the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration, the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present . . . In “Ode to the West Wind,” Shelley implores the West Wind, a powerful force of nature that Shelley identifies with his rapidly-changing reality, to “lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!” He also expresses his almost-melancholy wish that he could be as The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven (Ode 815) “Ode to the West Wind” invokes the attendant spirit from which Genius comes to grant Creativity also. “If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear,” he pleads, “If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee” (Ode 815).
In the fifth section, he begs the West Wind (which he identifies with himself early in the section) to Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth, Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! (Ode 815) Again, Shelley is asking the force that provides inspiration to act through him.
“Ode to the West Wind” also expresses the hungering for Imagination. Not only does Shelley want the force to make him the “trumpet of a prophecy” (Ode 815), but he also is trying to forge a oneness with the West Wind in the middle of the fifth section (“Be thou, Spirit fierce, / My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!”).
A common Romantic notion was the idea that Imagination was the side of the mind that allowed a person to forge a link with someone or something. Another of the central ideas of the Romantic literary figures was the inherent value of the “primitive and untrammeled” (Revolution 657).
The Term Paper on Critical Appreciation Of The Poem ‘Ode To The West Wind‘
“Thunder is good; thunder is impressive. But it is lightening that does the work.” The poem ‘’Ode to the West Wind’’ was written in the autumn of 1819, in the beautiful Cascine Gardens outside Florence and was published with ‘‘Prometheus Unbound’’ in 1820. The poet is himself in a mood of despondency and misery and says that he falls upon the thorns of life and is bleeding. He is seeking ...
Shelley fills the third section of “Ode to the West Wind” with images of innocence and serenity. Descriptions of “azure moss and flowers,” “sea-blooms,” and “oozy woods” dominate this part of the poem.
The fifth section also expresses Shelley’s belief that the quest for beauty is important. At the beginning of the fifth section, Shelley conjures the wind to “make me thy lyre” (Ode 815).
The lyre is one of few instruments which existed in the seventeenth century which had taken the same form since ancient Greece. It is a symbol of art and beauty; it is also a frequent symbol for the artist being played by inspiration (Ode 815).
What is perhaps most important is that “Ode to the West Wind” expresses the aspect of the Romantic movement which emphasized the search for individual definitions of morality rather than blindly accepting religious dogmas. As William Blake had his “Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” which emphasized the belief that traditional ideas of good and evil needed reconsidering, so Shelley believed that in some (but hardly all) cases, good could come from evil (“Percy” 811-12).
Shelley does not support this idea in any particular place in the poem, but rather by the way the poem develops throughout. For instance, Shelley supports this idea in the way he orders the sections. The first two sections contain images of violence, death, and the coming Winter: the West Wind itself; the “leaves dead”; the colors yellow, black, pale, and “hectic red”; the “corpse within a grave”; the “angels of rain and lightning”; the Mnad, and the “approaching storm.” In short, these first two sections describe images of evil: the West Wind brings death, cold, and hardship. The third section describes images of peace and serenity: the “blue Mediterranean,” “summer dreams,” “sleep,” “old palaces and towers,” the “azure moss and flowers,” and the “oozy woods.” These images and serenity are disturbed only by the coming of the West Wind, which threatens to disturb the balance of the peaceful life. In the fourth and fifth sections, Shelley begins to identify himself with the Windand beseeches the Wind to work through him for the good of humanity; he wants the wind to Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! (Ode 815) Shelley is saying here that although the Wind can be a force for evil, he wants the Wind to work through him because good can come from evil; here, a “new birth” of Imagination, Genius, and Creativity can come from death, darkness, and hardship. Shelley is essentially a visionary of this change; he invokes the powerful West Wind, a force he identifies with evil, his ever-changing world, and his own subconscious, to work through him to bring about the change that he so badly desires for the world, and believes could be possible.
The Term Paper on An Analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in London in 1797 to radical philosopher, William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Wollstonecraft died 11 days after giving birth, and young Mary was educated in the intellectual circles of her father’s contemporaries. In 1814, at the age of seventeen, Mary met and fell in love with poet, Percy Bysshe ...
Shelley’s poem is his attempt to let the West Wind work through him. 19th Century Romanticism in Europe- Romanticism began in the early 19th century and radically changed the way people perceived themselves and the state of nature around them. Unlike Classicism, which stood for order and established the foundation for architecture, literature, painting and music, Romanticism allowed people to get away from the constricted, rational views of life and concentrate on an emotional and sentimental side of humanity. This not only influenced political doctrines and ideology, but was also a sharp contrast from ideas and harmony featured during the Enlightenment. The Romantic era grew alongside the Enlightenment, but concentrated on human diversity and looking at life in a new way. It was the combination of modern Science and Classicism that gave birth to Romanticism and introduced a new outlook on life that embraced emotion before rationality. Romanticism was a reactionary period of history when its seeds became planted in poetry, artwork and literature. The Romantics turned to the poet before the scientist to harbor their convictions (they found that the orderly, mechanistic universe that the Science thrived under was too narrow-minded, systematic and downright heartless in terms of feeling or emotional thought) and it was men such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Germany who wrote “The Sorrows of Young Werther” which epitomized what Romanticism stood for.
The Essay on NATURE AND WILD LIFE
God created the world for people to live in or so we all have learnt and believed. No matter our views on the creation or spontaneity of life, we all must understand that nature is us and all around us. Thinking ourselves as the source of destruction may be true or an ignored folly in the mind of righteous beings. Being mindful of the gracious creatures living around us is a pre requisite for ...
His character expressed feelings from the heart and gave way to a new trend of expressing emotions through individuality as opposed to collectivism. In England, there was a resurgence into Shakespearean drama since many Romantics believed that Shakespeare had not been fully appreciated during the 18th century. His style of drama and expression had been downplayed and ignored by the Enlightenment’s narrow classical view of drama. Friedrich von Schlegel and Samuel Taylorleridge (from Germany and England respectively) were two critics of literature who believed that because of the Enlightenment’s suppression of individual emotion as being free and imaginative, Shakespeare who have never written his material in the 19th century as opposed to the 18th century. The perception that the Enlightenment was destroying the natural human soul and substituting it with the mechanical, artificial heart was The Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798, was a series of poems that examined the beauty of nature and explored the actions of people in natural settings. Written by William Woodsworth, this form of poetry was free, expressive and without constraint as evident by this “If this belief from heaven be sent, If such be Nature’s holy plan, Have I not reason to lament, What man has made of man?” Such passages from his work indicates that poetry and literature was also used as a form of rebellion or distaste for political institutions or social conditions during the 19th century. However, since most poets thrived on the emotional and irrational abstract that they were writing about, there was no specific category that this mode of thinking could fall into. This was a strength since the freedom to explore nature was infinite and without any restriction based on rules, law or doctrine.
This invariably led to a re-introduction into religion and mysticism; people wanted to explore the unknown. The Genius of Christianity, written by Rene de Chateaubriand, offered a contrast to Science. He found Christianity to be “the most poetic, most human, the most conducive to freedom, to arts and literature…” of all the religions and deduced that Science was lacking this element The middle ages were regarded as a creative period when humans lived close to the soil and were unblemished with the effects of industrialization or urbanization. Romanticism began to show the people that the Enlightenment had overstayed its welcome by leading the people to a future that offered a vision of mankind as being part of a group rather than an individual. G. W.
The Essay on Twentieth Century Nature Shapiro Lawrence
Contrasting Poets Lawrence and Shapiro in Their Views of Nature Julie Gibson Throughout the history of literature, poetic views of nature has evolved through time. One of the most differing eras is the twentieth century. With it " sn on-classical views, the twentieth century is one of the most influential eras. While the Victorian era practiced traditional values, the twentieth century influences ...
F. Hegel, a German philosopher, rejected the rational philosophy of the 18th century because he believed in “Idealism”. This involved looking at life in terms of the importance of ideas, not thought the narrow tunnel of materialism and wealth. By advocating Idealism, Hegel concluded that mankind could be led by his spirit, his soul, rather than the establishment or the status quo. Although Romanticism was perhaps conservative in nature, every participant of this swift and silent movement could relish in his own free and glorious vision of nature. Romanticism was not a political movement or a reformist package offered by a group of dissidents; Romanticism was a time when mankind could restructure his outlook on life so that he was able to reach new heights of intellectual and political awareness.
In the process of doing so, he found answers to practical problems by simply using his