The Romantic Period

Percy Bysshe ShelleyRigato Laura - III A

• Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 – July 8, 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets and he is widely considered to be among the finest lyrical poets of the English language.

• He was the son of a rich landowner;

•He was expelled from Oxford University because he wrote a pamphlet against religion;

•In 1816 Percy married Mary Godwin;

•July 8, 1822, shortly before his thirtieth birthday, Shelley drowned in a storm while attempting to sail from Lerici to La Spezia, in Italy

The Life

The ProfilePercy Bysshe Shelley was an interesting figure for his time: he

spent his whole life in his hope to change the world. He advocated equality of rights for all men and men’s right to change the form of government. His ideas led him to sympathise with the oppresed, the persecuted and the weak, to attack monarchs and tyrants.

Another important aspect in Shelley’s profile is the role of Imagination, in fact it represents “the great instrument of moral good.” For him, poetry was the best expression of the power of Imagination: the poet is the one who can best access this creative power. Consequently the poet has a social mission of prophet, teacher, singer towards mankind.

“A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and

sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet

sounds.”

Key Ideas

Political commitment

Liberal and Democratic

Ideals

Power of Imagination

Role of the poet

Shelley’s Works

• “Ozymandias”• “Ode to the West Wind”• “The Masque of Anarchy” • “To a Skylark” • “Prometheus Unbound”

Some of Shelley’s works include

Ode to the West Wind

“O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being-

Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes!—O thou

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed..”

General Introduction to Ode to the West Wind

The poem first appeared in 1820and it was conceived in a wood near Florence on a day in which a violent storm was approaching. It is divided into five stanzas.: In each stanza Shelley describes the effects of the wind on the surrounding nature, a wind that is considered a cosmic power that affects the whole universe. In the first stanza the wind is described as an essence of seasonal change, as a “Destroyer” and a “Preserver”. The poet described its effects on earth,on the sea and in the sky. In the fourth stanza the poet implores the wind to lift him and rescue him from prostration. In the last stanza the poet identifies him-self with the wind, thus becoming the prophet of a change for humanity. In the ode there are many similes, metaphors and symbols. Some key-words of the poem are destroyer and preserver, which synthesize the main concepts of the ode: the death and the rebirth of human society. We also have two nice imagies of the Wind as a charioter and an enchanter which emphasise its supernatural essence.

We can divide the ode into two parts: in the first part the poet deals with the effects of this magic Wind on the whole nature, in the part the poet identifies himself with it. The first three stanzas all conclude with the vocative Oh hear. This introduces the beginning of the second part. The link is mediated by the final two lines of the fourth stanza in which the poet confesses his own frailties and implores the Wind to give energy to his own spiritual and political regeneration and for the political regeneration of Europe.

This concept of a new birth implies a negative view of society and underlines the prophetic role of the poet. Eventually in this ode the poet shows his desire for personal renewal and for the successful spreading of his revolutionary ideas.

First StanzaStanza 1 describes the effect of the wind on the earth first in

autumn and then in spring time. In the former season the wind is presented as a destroyer of the previous season and its action is characterized by images of death.

This function changes in spring when the wind is seen as a preserver, thus restoring the life that autumn had taken away from the land. The images change accordingly and words which evoke rebirth and life are introduced. Right from stanza 1 the wind is addressed directly, through the use of the second-person pronoun thou. This personification is further developed through the attribution to the wind of verbs denoting human faculties, like wakest, hear, etc.

Second StanzaIn stanza 2 the action of the wind shifts from the land to

the sky, but the images the poet uses are still linked to the preceding ones. The clouds in fact are compared to leaves and boughs. These clouds are angels, in the sense of messengers, of the rain and lightning that will come at nightfall. Also in this case, however, the wind is presented in autumn and its function is a destructive one, because it deals with rain, hail and storm. To add to its destructive force, the wind is also addressed as dirge and sepulchre, which are associated with death.

Third StanzaIn stanza 3 the spring wind is described in his creative action on the sea.

The sea is seen as the place where in ancient times civilisation was born. The Calm and peace, the poet talks about, is the one typical of the Mediterranean sea. This one is also personified as a languid form, “lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams”, and reflecting “old palaces and towers” lazily like a person asleep. The first part of stanza 3 is characterized by a softer atmosphere and sweet colours (the azure and crystalline sea) and by the presence of flowers. Moreover, soft consonants and falling cadences have replaced the earlier harsher consonants. Towards the end of the stanza, however, a gloomier mood re-emerges and the scene shifts from the Mediterranean sea to the Atlantic Ocean, described in powerful and frightening terms, whose level powers cleave themselves into chaos and whose vegetation in the depths of the sea shakes as with fear.

Stanza 4 describes the poet’s identification with the wind and introduces a more personal tone. He draws together the dead leaves of the first stanza, the clouds of the second and the power that the waves have, so that he could combat the evils he wanted to destroy. He speaks about his childhood when he ran after the wind, thus contrasting his past energy with his present misery. He feels that he has lost his boyhood’s freedom, when everything seemed possible to him, and that the passing of the time has tamed and enslaved him. Shelley is concerned with the loss of his personal physical and spiritual energy. That’s why he then asks the wind to help him regain the energy he has lost.

Fourth Stanza

Fifth StanzaSuch a prayer reaches its climax in stanza 5, when he asks the

wind to be his lyre, to renew him, to reanimate his spirit, so that his “dead thoughts”, blown about the universe, will come to new life, like the seeds blown with the dead autumn leaves. His message is one of hope for mankind: autumn heralds the approach of winter, representing death, but spring, representing the regeneration of mankind, will follow after. However, the very end of the poem is in a certain sense perplexing. We expect another exclamation but the poem closes with a question. Shelley is not quite so certain as his build-up suggested and at the final moment a doubt vexes his mind. Can regeneration arrive so mechanically?