nzr.mvnu.edu/faculty/trearick/english/rearick/readings/authors/
specific/shelley_percy.htm

http://www.internal.org/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley

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