Author: imrantosharit

WRITE A CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF THE POEM “ODE TO THE WEST WIND”

Ans. “Ode to the West Wind” is one of the most famous poems by Shelley and it was published in the same book, which consists of his famous drama, Prometheus Unbound, and many magnificent lyric poems. He wrote this poem in the autumn of 1819 in Florence. The poem is considered as one of the noblest lyrics in English. It bears testimony to the poetic genius that Shelley was.

Structurally the poem is divided into five stanzas or cantos. Each stanza is in sonnet form. The ode consists of five sonnets. Every sonnet consists of four terza rima (a three-line verse) with traditional terza rima rhymes and a rhymed couplet. The first three stanzas are the address of the wind and at the same time the characterization description of the wind. All of three stanzas end with the “0 hear” prayer. In the fourth stanza, personal elements penetrate in the poem and Shelley compares himself with the wind. He makes fervent plea to the wind to lift him up as he bleeds falling on the ‘thorns of life’. The last stanza is a prayer to the forceful spirit of the wind to use him for regeneration of humanity. Shelley ends on a note of optimism — “0, Wind,/ If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

In the poem, the West Wind is presented as a powerful force. Shelley makes myths of the autumnal West Wind as a great force which possesses redeeming power. It is gigantic, wild, restless power, free and unbounded. Two contrasting aspects of the wind are underlined in the first three stanzas — its terrifying destructive power and its gentle fostering influence. It is simultaneously a destroyer and a preserver. On the earth, the wind drives away dry leaves of trees like “ghosts from an enchanter fleeing”. It also carries the winged seeds and deposits them in the “dark wintry bed”, where they remain buried throughout the winter. The same wind will also make them germinate in the spring. It also sweeps wild storm clouds along on the firmament from the bottom of the sky to the peak of the sky. The wind also makes its mighty influence felt on the sea. It stirs the Mediterranean sea to its depth. It makes a lashing progress through the waters of the Atlantic, dividing the mighty Atlantic’s ‘level powers’ into two halves, its impact reaching miles below to turn the submarine nature grey in fear. Thus, the mythical might of the wind cover the earth, the sky and the seas.

“Ode to the West Wind” is a lyric. The music swells like the surge of the West Wind. Shelley uses a number of poetic devices in order to bring his ideas home. The dramatic alliteration in the opening line, ‘Wild West Wind’, announces energy and force. The wind is personified and has been given a mythical stature. The poem is replete with images and metaphors. There is a rapid succession of images in the poem. The poet’s emotion is at the peak when he makes fervent appeal to the wind to make him its ‘lyre’. His use of emotive language is noteworthy.

The poem starts with the natural and the moves to the personal finally turning to the universal. Shelley deftly blends the natural, the personal and the universal in the same poem. It also captures the past, the present and the future. Shelley finished this great poem optimistically believing in the rise of humanity.

WRITE A NOTE ON SHELLEY’S CONCEPTION OF A POET AND HIS FUNCTION AS REVEALED IN THE POEMS “ODE TO THE WEST WIND” AND “TO A SKYLARK”.

Ans. Both “Ode to the West Wind” and “To a Skylark”, two of Shelley’s celebrated lyric poms, are marked by intensity of personal passion, delicacy of poetic sensibility and exuberance of emotion. Though in the poems Shelley idealizes natural phenomenon, they also reveal his idea of a poet and his function. To Shelley, the poet is not a mere artist. He is a divine harp through which the Cosmic Power makes music for mankind. He is a reformer as well as a prophet spreading messages with a view to bringing about revolutionary changes in human history.

In “To a Skylark”, Shelley compares the Skylark and its song to a poet who remains unknown behind the light of his own thought but always pours out his heart of his own accord. The poet, according to Shelley, composes his poems spontaneously without being ordered by the people of the world, and the time comes when those people of the world who had paid no attention to his lofty messages, ultimately understand the thoughts of the poet and begin to sympathize with him:

“Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:”

In the last stanza of the poem, the poet implores to the Skylark to inspire him with its joy and happiness. He is confident that if he could get the happiness and joy of the Skylark in his heart, he would reproduce such fine poetry of deep inspiration that the world would listen to him with rapt attention: –

“Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.”

In “Ode to the West Wind”, the poet makes a fervent appeal to the wind to spread his hitherto unknown and inoperative thoughts among mankind to ‘quicken a new birth’:

“Drive my dead thoughts over the universe                                                                                                 Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!                                                                                          And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth                                                                                                Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!                                                                                        Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy!”

The quotations above from both “To a Skylark” and “Ode to the West Wind” reveal Shelley’s idea of a poet and his function as well as Shelley’s conception of poetry as ‘harmonious madness’. The first striking aspect of a poet is his unknown personality. A poet remains unknown or ‘hidden’. Though his songs flash out over the world, his personality remains unknown to others. He is immersed in the light of his own thought. He composes songs of his own accord with being asked by the people. His songs regale the hearts of the listeners who do not always understand the contents of his lofty thoughts.

The poet is an inspired soul. He pours out his whole heart when he composes poetry. According to Shelley, the poet also possesses a missionary zeal to reform the world. He is a reformer as well as a prophet. His poetry is a vehicle of revolutionary ideas to help regenerate and resurrect the lethargic society.

For Shelley, poetry is ‘harmonious madness’. The poet undergoes poetic rapture of frenzy which shapes itself into captivating poetry. He produces fine frenzied poetry of inspiration containing harmony aid consistency.

WHAT CONNECTIONS DOES SHELLEY MAKE BETWEEN NATURE AND ART IN HIS POEMS, AND HOW DOES HE ILLUSTRATE THOSE CONNECTIONS?

Ans. Whereas older Romantic poets looked at nature as a realm of communion with pure existence and with a truth preceding human experience, the later Romantics looked at nature primarily as a realm of overwhelming beauty and aesthetic pleasure. While Wordsworth and Coleridge often write about nature in itself, Shelley tends to invoke nature as a sort of supreme metaphor for beauty, creativity, and expression. This means that most of Shelley’s poems about art rely on metaphors of nature as their means of expression: the West Wind in “Ode to the West Wind” becomes a symbol of the poetic faculty spreading Shelley’s words like leaves among mankind, and the Skylark in “To a Skylark” becomes a symbol of the purest, most joyful, and most inspired creative impulse. The Skylark is not a bird, it is a “poet hidden.”

For Shelley, nature is not just a matter of presenting landscapes, scenes and creatures; it is a source of inspiration and emotion. In “Ode to the West Wind”, Shelley is fascinated by the mighty force of the wind. It is a source of inspiration for the poet. It is a liberating force as well as a tool of bringing about revolutionary changes. He makes an earnest plea to the West Wind to infuse him with its raw power and liberate him from the bout of depression which has temporarily overwhelmed him. Shelley looks upon the wind as a great force that can liberate him from the “thorns of life” on which he has fallen. More importantly, he treats the wind as a force that can spread his poetic messages throughout the world and bring revolutionary changes.

In the last stanza, he implores the wind to make him an instrument and tool of revolutionary change: “make me thy lyre”. He prays to the wind to scatter his dead thoughts over the universe so that, like the autumn leaves, they may stimulate new idea which will bring out a new era in human history: “Be thou, Spirit fierce,! My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!/ Drive my dead thoughts over the universe/ Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!” For Shelley, poetry is not mere art. It is an ‘incantation’. It is a prophecy. It pours life into dead things. It evokes faith in the despondent. But, nature plays a great role. The West Wind will act as a ‘trumpet’ to announce ‘my words among mankind’ and rouse the world from its stupor.

In “To a Skylark” Shelley sees nature as something that goes beyond its outer appearance and instead sees it as a form of inspiration or emotion. The Skylark is a “spirit” invisible in the sky. It sings and flies free of all human error and complexity, and while listening to its song the poet feels free of these things too. The bird is a “scorner of the ground”. Its music is better than all music and all poetry. Shelley asks the bird to teach him “half the gladness / That thy brain must know,” for then he would overflow with “harmonious madness,” and his song would be so beautiful that the world would listen to him, even as he is now listening to the skylark. Thus, the Skylark is Shelley’s natural metaphor for pure poetic expression, the “harmonious madness” of pure inspiration. The Skylark’s song issues from a state of purified existence, a notion of complete unity with heaven through nature.

Thus, in both “Ode to the West Wind” and “To a Skylark”, Shelley establishes connections between nature represented by the wind and the bird respectively and art meaning his poetry. In both cases, nature is a sort of supreme metaphor for beauty, creativity, and expression.

CONSIDER SHELLEY AS A LYRICAL POET. 

What lyrical qualities do you find in the poetry of Shelley? Discuss with reference to the poems you have read.
Or,
Evaluate the lyrical qualities of Shelley’s poetry.

Ans. Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the great Romantic poets in English literature. His poetry is marked by excellence and power in several departments. In the first place, he possesses the lyrical gift or the power of embodying in musical language some transient but vivid emotion or some passing mood in such a way as to reproduce the feeling in the reader. Commonly acclaimed as one of the supreme lyrical geniuses in English poetry, Shelley’s poetry is always pleasant reading because of the lyrical qualities it embodies.

Shelley is an intense lyricist. He ‘stands alone among singers and he is the perfect singing bird’. His poems reveal intense lyricism. His lyrical temper finds expression in flashes of imagination, emotional exuberance, lilting melody, splendour of imagery and subjective note. His “Ode to the West Wind” and “To a Skylark” are two of his most outstanding lyrics. They exhibit Shelley’s genius as a lyric poet.

Spontaneity is one of the most striking features of Shelley’s lyrics. His lyrics are pure effusions, and they come directly from his heart, In “To a Skylark”, he sings as naturally as the bird. The poet’s spontaneous expression is notable in the following lines:

“Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.”

Emotional exuberance is another lyrical quality. There is a great intensity of feeling in Shelley’s lyrics. There is also a note of desire and longing in most of his lyrics. He is always yearning for what is unattainable. In “Ode to the West Wind”, Shelley gives vent to his intense desire to be united with the force of the wind. He expresses his ardent desire to accompany him in his mission of creating a new order of life but the agonies and bitterness of life — “heavy weight of hours” have repressed his qualities. He makes an ardent appeal to the wind to lift him like ‘a wave, a leaf, a cloud’. In the last section, he vehemently urges the West Wind to infuse its vigour and power into him, so that he can play the “trumpet of prophecy” and render his massage to mankind. In “To a Skylark”, we observe the poet’s emotional outpouring in the lines expressing human sadness:

“We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”

Subjectivity is a common feature of lyrical poetry. Idealization and abstraction are characteristic features of Shelley’s poetry. In “Ode to the West Wind”, he personifies the wind and treats it as an indomitable force that can liberate human beings from bout of despondency and bring about revolutionary changes. In “To a Skylark”, the bird is idealized and presented as “an image of that rapture which no man can ever reach”.

Musical quality is an integral part of all lyrics. Shelley’s lyrics are surprisingly musical and sweet. He has the gift of lending to his lyrics the sweetest and most liquid harmonies. “To a Skylark” and “Ode to the West Wind” are both musical triumphs. In addition to the melodic effects, Shelley’s lyrics are highly embellished compositions replete with ornamental imagery. “To a Skylark” presents many glittering pictures. One such image is found in the following lines:

“Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.”

Shelley’s genius was essentially lyrical. He is one of the most musical poets in English literature. His poems embody all the qualities of lyric poems.

CONSIDER SHELLEY AS A POET OF NATURE.

Ans. Nature or love for nature is one of the dominant themes in the romantic poetry. The Romantic poets differed significantly from one another in their treatment of nature. Despite their profound love of nature, they looked at her from their own viewpoints. Like other Romantic poets, Shelley is also an ardent lover and worshipper of nature. Almost all his poems abound in nature imagery and some of his poems are poems purely of nature, such as “Ode to the West Wind”, “The Cloud”, and “To a Skylark”.

Whereas older Romantic poets looked at nature as a realm of communion with pure existence and with a truth preceding human experience, the later Romantics looked at nature primarily as a realm of overwhelming beauty and aesthetic pleasure. While Wordsworth and Coleridge often write about nature in itself, Shelley tends to invoke nature as a sort of supreme metaphor for beauty, creativity, and expression. This means that most of Shelley’s poems about art rely on metaphors of nature as their means of expression: the West Wind in “Ode to the West Wind” becomes a symbol of the poetic faculty spreading Shelley’s words like leaves among mankind, and the skylark in “To a Skylark” becomes a symbol of the purest, most joyful, and most inspired creative impulse. The skylark is not a bird, it is a “poet hidden.”

For Shelley, nature is not just a matter of presenting landscapes, scenes and creatures; it is a source of inspiration and emotion. Iii “Ode to the West Wind”, Shelley is fascinated by the mighty force of the wind and gives graphic descriptions of the forceful aspects of (lie wind. He brings out the duality in the wind — a ‘destroyer’ and a preserver’ simultaneously. The power of the wind is a source of inspiration for the poet. It is a liberating force as well as a tool of bringing about revolutionary changes. He fervently appeals to the wind to liberate him from the present decrepit condition. He implores the wind to make him an instrument and tool of revolutionary change: “make me thy lyre” and “drive my dead thoughts over the universe”. In “To a Skylark” Shelley sees nature as something that goes beyond its outer appearance and instead sees it as a form of inspiration or emotion.

“To a Skylark” also shows an admiration of nature that goes deeper than observation. It is clear that Shelley is envious of the skylark’s happiness and lack of suffering. The Skylark is portrayed as a ‘blithe-spirit’ that knows no suffering, yet appears to know more than mankind. Shelley envies the Skylark, as it is innocent and happy in a world, which lacks both these things. By looking at this bird, the poet is inspired to look at himself- the Skylark is hidden, as he is so high up in the sky, whilst the poet is also ‘hidden’ behind his words. The skylark touches the essence of existence, it knows that ‘life’ and all its ‘pleasure’ and ‘beauty’ is achievable. The Skylark knows things that are truer and deeper than mortals could dream.
Another way Shelley stands apart from other Romantics is that he does not ascribe human attributes to nature. He does not establish any communion between nature and human beings. In “Ode to the West Wind”, Shelley personifies the West Wind and renders it a mythical stature. Despite his subjective treatment of the natural object, Shelley does not attribute any human characteristics on it. In “To a Skylark”, despite the bird’s superiority, it is still a bird. To him, nature is a ceaseless source of inspiration and power.

(d) Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match’d with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

Ans. The lines have been taken from the beautiful lyric “To a Skylark” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. In these lines Shelley gives vent to his thought produced by the melodious song of the Skylark and also, at the same time, extols the bird’s song through a matchless comparison.

The Skylark for Shelley is not an earthly bird, but a spirit of joy and rapture. The poet listens to its song with rapt attention and say that he has never heard such a flood of “rapture divine”. Its song seems to be an endless outpouring of delight and the bird itself is an “unbodied joy”, a symbol of ideal beauty and pure joy. Shelley’s own search for ideal love and happiness is perfectly fulfilled by this bird of his poetic creation. Hence the wedding songs or chants of victory which could very well be expected to be full of unalloyed joy and delight are hollow and meaningless when compared with the song of the skylark. The poet says that even the sweetest earthly music is but an empty “vaunt” when compared to the joyous rapture of the Skylark. Earthly music, however sweet, is imperfect because there is some hidden want in it, while the Skylark’s song is perfect in its joyousness and leaves us completely satisfied.

(e) With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest: but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.

Ans. The lines have been taken from the beautiful lyric “To a Skylark” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. Here the poet lauds and praises the pure, unmixed, ethereal song of the bird which never flags. The poet also draws a sharp contrast between human life and the bird’s life that comes out of his oppressed and distressed soul.

The bird feels exquisitely happy while it sings for no languor or fatigue can effect the lark; it is a tireless singer of joyousness. Nor does the Skylark ever experience a feeling of the faintest irritation or annoyance. The Skylark does not experience the disillusionment or disgust which human beings invariably experience after an excessive enjoyment of the pleasures of love, as on earth love undergoes, with the passage of time, insipidity and cloying. The Skylark does enjoy the pleasures of love, but in its case the feeling of disillusionment or disgust does not occur. The distinctive contrast between human love and that of the Skylark is evident here; while the Skylark, being free from the satiety or boredom of love, sips its pleasures fully, the miserable human being only enjoys for the time being and then is destined to have the bitter experience of its bitterness, its surfeit and its feeling of disgust.

(F) WE LOOK BEFORE AND AFTER,
AND PINE FOR WHAT IS NOT:
OUR SINCEREST LAUGHTER
WITH SOME PAIN IS FRAUGHT;
OUR SWEETEST SONGS ARE THOSE THAT TELL OF SADDEST THOUGHT.

Ans. The lines have been taken from the beautiful lyric “To a Skylark” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. This passage is the outcome of a distressed and much oppressed soul which has sucked boundless bitterness of the world. In these lines, the poet, in a vivid manner, describes the precarious condition of men on this earth and also their sad lot.

The life of human beings is full of disappointments and frustrations. Human beings aspire and long but those aspirations and longings remain unfulfilled. Man is a creature that looks “before and aft er” and his happiness is frequently marred by memories of past afflictions and sorrows, and the painful uncertainty of what is to come in the future. Man is subject to wariness and satiety and he can never enjoy happiness perennially. Human life is subject to recurrent spells of frustration and pain. Earthly joys are temporary and fade away into nothingness after sometime. There is an element of pain mingled even with our most genuine laughter. Even the sincerest of our delights has a touch of sadness in it and our most touching songs are those that unfold the tragedies of life. In contrast to miserable hum an life, the Skylark’s life is free from all sorts of fever, fret, bitterness, sorrow, pain, disgust of life on earth.

(G) TEACH ME HALF THE GLADNESS
THAT THY BRAIN MUST KNOW,
SUCH HARMONIOUS MADNESS
FROM MY LIPS WOULD FLOW
THE WORLD SHOULD LISTEN THEN, AS I AM LISTENING NOW.

Ans. The lines have been taken from the beautiful lyric “To a Skylark” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. In these lines the poet unfolds his intense desire and lofty aspiration to get inspiration from the heavenly melodies of the Skylark.

Hearing the pure ecstatic music of the Skylark the poet feels that he has never heard such a flood of “rapture divine”. Its song seems to the poet to be an endless outpouring of delight, and the bird itself is an “unbodied joy”. He wishes that if the bird could communicate to the heart of the poet half of its joy, the poet would have then a fine frenzy of inspiration and would pour forth rapturous songs of melody. Then such a maddening music, sweet and delightful, would flow from his lips that he would hold the world, which is now indifferent to his songs, turning a deaf ear to his idealism and thoughts of reform and emancipation, spell-bound, as he himself is listening to the bird’s song with rapt attention. What Shelley means to say is that his awareness of the tragedy of human life makes it impossible for him to write poems of rapturous joys that could easily draw the attention of people. All that Shelley needs is the feeling of ecstasy which the Skylark experiences.

(c)Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Ans. The lines have been taken from the beautiful lyric “To a Skylark” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. Here the poet gives vent to his feelings and thoughts roused in him by the bird’s joyous song.

The poet, living amidst the fever and fret, oppression in this distressed world cannot call the Skylark a bird, rather he identifies the bird as a spirit for he finds no other living thing that could resemble the bird mostly in its spontaneity, in its outpouring such joyous and all pervading song. So, as in the first stanza “a blithe spirit”, he calls the bird a spirit. Whatever the lark be, bird or spirit, the poet is eager to learn what his thoughts are, the thoughts that inspire the bird to sing such joyous songs. The music produced by the Skylark is full of rapturous joy which seems to have a divine quality. Love and wine are regarded as sources of inspiration to poets. But even these can not inspire him to sing like the lark. The poet says, never have songs sung in praise of love or wine spared a poet to such ethereal delight on the rapturous song of the Skylark. The bird’s harmony is “a flood of rapture divine”—it is pure, clear and spontaneous.