SHORT QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS ODE TO THE WEST WIND

 Please justify the title of the poem “Ode to the West Wind”.

Ans.  Shelley’s celebrated poem “Ode to the West Wind” is a wonderful piece of romantic poetry. The title of the poem is fully justified because the poem is an impassioned address to the autumnal west wind. The whole poem is mainly about the west wind and its forces. The first three stanzas describe and reflect upon the operation of the west wind on the land, in the sky, and on the seas. Personal and subjective elements enter into the fourth stanza as the poet desires to be lifted out of his low, fallen state by the wind. In the fifth and final stanza, the note of romantic subjectivism takes on a revolutionary fervour. The poet appeals to the mighty wind to make him ‘thy lyre’ and cause a revolution in the world by revitalizing his spark- like thoughts and spreading them throughout the world. Thus, in the poem, Shelley subjectively treats the West Wind and makes a myth of as well as allegorizes it as a potent symbol of revolutionary change. It is presented both as a destroyer and a preserver, facilitating universal change after autumnal decay and wintry hibernation. Ostensibly as well as in its essence, the poem is about the West Wind. Hence, the title is quite justified.

 WHAT COMMOIIONS/ EFFECTS/INFLUENCES DOES THE WEST
WIND BRING ON THE EARTH AND IN THE MEDITCRRANE?

ANS. In the celebrated poem ‘Ode to the West Wind”, Shelley, by using a series of vivid images, gives graphic descriptions of the effects of the West Wind on the earth, in the key and over the ocean. Labeling the West Wind as both a ‘destroyer’ and a ‘preserver’ Shelley says about the effects of the wind on the earth. It 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. In the third stanza, Shelley presents the operation of the autumnal wind on the seas. The Wind arouses the Mediterranean from its slumber in which the sea dreams about the old palaces and towers submerged in its own blue deep. The Wild Wind then 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 mighty West Wind brings great changes both on the earth and over the seas.

 HOW DOES SHELLEY PRESENT THE WEST WIND IN THE POEM “ODE TO THE WEST WIND”?

Ans.  Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” is a wonderful romantic poem. In the poem, the poet subjectively treats the wind and gives it a mythical stature. He underlines the forceful aspects of the autumnal wind and calls it both a ‘preserver’ and a ‘destroyer’. The poet describes the mighty powers of the West Wind both as a destroyer and preserver. As a destroyer the wind drives away the pale dry leaves of trees and preserves the seeds in the moist earth for germination in the coming spring-time. As the West Wind is a very powerful force, it causes great commotions on the earth, in the sky and over the ocean. Throughout the poem, the terrifying destructive powers of the wind as well as its gentle fostering influence have been underlined. More importantly, Shelley treats the West Wind allegoric ally. It is a symbol of unassailable power which can bring in revolutionary changes in the world and save mankind from misery and darkness. This is why in the concluding stanza he urges to wind to make him its ‘lyre’ in order to spread his messages of hope and regeneration throughout the world. The poet ends in a high optimistic note that the present desolate condition will pass away and good days
are ahead.

WRITE A SHORT NOTE ON “PERSONAL ELEMENTS IN “ODE TO THE
WEST WIND”.

Ans. Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” is a celebrated romantic poem. Personal elements penetrate in the poem when in the fourth stanza Shelley makes a fervent appeal to the forceful wind to  liberate him from the slough of depression which has temporarily overwhelmed him. He addresses the Wind in the first person seeking its sympathy and support in order to redeem himself. He categorically mentions that he, like the West Wind, once was “uncontrollable” and “tameless, and swift, and proud”. He now bleeds as he falls on the “thorns of life” and has been chained and bowed down by the “heavy weight of hours”. In other words, he is depressed and weighed down by the cares and anxieties of life. He passionately appeals to the wind to lift him up just like the way it lifts up the leaves on the earth and the clouds on the sky and the waves on the sea. Shelley here treats the wind subjectively. He makes the myth of the autumnal West Wind as a great force which possesses redeeming power. He strongly feels that the West Wind can only regenerate him and give sparks to his creative energy.

 IN “ODE TO THE WEST WIND”, WHY DOES SHELLEY CALL THE WEST WIND “DESTROYER” AND “PRESERVER”?

Ans. Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” is a wonderful romantic poem. In the poem, the poet subjectively treats the wind and gives it a mythical stature. He underlines the forceful aspects of the autumnal wind and calls it both a ‘preserver’ and a ‘destroyer’. The poet describes the mighty powers of the West Wind both as a destroyer and preserver. Shelley describes the West Wind as something that can be seen only through its force and power, like driving leaves before the wind or blowing seeds to a cold grave. Shelley then turns the topic of the first stanza and speaks of the West Wind’s sister, the Spring wind, that will blow and summon to life the sleeping seeds that will raise “sweet buds” to the air. It is in this context that Shelley calls the West Wind a Wild Spirit that is both a “Destroyer” and a “Preserver”: The West Wind destroys the peaceful landscape of autumn by driving dead, pestilence-stricken leaves, but it is a preserver because it buries, or plants, the seeds of next year’s life to be awakened by the Spring wind that blows.

 WRITE SHORT NOTE ON: SYMBOLISM IN THE POEM “ODE TO THE WEST WIND”

Ans. The autumnal West Wind itself is the central piece of symbolism in the poem. A natural phenomenon has assumed the mythical dimension of a great transformational agency, a destroyer and a preserver, operating on earth, in the sky, and on the seas. Shelley’s revolutionary zeal and ethereal imagination symbolize the wind into an uncontrollable spirit governing the whole of the universe. The poet seeks the support of the wind to resurrect himself so that all the sparks of his thought might be fanned into new flames of fire to usher in a new springtime at the end of the winter decay and desolation.

For Shelley, the West Wind is more than a wind. It is not only a natural phenomenon affecting changes in the natural world. It is Shelley’s symbol for regeneration, a vehicle of his revolutionary romanticism. It is an uncontrollable spirit who can rescue and elevate the poet, fallen among ‘the thorns of life’, to become the harbinger of the great agency of change. ‘Make me thy lyre’, Shelley implores the wind, and urges it to bring forth a new spring of life in the dead winter of man’s world.

 SHELLEY’S VISION OF POETRY AND LIFE IN “ODE TO THE WEST WIND”

Ans.  In “Ode to the West Wind” Shelley subjectively treats the wind and gives it a mythical stature. For him, the West Wind is not only a natural phenorienon affecting changes in the natural world. It is Shelley’s symbol for regeneration, a vehicle of his revolutionary romanticism. In the poem, he equates his poetry with the West Wind. As the wind is a transforming power in nature, so can his poetry be a transforming power intellectually and poetically.

The wind ushers great changes in the natural world. It brings in changes on the earth, in the sky and on the seas. A natural phenomen on has assumed the mythical dimension of a great transformational agency, a destroyer and a preserver, operating on earth, in the sky, and on the seas. Shelley pleads with the West Wind to let him do the same, figuratively, with his poetry:

Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thought 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…”

Shelley’s vision is that his poetry will transform art, poetry, life, as the West Wind transforms nature.

*SHELLEY’S MYTH-MAKING IN “ODE TO THE WEST WIND”

Ans. Shelley holds a unique place in English literature by virtue of his power of making myths out of the objects and forces of Nature. To most of us, the forces of nature have little meaning. But for Shell ey these forces had as much reality as human being have for most of us. Shelley subjectively treats the wind and gives it a mythical stature. For him, the West Wind is not only a natural phenomenon affecting changes in the natural world. It is Shelley’s symbol for regeneration, a vehicle of his revolutionary romanticism. Shelley personifies the West Wind and gives it an independent life. He also personifies the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, giving each a separate existence. These forces of nature are so vitally imagined that they become present. This giving of individual life to different forces of nature is Shell ey’s myth-making quality. He gives conscious life to the West Wind, Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, but he does not attribute any other human qualities to them. He does not look upon nature or natural phenomenon as disguised beings. To Shelley, the West Wind is still a wind, and the cloud a cloud, however intense a reality they might be .

EXPLAIN WITH REFERENCE TO THE CONTEXT:

(1) WILD SPIRIT, WHICH ART MOVING EVERYWHERE;
DESTROYER AND PRESERVER; HEAR, OH, HEAR!

Ans. The quoted lines occur in the celebrated poem “Ode to the West Wind” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. Here the poet speaks about the dual aspect of West Wind as destroyer and a preserver. The wind is a wild spirit, the power of destruction, blowing everywhere. The West Wind is called the destroyer as well as the preserver, because while it destroys the leaves, it preserves seeds to germinate later.

The West Wind destroys only the useless decayed things, dry, dead leaves, that are not green symbol of life but have sickly colours, “pale”, “black”, “yellow”, “hectic red”. The wind carries away the dead leaves and piles them on the ground where they will mould and become fertile soil for the new plants in spring. It carries the light seeds away fro the parent-plants to scatter them everywhere, so that in Spring they would start a life of their own. The seeds lie buried safely in the ground all through Winter until the warm Spring breeze, Azure sister of West Wind, will blow, thawing the hard soil so that the seeds could come out! sprout through the softened earth and Spring flowers quickly bloom every where to adorn the world with new and dazzling colour. Thus the West Wind is at the same time destroyer and preserver.

(2) THERE ARE SPREAD
ON THE BLUE SURFACE OF THINE AERY SURGE,
LIKE THE BRIGHT HAIR UPLIFTED FROM THE HEAD
OF SOME FIERCE MAENAD, EVEN FROM THE DIM VERGE OF THE HORIZON TO THE ZENITH’S HEIGHT,
THE LOCKS OF THE APPROACHING STORM.

Ans (2) The quoted lines occur in the celebrated poem “Ode to the West Wind” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. The poet here describes the effect of the wind on the sky. The quoted lines give a graphic description of how the West Wind brings about violent storm in the sky.

The wind breaks the clouds up “like earth’s decaying leaves” that are shaken “from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean”. The forceful wind breaks apart the clouds and scatters them just like leaves from trees. Shelley compares rain and lightning to angels, and says the wind spreads them both through the sky “like the bright hair uplifted from the head”. So, the rain and lighting are spread across the sky like someone’s hair that is lifted up and splayed in the wind. He then compares the wind to a crazy, intense, wild-woman (Maenad) to indicate a coming storm. The wind spreads the clouds in a way that the entire sky from the dim horizon up to the highest zenith becomes overcast with them.

(3) ……………Thou Dirge                                                                                                                                         Of the dying year, to which this closing night                                                                                             Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,                                                                                                          Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere                                                                                                           Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:

Ans. (3) The quoted lines occur in the celebrated poem “Ode to the West Wind” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. The poet here describes the fury of the storm caused by the West Wind in the sky.

In the sky, the West Wind brings about a violent storm. As the wind blows, it drives the loose masses of clouds across the sky. The sky gets overcast with black clouds. The clouds cover the sky from the verge of the horizon up to the highest point. As the wind blows violently bringing commotion in the sky, the poet is reminded of the death of the year. In Autumn, nature lies on deathbed and its actual death comes in Winter. As the poet listens to the tumult of the wind, it appears to him that the wind is singing the funeral song of the year. And the dark night sky, overcast with masses of black cloud, is likened to the vault of a vast grave in which the dead body of the year will be buried. Soon these black clouds will burst into thunder, rain and lightning. Thus the whole earth will experience the fury of the mighty West Wind.

(4) OH, LIFT ME AS A WAVE, A LEAF, A CLOUD!                                                                                  I FALL UPON THE THORNS OF LIFE! I BLEED!
A HEAVY WEIGHT OF HOURS HAS CHAINED AND BOWED                                                            ONE TOO LIKE THEE: TAMELESS, AND SWIFT, AND PROUD.

Ans.(4) The quoted lines occur in the celebrated poem “Ode to the West Wind” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. These lines reveal Shelley’s sensitive nature, his feeling of sheer helplessness, his bitter sense of his own weakness and his own lack of strength and freedom in the face of the trials and tribulations of life.

Shelley was a rebel and a revolutionary. He had a restless temperament which was ever at war with something. In the West Wind Shelley finds a kindred spirit looking at it, he is remained of his youth when he too was free and uncontrollable At that time he did not think it an impossibility to vie with the West Wind in its speed. But the worries, ordeals, persecutions, tribulations and suffering, all these miseries of life have compelled him to become tame and weak. He had lost his old vigour and force; and in this bitterness, he cries out to the West Wind to render him some help as he yearns for freed om and happiness. He appeals to the wind to lift him as it lifts a cloud, a wave or a leaf. He confesses his weakness that now he falls upon the thorns of life, miseries and misfortunes of life; and they prick him to bleeding. The poet here envies the free and swift movement of the wind and most of all, its untamed, powerful and uncontrollable, wild force. With the passage of time, as his bright and rosy days are over, he finds himself chained and restricted in every possible way.

(5) Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness.

Ans (5) The quoted lines occur in the celebrated poem “Ode to the West Wind” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. Here the poet implores the West Wind to make him its instrument of music. He urges the wind to bring out the music latent in his heart.

The wild force of the West Wind fascinates Shelley. He is fallen on the ‘thorns of life’ and feels that his creative energy has been lost. He is badly in need of some energy that can raise and inspire him. Hence, he implores the West Wind to make him its instrument of music as it has made the forest through which it passes by making a rustling sound. It does not matter if his youthful vigour is gone. The forest is also without the leaves in the Autumn. So, let the West Wind blow through his heart and bring out the music that is latent there. But the poet is aware of the fact that the wild force of the wind will produce sad string like the music of the leafless forest in Autumn. But the sad music will also have its sweetness. In other words, the poet will probably sing sad songs, but they will be sweet and melodious.

(6) 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!

Ans (6) The quoted lines occur in the celebrated poem “Ode to the West Wind” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. Here the poet implores the West Wind to convey to him its own fierce and untamable energy, so that he can sing his songs freely and spontaneously.

In “Ode to the West Wind” Shelley subjectively treats the wind and gives it a mythical stature. For him, the West Wind is not only a natural phenomenon affecting changes in the natural world. It is Shelley’s symbol for regeneration, a vehicle of his revolutionary romanticism. In the poem, he equates his poetry with the West Wind. As the wind is a transforming power in nature, so can his poetry be a transforming power intellectually and poetically. Hence, lie urges the wind to be completely identified with him. Then it will do with his ideas what it does with the death leaves. He implores the wind to scatter his dead thoughts over the Universe and bring about welcoming change upon the earth. As the leaves and seeds driven by the West Wind burst into life in the Spring season, so let his thoughts bring a rebirth of the world and humanity. Shelley has a firm faith in his mission of bringing about the regeneration of mankind.

(7) 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!

Ans. (7) The quoted lines occur in the celebrated poem “Ode to the West Wind” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. The poet here urges the forceful West Wind to act as the trumpet of his prophecy to regenerate humanity.

In Shelley’s Opinion the earth is “Unawakened” because mankind is still ignorant and does not realize that it can built a better world of peace and happiness. The poet asks the wind to speak through his mouth to the human society which has so long defied him and has wallowed in the mire of degradation. He implores the West Wind to scatter his words to the earth which is still buried beneath old conventions, customs and ideas. Just as sparks and ashes from a burning hearth are carried away by the wind, so his words too would be conveyed to the world. For Shelley, the West Wind is not only a natural phenomenon affecting changes in the natural world. It is his symbol for regeneration, a vehicle of his revolutionary romanticism. In the poem, he equates his poetry with the West Wind. As the wind is a transforming power in nature, so can his poetry be a transforming power intellectually and poetically.

(8)…………………………….. O , WIND,
IF WINTER COMES, CAN SPRING BE FAR BEHIND?

Ans(8) The quoted lines occur in the celebrated poem “Ode to the West Wind” by the great Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. This is the prophetic utterance of the poet about regeneration. Shelley’s optimism about a brighter future is at the peak here.

Shelley is deeply shocked to see mankind in a miserable condition. But he is hopeful of better days. Presently the earth is experiencing winter season which is symbol of hardship and difficulties. But after winter comes spring; the earth becomes adorned with numerous flowers of different colours and the whole earth is pervaded by the sweet fragrance of the flowers. The Spring stands for the joy and re-birth in Nature. Shelley, a pure optimist, cherishes the desire that though the humanity now undergoes a period of darkness, winter period, Spring will soon set in. In the natural cycle of season, the Winter is always followed by the Spring. Hence, Shelley is overtly hopeful. Thus here comes the mighty prophecy of hope and faith in the triumph of love and the Spirit over tyranny and forces of darkness. This prophecy is the message to man of the rebirth of soul. Beyond the storm, beyond the Winter, beyond the decay and barrenness of a wintry age, there glimmers the Spring of a millennium. And Shelley visualizes the outburst of a Spring of humanity, expressed so optimistically in the last line of the poem: “If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”