Ode to the West Wind Shelley, on Miltons Paradise Lost the romantic re-interpretation of Satan.

. Form: five parts, each consists of 14 lines, so each part is a sonnet. There is a difference between stanzaic forms and thematic kinds in poetry. Stanzaic forms predetermined stanzaic pattern. Like a ballad. Thematic kinds defined by theme and not its form, like an ode. The rhyme pattern: - middle rhyme becomes the frame rhyme for the next stanza. A B A B C B C D - terza rima sonnet. So the ode is written in terza rima sonnet. C D E D E E - it is unusual to have such a form in English, which prefers less repetitive rhymes. Ode it is addressed, a poem of praise of a person or theme. The public ode expresses admiration of a person or things, but subordinated to the praise. Private ode more about the speakers feelings. The first three parts are more like a public ode, the last two parts are a private ode. The first three parts: describe the wind and its effect, power, we can delineate the topography of the poem: - the first part: leaves that are being torn from the trees (ground) The second part: sky: clouds. Third part: water, ocean, waves are torn. The topography of water, sky, and earth. The effects of wind on three elements. James Thompson: he wrote The Seasons in eighteenth century. He is creating a poem as a painting, a topographical poem, looking with his eyes on the effects (prisoner of the eye), while Shelley: he is actually creating seasons rather than creating them in topographical manner; which is more radical. The myth of Orpheus, and orpheic believes. Renowned for his poetry, when torn apart, his head was still singing. Orphic believes: we have to remember that human comprises the divine element and the humane, and the body is the prison of the soul. - tercet

O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being - Why is he creating an apotheosis of an Autumns wind? - What happens to nature in Autumn? death, or preparation for it. - Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Spring is resurrection, So, Shelly prefers these two seasons because they are dynamic. If autumn west wind, basically drives the leaves to the wintry bed, and Spring, in air, the trajectory is opposite down, up. But both are dynamic. wintry bed it is static, not dynamic. each like a corpse within its grave a very static image, but just a comparison. The static quality of winter. The dynamics of Spring: driving sweet buds, they drive, move. Autumn is a season of melancholy, it is inspirational. Colours: yellow, hectic red, black, pale the might of the Autumn west wind. IT kills etc., is mighty, so it is dynamically sublime. Autumn is dynamic, associated with melancholy, pestilence with illness. Hectic red fever. Autumn is not death, but dying. Destroyer and Preserver first, because it kills, but then, because the leaves revive during Summer. The Apocalypse: it is not the end, new beginning, a destruction in order to bring in new life. The Wild Spirit Thou breath of Autumns being unseen presence wind is invisible, but you feel its presence. But it is also associated with the Holy Spirit. New Testament: violent wind fills the house where thee apostles were sitting all of them were filled with the holy spirit and began speaking in.... tongues - The spirit enters the apostles and allows them to speak in other tongues. The Holy Spirit inspires the apostles, enables them to speak in a foreign tongue. So, the west wind, by the same token, is an inspiration, to change. The principle of negation: disagreement with the current state, the desire of evolution, change. Hegelian System Triad: to reach the absolute truth, the WELT GEIST, that constitutes the collection of all possible triads in the universe. The quest for it is essential for the evolution of mankind. A condition of development. The principle: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The Absolute Spirit (WELTGEIST) is the synthesis of the subjective and the objective spirit. The Absolute Spirit comprises art, religion, and their synthesis philosophy. All these emotions, subjective spirit, sensory experience, and then, the political meaning of this poem.... And then, the absolute truth of this poem, poetry is the queen of all knowledge Shelley. Poets legislators of the world. The Wild West Wind the synthesis of what is subjective, of how I feel and I am inspired, and of how this inspiration can affect history. The I of the poem is both personal and historical. The synthesis will become thesis to sth else. The synthesis of Autumn and Spring is Winter,

which is not death, but sleep. The synthesis of Winter and Summer: Autumn. In Hegelian, one cannot reach the absolute truth, because it would be static. The representation of the utopian world would be a dystopia. So, it is why Hegel is useful in the analysis of utopia. A political inspiration: pestilence-stricken multitudes one needs a lot of people to organize a revolution, which implies the destruction of the old order in order to create a new one, so the revolution is both a destroyer and a preserver. In this first part we have the wind that tears the leaves. Autumn is connected with fear, anguish etc: steep skys commotion onomatopoeic cacophonies. Angels of rain and lighting and Black rain... O hear the Apocalypse. The storm is the sublime, dynamic. In the previous stanza, we had torn leaves, we can see them, but in the second, these clouds torn of the sky can be only imagined, and he helps us imagine them. He compared the leaves torn off the trees to the hair of a maenad, that are risen with the wind. the first part recreates, the second part is purely creative, a pure imagination. in the first part: clarion, resurrection. In the second part: dirge, funeral song. decaying leaves, storm as destruction, sepulchre, etc. Repetition of everything as in the first part, but more imaginary. congregated might a little hint to the political force of revolution. The infinite striving the inspiration as the source of destruction. One has to destroy ones morality to be uplifted. An apotheosis of a moral concept, an ideology in which we must destroy sth in order to create sth new, but first we must destroy all constraints. The glorification of immoral, fascination with the destruction of stability. Third Stanza: Mediterranean pleasant sounds, in Hegelian terms but in negative terms, lazy, sleepy, comforting, static, Autumn Atlantic cacophony, unpleasant sounds. It suddenly creates the emotions of fear, awe, terror, dread, sorrow. old palaces revolution. overgrow the oversaturation, which tempts scattering everything around, that is why we are waiting for the Autum. If I were a dead leaf first part If I were a sfift cloud second part A wave third part

O! Lift me, as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! again connecting these three. The poet who asks the wind to become winds subordinate. Shelley was an atheist. He offers himself as a sacrifice. He wants to give himself to the west wind, and participate in the greatness. I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed he wants this uncontrollable might, and thorns morality, everyday life, Shelley Byron was a star, and Shelley was just Byrons apprentice. It was not the status that Shelley really enjoyed. Keats, Mental masturbation it is what Byron says about Keats poetry. Byron is not a devoted Romantic. Make me thy lyre subjection. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit the want of unity. What does he mean by saying my dead leaves, thoughts? Autumn revolution Winter old older dies Spring new order arises Summer New order becomes old order Autumn revolution The inspiration is to be lifted, but the ultimate trajectory is down, then comes Winter, Spring, Summer. Autumn the season of inspiration. My dead leaves, dead thoughts poems. The inspiration is the beginning and the end of poetry. lift me, but the leaves are taken down. when we start writing, the inspiration is already on the decline, inspiration, the beginning of the creation, but the beginning of the end of inspiration. The poems, are dead leaves, which lie in their graves, but not dead, there is hope of resurrection. Through these poems, they will inspire others, to create, change. This change will ultimately become older. The want of the absolute truth which cannot be reached. This new life in personal and historical terms will become old, and there will be again a need for inspiration. Each poem has a seed of a new life, but in fact is not the same as the poetry, inspiration. It is the effect. So He is hoping that these poems will affect the change. The inspiration has to provoke to a new change, which is indispensable, because we want dynamic life, progress. What is also quite important... In the last two parts, he is talking about freedom. He does not want to be lifted physically, but in soul. But for that he needs the freedom from the body. Orpheus he represents pure art. And so he wants this disembodiment, to free him, which he defines as alchemical. This orphic desire is here represented as an alchemical process of

transforming the poet into a pure spirit, an inspiration. lift me, make me thy lyre, but then, be thy me. He is speaking about this alchemical transformation, about becoming this weltgeist And, then, as he becomes the wind, he tears these leaves, his thoughts, he is hoping they will awaken new thought. He is aware that the alchemical Transformation is temporary. Shelley said he was not interested in the reception of his poems, but it was not exactly true. But he also wanted to be fashionable. Then, it was just fashionable to write such poems as that one, and so they followed the trend. Homework: read the defence of poetry. Sure. Poet: above law, ethics, philosophy. Poet is compared to a priest, he has the access to the mysteries of the life and death. a poet above everything. It is immoral, in a way, and it was attacked by Coleridge when he grew old. But this was just a creation, no one followed that. it would be too nihilistic and dangerous. Next time: Keats and Byron. Byron: functions of digressions; and a parody of epic and of romantic ideology. Find them and learn!