An Analysis of Ode to the West Wind Essay -- Ode to the West Wind Essa

An Analysis of Ode to the West Wind Shelleys Ode to the West Wind appears more complex at first than it really is because the rime is structured much like a long, complex sentence in which the main clause does not appear until the last of five quadteen key sections. The poems main nous is held in suspension for 56 lines before the reader sees exactly what Shelley is saying to the wolfram wind, and why hes saying it. In the first four sections Shelley addresses the west wind in three different ways, each one evoking the winds power and beauty. And each section ends with Shelley asking the West Wind to hear, oh hear The readers queerness is therefore both aroused and suspended, because we know the west wind is supposed to hear something, but we arent told what the wind is suposed to hear or is supposed to do. The first stanza develops the idea of the west winds effect on the autumn leaves. The associations we automatically make with autumn&emdashthe end of the year, the death of the years life, the onset of winter&emdashare important, but just as important are other life-giving aspects of the winds power. Shelley tells us that the wind not only blows the Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,/ Pestilence-stricken multitudes (4, 5) of autumn leaves, but also Chariotest to their dark and wintry cut/ The wingd seeds (6, 7) which will lie dormant through come in the winter until the spring breezes&emdash Thine azure sister of the spring (9)&emdashblow over the landscape to excite the life in them. The west wind drives dead leaves, but also scatters the seeds that will later give the world new life. This life-giving aspect of the west wind seems significant, but the reader cannot quite see yet why Shel... ...he minds of his readers. But the readers are hard to reach, unresponsive. It can seem to a poet struggling for an audience, as Shelley did, that winter was coming. It took a lot of faith to believe that spring would follow. The west wind is a revivi fying force, something that can (metaphorically if not literally) drive his poetry forward to a new birth in whatever spring lies ahead If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? (70) It is the poets plea for a metempsychosis of energy. We dont know for certain that the poets energy has been sapped by the struggle to make his voice heard, but we know for much of Shelleys career he did struggle with the depressing smack that no one was reading him. In any event, this powerful natural force becomes for Shelley a symbol of a power that can drive out the years death, his deep depression, and plant the seeds for a rebirth.