Some Background for Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind"

Notes for "Ode to the West Wind"

Definition of “ode” from M. H. Abrams's A Glossary of Literary Terms:

A long lyric poem that is serious in subject, elevated in style, and elaborate in its stanzaic structure.... The prototype was established by the Greek poet Pindar, whose odes were modeled on the songs by the chorus in Greek drama. His complex stanzas were patterned in sets of three: moving in a dance rhythm to the left, the chorus chanted the strophe; moving to the right, the antistrophe; then, standing still, the epode.

The regular or Pindaric ode in English is a close imitation of Pindar's form, with all the strophes and antistrophes written in one stanza pattern, and all the epodes in another . . . the typical construction may be conveniently studied in Thomas Gray's "The Progress of Poesy" (1757). The irregular ode was introduced in 1656 by Abraham Cowley, who imitated the Pindaric style and matter but disregarded the recurrent strophic triad, allowing each stanza to establish its own pattern of variable line lengths, nuber of lines, and rhyme scheme. This type of irregular stanzaic structure, which is free to alter in accordance with shifts in subject and mood, has been the most common for the English ode ever since; Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" (1807) is representative.

Pindar's odes were encomiastic, or written to praise and glorify someone . . . The earlier English odes, and many later one, were also written to eulogize something; either a person (Dryden's "Anne Killigrew"), or the arts of music or poetry (Dryden's "Alexander's Feast"), or a time of day (Collins' "Ode to Evening"), or abstract concepts (Gray's "Hymn to Adversity" and Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty"). Romantic poets perfected the personal ode of description and passionate meditation, which is stimulated by (and sometimes reverts to) an aspect of the outer scene and turns on the attempt to solve either a personal emotional problem or a generally human one (Wordsworth's "Intimations" ode, Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode," Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind") (8^th edition, page 206).

from Shelley's A Defence of Poetry (1821)

. . . for [poetry] acts in a divine and unapprehended manner, beyond and above consciousness. . . It awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar (924)

Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre and circumference of knowledge; it is that which comprehends all science, and that to which all science must be referred. . . What were virtue, love, patriotism, friendship-what were the scenery of this beautiful universe which we inhabit; what were our consolations on this side of the grave-and what were our aspirations beyond it, if poetry did not ascend to bring light and fire from those eternal regions where the owl-winged faculty of calculation dare not ever soar? Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, "I will compose poetry." The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within, like the color of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure. (926)

Language that associates poetry with prophecy, with inspiration in the old-fashioned sense. The “fading coal” probably a reference to Isaiah’s calling to be prophet:

Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. 8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. (KJV, Isaiah 6.6-8)

If this poem is prophecy, how do we account for the ending of the poem, which some readers might see as trivial or even clichéd?

"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" (70)

This trope or metaphor for regeneration is certainly not very original. If what makes the poem ultimately full of hope and “forward-looking thoughts” is the promise of renewal by the changing of the seasons, such a “content” seems inadequate to the poem’s robust form. In other words, it seems like a lot of wind to blow such puny leaves.

To get at the larger implications of the poem, the way in which the “content” of the poem IS deserving of such formal care, look at the poem's careful handling of its own images and details and consider how these specific details move us and the poem into consideration of ever-larger concerns.

"Pestilence-stricken multitudes" (5)

"The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, / Each like a corpse within its grave" (7-8)

"Destroyer and Preserver" (14)

"Angels of lightning and rain" (18)

"some fierce Maenad" (21)

"a pumice isle in Baire's bay" (32)

"And saw in sleep old palaces and towers / Quivering" (33-34)

"thorns of life" (54)

“unextinguished hearth” (66) and “Ashes and sparks” (67)

“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” (70)