Ode to The West Wind

Sorry for the horribly late blog post.  I had a rough night last night and totally forgot about it until just now.  So anyway, here it is.

Yesterday, Jaclyn posted dutifully on the sonnet that she and Emmett did, When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be.  Janice and I however (sadly sans Joseph), also presented our poem, which was an inspiring ode called none other than Ode to the West Wind.  


We started off with Percy Bysshe Shelley's biography, which portrayed all the difficulties that he had to face throughout his life, from being bullied in school and later expelled from Oxford University to having his son tragically die.  None of these tragedies however, impeded his literary genius.  In fact, they did quite the opposite.  Many of his greatest works stemmed out of these incidents of seeming misfortune.

After we talked about Shelley, we moved on to the poem, first explaining themes and motifs of the poem, and then going on to elaborate on how the West Wind is both a creative and destructive force in the eyes of the speaker.  We also touched upon the fact that the poem is an ode, meaning that it is directly addresses something, which in this case, is the powerful West Wind.

Once the introduction to the poem had been given, we moved on to the actual Cantos (each numeraled section) of the poem.  The following is a brief summary of what each section of the poem is about from our teaching and discussion in class:

          Canto I: Here, the speaker describes the affect of the wind's power on dead autumn leaves - describing how they are swirled up and scattered by the wind.  He also describes how the seeds of new trees lie dead like corpses in the ground until the azure Spring Wind comes to bring them to life.
          Canto II: Here, the speaker describes the affect of the wind's power on clouds, to bring storms and shake force rain and lightning.
          Canto III: Here, the speaker describes the wind's power on the ocean, and how without the wind, the ocean would be unable to stir up storms.
          Canto IV: This Canto is the crisis of poem in which author longs to identify with these aforementioned objects of the wind’s power, to be lifted out of his troubles like a leaf in the wind.   Yet, he can’t seem to feel the hope that the wind’s power signifies like he could in his boyhood.  

The speaker also says that if he were like that dead leaf or a cloud the wind could carry, or a wave it could push, or even if he were, as a boy, “the comrade” of the wind’s “wandering over heaven,” then he would never have needed to pray to the wind and invoke its powers.

Canto V: Here is the resolution of the poem. The speaker finally asks the wind to be his spirit and to make him his "lyre" or instrument, so that his works of poetry may be heard all across the universe. There is a sense here of hope and resolution with the last lines, "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" There is always a light at the end of a tunnel.

All in all, I hope those who heard this poem were as inspired and struck with awe as I was. Again, sorry for the late blog post.

Homework: Probably too late if you haven't already completed this, but read Matthew Arnold's bio.