Lecture 3 of Book Two Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Lecture 3 of Book Two Percy Bysshe Shelley
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• I. Life
• born in 1792, at Fieldplace near-Horsham in
  Sussex,
• Shelley was gentle and kind by nature, but he had
  a stout heart. He could not stand any injustice.
• At Eton he was known as" Mad Shelley. At this
  time he was much influenced by the
  utopian-socialist doctrines of William Godwin.

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• Then he went to Oxford, where he took part in
  progressive activities and soon came into sharp
  conflict with the university authorities. In 1811
  Shelley published an anti-religious pamphlet '
  The Necessity of Atheism', believing that
  religion was an instrument of oppression. For
  this he was promptly expelled from the university
  and disowned by his father.
• While living alone in London at the age of 19, he
  made acquaintance with and married, out of
  sympathy, a school-girl of 16, Harriet Westbrook.
  For two years the young couple wandered about
  England, Ireland and Scotland.

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• Shelley's marriage with Harriet had proved hasty
  and unsuitable, because she could not share his
  ideas.
• The unhappy union was dissolved in 1814. In 1816,
  Shelley married Mary Godwin, the daughter of
  William Godwin, the radical philosopher, and Mary
  Wollstonecraft, the authoress of the famous '
  Vindication of the Rights of Women'. Shelley's
  second marriage was a happy one.

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• He was compelled to leave England in 1818 and
  spent all the rest of his life in Italy. As early
  as 1816 began Shelley's friendship with Byron.
  While in Italy Shelley and Byron formed a closer
  connection with each other and from then on the
  names of the two poets have been linked up for
  ever.
• the English people have ever cherished his memory
  and poetry with love. Mary Shelley did a good job
  in collecting and editing his poems, and her
  explanatory notes have been helpful to all
  editors and readers of Shelley's works.

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II . Major Works

• "Queen Mab", Shelley's first long poem of
  importance, written in 1813. contains almost all
  his major social and political ideas.
• It is written in the form of a fairy-tale dream.
  The fairy Queen Mab carries oil in her celestial
  chariot a beautiful and pure maiden Lanthe, and
  shows her the past, present and future of
  mankind. Through the mouth of the fairy queen the
  poet presents his own views on philosophy,
  religion, morality, and social problems.
• The poem has 9 cantos. The first two cantos deal
  with a vision of the past the last two with an
  ideal view of the future, while the five central
  cantos are devoted to a fierce attack on the
  social evils of the day.

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The Revolt of Islam'

• "The Revolt of Islam', another important long
  poem of Shelley's, was Written in 1818. A brother
  and a sister. Laon and Cythna are united in their
  common ideal of liberty, equality and fraternity
  and they rouse the spirit of revolt among their
  Islam people against their tyrants.
• Heroic struggle for the liberation of mankind
  and union with a sister-comrade were inseparable
  elements of Shelley's ideal, and the love between
  Laon and Cythna was but the symbol of their
  common devotion to a lofty cause.
• Besides the theme of revolution the poem shows
  Shelley's attitude towards the position of woman
  in society. Cythna the woman warrior seeks the
  intellectual liberation of her sex.

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" Prometheus Unbound"

• Shelley's masterpiece is "Prometheus Unbound'
  (1820), a lyrical drama in 4 acts.
• According to Greek myth, Prometheus stole fire
  from heaven and taught men how to use it. For
  this he was punished by Zeus, the supreme god,
  who chained him to a rock on Mt.Caucasus, where
  during the daytime a vulture fed on his liver,
  which was restored each succeeding night.
• So the figure of Prometheus has been 'symbolic
  of those noble-hearted revolutionaries, who
  devote themselves to the just cause of the people
  and suffer great pains at the hands of tyrants'.

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• Though chained to the rock, Prometheus has "great
  allies' in the World He is supported by
  innumerable forces Mother Earth gives him
  strength to endure all sufferings and sends the
  spirits of heroes and martyrs to cheer him.
• Lovely shapes of Faith and Hope hover around him.
  His bride Asia, the spirit of love and goodness.
  He knows the reign of Zeus is but a passing
  period in the life of the universe, so to the
  last he refuses to yield to the tyrant in heaven.
  Finally, in spite of desperate resistance, Zeus
  is overthrown by the huge spirit Demogorgon, the
  symbol of change and revolution.
• Prometheus is released by Hercules the hero of
  great strength.

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Lyrics on Nature and Love

• Shelley's short poems on nature and love occupy a
  very important place in his literary career. To
  him, nature exists as an unseen Life of the
  Universe, and his love of nature is almost
  boundless.
• In Shelley's lyrics, nature is endowed with life,
  and the poet merges himself with it. This gives
  an exquisite beauty to these lyrics on nature.
• This passionate love of nature is but an
  expression of the poet's eager aspiration for
  something free from the care and misery of real
  life.

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A Defence of Poetry"

• In 1821, T.L.Peacock, one of Shelley's friends,
  published The Four Ages of Poetry", in which he
  asserted that poetry taking its origin in
  relatively primitive and simple modes of thought
  must inevitably decline with the progress of
  civilization, and in an age of rationality, such
  as the 19th century, it can only be an
  anachronism, i.e. something out of its proper
  time, which is barbaric and absurd.
• Shelley's essay' A Defence of Poetry' was written
  as a refutation of Peacock's view. Shelley
  maintained that poetry, so far from being
  deteriorated and made powerless by the advance of
  civilization is actually the indispensable agent
  of civilization. Poets are the unacknowledged
  legislators of the world', and poetry can play a
  very important part in the spiritual life of
  society.

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III. Points of view

• (1) Politically Shelley was a revolutionary and a
  democrat. He was fighting all his life against
  cruelty, injustice, authority, institutional
  religion and the format shams of respectable
  society.
• He thought that his age was one of the war
  between the oppressed and the oppressors. And he
  believed that in spite of the defeat of the
  revolution, France would rise again, that the
  forces of liberty would again triumph in Europe.

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• Literarily Shelley, with a triumphant praise of
  the imagination, highly exalted the role of
  poetry, thinking that poetry alone could free man
  and offer the mind a wider view of its powers.
• Poetry "is a more direct representation of the
  actions and passions, of our internal being". It
  is through language that the imagination most
  readily apprehends the ideal order of truth.

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"Ode to the West Wind" (1819)

• 1 O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's
  being, 2 Thou, from whose unseen presence the
  leaves dead 3 Are driven, like ghosts from an
  enchanter fleeing, 4 Yellow, and black, and
  pale, and hectic red, 5 Pestilence-stricken
  multitudes O thou, 6 Who chariotest to their
  dark wintry bed 7 The winged seeds, where they
  lie cold and low, 8 Each like a corpse within
  its grave, until 9 Thine azure sister of the
  Spring shall blow 10 Her clarion o'er the
  dreaming earth, and fill 11 (Driving sweet buds
  like flocks to feed in air) 12 With living hues
  and odours plain and hill 13 Wild Spirit,
  which art moving everywhere 14 Destroyer and
  preserver hear, oh hear!

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• 15 Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's
  commotion, 16 Loose clouds like earth's decaying
  leaves are shed, 17 Shook from the tangled
  boughs of Heaven and Ocean, 18 Angels of rain
  and lightning there are spread 19 On the blue
  surface of thine aiery surge, 20 Like the bright
  hair uplifted from the head 21 Of some fierce
  Maenad, even from the dim verge 22 Of the
  horizon to the zenith's height, 23 The locks of
  the approaching storm. Thou dirge 24 Of the
  dying year, to which this closing night 25 Will
  be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 26 Vaulted with
  all thy congregated might 27 Of vapours, from
  whose solid atmosphere 28 Black rain, and fire,
  and hail will burst oh hear!

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• 29 Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
  30 The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 31
  Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
  32 Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 33 And
  saw in sleep old palaces and towers 34 Quivering
  within the wave's intenser day, 35 All
  overgrown with azure moss and flowers 36 So
  sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou 37
  For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 38
  Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
  39 The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
  40 The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 41
  Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, 42
  And tremble and despoil themselves oh hear!

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• 43 If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear 44
  If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee 45 A
  wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 46
  The impulse of thy strength, only less free 47
  Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even 48 I were
  as in my boyhood, and could be 49 The comrade
  of thy wanderings over Heaven, 50 As then, when
  to outstrip thy skiey speed 51 Scarce seem'd a
  vision I would ne'er have striven 52 As thus
  with thee in prayer in my sore need. 53 Oh, lift
  me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! 54 I fall upon
  the thorns of life! I bleed! 55 A heavy weight
  of hours has chain'd and bow'd 56 One too like
  thee tameless, and swift, and proud.

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• 57 Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is 58
  What if my leaves are falling like its own! 59
  The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 60 Will take
  from both a deep, autumnal tone, 61 Sweet though
  in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, 62 My
  spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! 63 Drive my
  dead thoughts over the universe 64 Like wither'd
  leaves to quicken a new birth! 65 And, by the
  incantation of this verse, 66 Scatter, as from
  an unextinguish'd hearth 67 Ashes and sparks, my
  words among mankind! 68 Be through my lips to
  unawaken'd earth 69 The trumpet of a prophecy!
  O Wind,
• 70 If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

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• Summary
• The speaker invokes the wild West Wind of
  autumn, which scatters the dead leaves and
  spreads seeds so that they may be nurtured by the
  spring, and asks that the wind, a destroyer and
  preserver, hear him. The speaker calls the wind
  the dirge / Of the dying year, and describes
  how it stirs up violent storms, and again
  implores it to hear him. The speaker says that
  the wind stirs the Mediterranean from his summer
  dreams, and cleaves the Atlantic into choppy
  chasms, making the sapless foliage of the ocean
  tremble, and asks for a third time that it hear
  him.
• The speaker says that if he were a dead leaf that
  the wind could bear, or a cloud it could carry,
  or a wave it could push, or even if he were, as a
  boy, the comrade of the winds wandering over
  heaven, then he would never have needed to pray
  to the wind and invoke its powers. He pleads with
  the wind to lift him as a wave, a leaf, a
  cloud!for though he is like the wind at heart,
  untamable and proudhe is now chained and bowed
  with the weight of his hours upon the earth.

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• The speaker asks the wind to make me thy lyre,
  to be his own Spirit, and to drive his thoughts
  across the universe, like withered leaves, to
  quicken a new birth. He asks the wind, by the
  incantation of this verse, to scatter his words
  among mankind, to be the trumpet of a prophecy.
  Speaking both in regard to the season and in
  regard to the effect upon mankind that he hopes
  his words to have, the speaker asks If winter
  comes, can spring be far behind?
• Form
• Each of the seven parts of Ode to the West Wind
  contains five stanzasfour three-line stanzas and
  a two-line couplet, all metered in iambic
  pentameter. The rhyme scheme in each part follows
  a pattern known as terza rima, the three-line
  rhyme scheme employed by Dante in his Divine
  Comedy. In the three-line terza rima stanza, the
  first and third lines rhyme, and the middle line
  does not then the end sound of that middle line
  is employed as the rhyme for the first and third
  lines in the next stanza. The final couplet
  rhymes with the middle line of the last
  three-line stanza. Thus each of the seven parts
  of Ode to the West Wind follows this scheme
  ABA BCB CDC DED EE.

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• Commentary
• The wispy, fluid terza rima of Ode to the West
  Wind finds Shelley taking a long thematic leap
  beyond the scope of Hymn to Intellectual
  Beauty, and incorporating his own art into his
  meditation on beauty and the natural world.
  Shelley invokes the wind magically, describing
  its power and its role as both destroyer and
  preserver, and asks the wind to sweep him out of
  his torpor as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! In the
  fifth section, the poet then takes a remarkable
  turn, transforming the wind into a metaphor for
  his own art, the expressive capacity that drives
  dead thoughts like withered leaves over the
  universe, to quicken a new birththat is, to
  quicken the coming of the spring. Here the spring
  season is a metaphor for a spring of human
  consciousness, imagination, liberty, or
  moralityall the things Shelley hoped his art
  could help to bring about in the human mind.
  Shelley asks the wind to be his spirit, and in
  the same movement he makes it his metaphorical
  spirit, his poetic faculty, which will play him
  like a musical instrument, the way the wind
  strums the leaves of the trees. The thematic
  implication is significant whereas the older
  generation of Romantic poets viewed nature as a
  source of truth and authentic experience, the
  younger generation largely viewed nature as a
  source of beauty and aesthetic experience. In
  this poem, Shelley explicitly links nature with
  art by finding powerful natural metaphors with
  which to express his ideas about the power,
  import, quality, and ultimate effect of aesthetic
  expression.

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• Detailed Study
• Summary, Stanza 1
• Addressing the west wind as a human, the poet
  describes its activities It drives dead leaves
  away as if they were ghosts fleeing a wizard. The
  leaves are yellow and black, pale and red, as if
  they had died of an infectious disease. The west
  wind carries seeds in its chariot and deposits
  them in the earth, where they lie until the
  spring wind awakens them by blowing on a trumpet
  (clarion). When they form buds, the spring wind
  spreads them over plains and on hills. In a
  paradox, the poet addresses the west wind as a
  destroyer and a preserver, then asks it to listen
  to what he says.
• Notes, Stanza 1
• 1. The accent over the e in wingèd (line 7)
  causes the word to be pronounced in two
  syllablesthe first stressed ....and the second
  unstressedenabling the poet to maintain the
  metric scheme (iambic pentameter).
• 2. clarion Trumpet.

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• Summary, Stanza 2
• The poet says the west wind drives clouds along
  just as it does dead leaves after it shakes the
  clouds free of the sky and the oceans. These
  clouds erupt with rain and lightning. Against the
  sky, the lightning appears as a bright shaft of
  hair from the head of a Mænad. The poet compares
  the west wind to a funeral song sung at the death
  of a year and says the night will become a dome
  erected over the year's tomb with all of the
  wind's gathered might. From that dome will come
  black rain, fire, and hail. Again the poet asks
  the west wind to continue to listen to what he
  has to say.
• Notes, Stanza 2
• 3. Mænad Wildly emotional woman who took part in
  the orgies of ....Dionysus, the Greek god of wine
  and revelry.
• 4. dirge Funeral song.
• 5. congregated Gathered, mustered.

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• Summary, Stanza 3
• At the beginning of autumn, the poet says, the
  the west wind awakened the Mediterranean
  Sealulled by the sound of the clear streams
  flowing into itfrom summer slumber near an
  island formed from pumice (hardened lava). The
  island is in a bay at Baiae, a city in western
  Italy about ten miles west of Naples. While
  sleeping at this locale, the Mediterranean saw
  old palaces and towers that had collapsed into
  the sea during an earthquake and became overgrown
  with moss and flowers. To create a path for the
  west wind, the powers of the mighty Atlantic
  Ocean divide (cleave) themselves and flow through
  chasms. Deep beneath the ocean surface, flowers
  and foliage, upon hearing the west wind, quake in
  fear and despoil themselves. (In autumn, ocean
  plants decay like land plants. See Shelley's note
  on this subject.) Once more, the poet asks the
  west wind to continue to listen to what he has to
  say.
• Notes, Stanza 3
• 6. The accent over the a in crystàlline shifts
  the stress to the second syllable, making crystàl
  an iamb.
• 7. In his notes, Shelley commented on lines
  38-42

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• Summary, Stanza 4
• The poet says that if he were a dead leaf (like
  the ones in the first stanza) or a cloud (like
  the ones in the second stanza) or an ocean wave
  that rides the power of the Atlantic but is less
  free than the uncontrollable west windor if even
  he were as strong and vigorous as he was when he
  was a boy and could accompany the wandering wind
  in the heavens and could only dream of traveling
  fasterwell, then, he would never have prayed to
  the west wind as he is doing now in his hour of
  need.
• .......Referring again to imagery in the first
  three stanzas, the poet asks the wind to lift him
  as it would a wave, a leaf, or a cloud for here
  on earth he is experiencing troubles that prick
  him like thorns and cause him to bleed. He is now
  carrying a heavy burden thatthough he is proud
  and tameless and swift like the west windhas
  immobilized him in chains and bowed him down.
• Notes, Stanza 4
• 8. Skiey is a neologism (coined word) whose two
  syllables maintain iambic pentameter. The s in
  skiey alliterates with the s in speed,
  ....scarce, seem'd, and striven.

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• Summary, Stanza 5
• The poet asks the west wind to turn him into a
  lyre (a stringed instrument) in the same way that
  the west wind's mighty currents turn the forest
  into a lyre. And if the poet's leaves blow in the
  wind like those from the forest trees, there will
  be heard a deep autumnal tone that is both sweet
  and sad. Be "my spirit," the poet implores the
  wind. "Be thou me" and drive my dead thoughts
  (like the dead leaves) across the universe in
  order to prepare the way for new birth in the
  spring. The poet asks the wind to scatter his
  words around the world, as if they were ashes
  from a burning fire. To the unawakened earth,
  they will become blasts from a trumpet of
  prophecy. In other words, the poet wants the wind
  to help him disseminate his views on politics,
  philosophy, literature, and so on. The poet is
  encouraged that, although winter will soon
  arrive, spring and rebirth will follow it.

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• Examples of Figures of Speech and Rhetorical
  Devices
• Stanza 1
• Alliteration wild West Wind (line 1).
• Apostrophe, Personification Throughout the poem,
  the poet addresses the west wind as if it were a
  person.
• Metaphor Comparison of the west wind to breath
  of Autumn's being (line 1).
• Metaphor Comparison of autumn to a living,
  breathing creature (line 1).
• Anastrophe leaves dead (line 2). Anastrophe is
  inversion of the normal word order, as in a man
  forgotten (instead of a forgotten man) or as in
  the opening lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
  "Kubla Kahn" In Xanada did Kubla Kahn / A
  stately pleasure dome decree (instead of In
  Xanadu, Kubla Kahn decreed a stately pleasure
  dome). Here is another example, made up to
  demonstrate the inverted word order of
  anastrophe

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• In the garden green and dewy
• A rose I plucked for Huey
• Simile Comparison of dead leaves to ghosts.
• Anastrophe enchanter fleeing (line 3).
• Alliteration Pestilence-stricken multitudes
  (line 5).
• Alliteration Pestilence-stricken multitudes
  (line 5).
• Alliteration chariotest to (line 6).
• Alliteration The wingèd seeds, where they (line
  7).
• Metaphor Comparison of seeds to flying creatures
  (line 7).
• Simile Comparison of each seed to a corpse
  (lines 7-8).
• Alliteration sister of the Spring (line 9).
• Personification Comparison of spring wind to a
  person (lines 9-10).
• Metaphor, Personification Comparison of earth to
  a dreamer (line 10).
• Alliteration flocks to feed
• Simile Comparison of buds to flocks (line 11).
• Anastrophe fill / . . . With living hues and
  odours plain and hill (lines 10, 12).
• Alliteration Wild Spirit, which (line 13).
• Paradox Destroyer and preserver (line 14).
• Alliteration hear, O hear (line 14).

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• Stanza 8
• Apostrophe, Personification The poet addresses
  the west wind as if it were a person.
• Metaphor Comparison of the poet and the forest
  to a lyre, a stringed musical instrument (line
  57).
• Metaphor Comparison of the poet to a forest
  (line 58).
• Alliteration The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
  (line 59).
• Alliteration Sweet though in sadness. Be thou,
  Spirit fierce, (line 61).
• Metaphor Comparison of the poet to the wind
  (line 62).
• Alliteration Drive my dead thoughts over the
  universe (line 63).
• Simile Comparison of thoughts to withered leaves
  (lines 63-64).
• Alliteration the incantation of this (line 65).
• Simile Comparison of words to ashes and sparks
  (66-67).
• Alliteration my words among mankind (67).
• Metaphor Comparison of the poet's voice to the
  wind as a trumpet of a prophecy (lines 68-69).
• Alliteration trumpet of a prophecy (lines
  68-69).
• Alliteration O Wind, / If Winter comes, can
  Spring be far behind?

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• Structure and Rhyme Scheme
• The poem contains five stanzas of fourteen lines
  each. Each stanza has three tercets and a closing
  couplet. In poetry, a tercet is a unit of three
  lines that usually contain end rhyme a couplet
  is a two-line unit that usually contains end
  rhyme. Shelley wrote the tercets in a verse form
  called terza rima, invented by Dante Alighieri.
  In this format, line 2 of one tercet rhymes with
  lines 1 and 3 of the next tercet. In regard to
  the latter, consider the first three tercets of
  the second stanza of "Ode to the West Wind."
  Notice that shed (second line, first tercet)
  rhymes with spread and head (first and third
  lines, second tercet) and that surge (second
  line, second tercet) rhymes with verge and dirge
  (first and third lines, third tercet).
• All of the couplets in the poem rhyme, but the
  last couplet (lines 69-70) is an imperfect rhyme
  called eye rhyme. Eye rhyme occurs when the
  pronunciation of the last syllable of one line is
  different from the pronunciation of the last
  syllable of another line even though both
  syllables are identical in spelling except for a
  preceding consonant. For example, the following
  end-of-line word pairs would constitute eye
  rhyme cough, rough cow, mow daughter,
  laughter rummaging, raging. In Shelley's poem,
  wind and behind form eye rhyme.
• Shelley unifies the content of the poem by
  focusing the first three stanzas on the powers of
  the wind and the last two stanzas on the poet's
  desire to use these powers to spread his words
  throughout the world.

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• Meter
• .......Most of the lines in the poem are in
  iambic pentameter, although some of the
  pentameter lines have an extra syllable
  (catalexis). The following tercet from the first
  stanza demonstrates the iambic-pentameter format,
  with the stressed syllables in capitals
• ..........1................2..................3...
  ..............4.............5
• The WING..èd SEEDS,..where THEY..lie
  COLD..and LOW,
• ..........1................2..............3.......
  .......4.............5
• Each LIKE..a CORPSE..with IN..its
  GRAVE,..un TIL
• .......1............2..........3..............4...
  ...............5
• Thine AZ..ure SIS..ter OF..the SPRING..shall
  BLOW
• Here is a line with catalexis
• ........1...............2.............3...........
  ...4.............5............
• Of SOME..fierce MAE..nad, E..ven FROM..the
  DIM..verge
• .......
• And here is a line that does not follow the
  format. It is in iambic hexameter
• ..........1................2..................3...
  ..............4.............5............6
• Shook FROM..the TANG..gled BOUGHS..of
  HEA..ven AND..o CEAN

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• Theme
• Irresistible Power
• The poet desires the irresistible power of the
  wind to scatter the words he has written about
  his ideals and causes, one of which was
  opposition to Britains monarchical government as
  a form of tyranny. Believing firmly in democracy
  and individual rights, he supported movements to
  reform government. In 1819, Englands nobility
  feared that working-class citizensbesieged by
  economic problems, including high food
  priceswould imitate the rebels of the French
  Revolution and attempt to overthrow the
  established order. On August 16, agitators
  attracted tens of thousands of people to a rally
  in St. Peters Field, Manchester, to urge
  parliamentary reform and to protest laws designed
  to inflate the cost of corn and wheat. Nervous
  public officials mismanaged the unarmed crowd and
  ended up killing 11 protesters and injuring more
  than 500 others. In reaction to this incident,
  Shelley wrote The Masque of Anarchy in the fall
  of 1819 to urge further nonviolent action against
  the government. This work was not published
  during his lifetime. However, "Ode to the West
  Wind," also written in the fall of 1819, was
  published a year later. The poem obliquely refers
  to his desire to spread his reformist ideas when
  it says, "Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd
  hearth / Ashes and sparks, my words among
  mankind!" Shelley believed that the poetry he
  wrote had the power bring about political reform
  "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the
  World," he wrote in another work, A Defence of
  Poetry.

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• Study Questions and Essay Topics
• 1. Write an essay that attempts to answer whether
  Shelley succeeded in his goal to "scatter . . .
  my words among mankind"? The essay will
  ....require you to read other works by him and to
  research sources evaluating the impact of these
  works.
• 2. Shelley's poem uses nature imagery to convey
  his theme. Write a poem of your own that uses
  nature imagery to convey a theme.
• 3. To whom does line 56 refer?
• 4. In line 62 (Be thou me, impetuous one! ) is
  Shelley describing himself as impetuous?
• 5. What is an ode? In what ways does Shelley's
  poem fit the definition of an ode?

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• ?,??????????,??
• ????????????
• ??????,???????,
• ???????,??,??,??,
• ?????,????????
• ????,?????????,
• (????,?????,????)
• ?????????????
• ??????,??????
• ?????????,????!

35

• 2
• ??????,???????,
• ?????????????
• ??????????????
• ????????????
• ?????????????,
• ?????????????,
• ?????????????
• ???????,??????
• ???????,??????
• ??????,???????
• ?????????????,
• ?????????????
• ????????,?????
• ????,??????,??!

36

• 3
• ??,??????????,
• ????????????,
• ????????????,
• ?????????????,
• ????????????
• ???????????,
• ????????????,
• ????????!?,????
• ????,?????????
• ????????,?????
• ?????????????
• ??????,?????
• ??????,???????
• ????,???????,??!

37

• 4
• ?,????????????,
• ????????????,
• ?????,????????,
• ?????????,????
• ?????,?,???????!
• ?????????,????
• ???????,????
• (???,???,???????,
• ??????),???????
• ?????????????
• ?,????,???????????!
• ?????????,????!
• ?????????????
• ???????????????

38

• 5
• ?????????,????
• ???????,??????!
• ????????????
• ?????????????
• ????????,??????
• ?????!????,?????!
• ?????????????,
• ?????????????!
• ?,????????????,
• ??????,???????
• ?????????????!
• ????????????
• ?????????!???,
• ??????,???????

39
Ozymandias

• I met a traveller from an antique landWho said
  "Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in
  the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a
  shattered visage lies, whose frown
• And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold
  commandTell that its sculptor well those
  passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these
  lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and
  the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these
  words appearMy name is Ozymandias, King of
  KingsLook on my works, ye mighty, and
  despair!'Nothing beside remains. Round the
  decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and
  bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away.

40

• Summary
• The speaker recalls having met a traveler from
  an antique land, who told him a story about the
  ruins of a statue in the desert of his native
  country. Two vast legs of stone stand without a
  body, and near them a massive, crumbling stone
  head lies half sunk in the sand. The traveler
  told the speaker that the frown and sneer of
  cold command on the statues face indicate that
  the sculptor understood well the passions of the
  statues subject, a man who sneered with contempt
  for those weaker than himself, yet fed his people
  because of something in his heart (The hand that
  mocked them and the heart that fed). On the
  pedestal of the statue appear the words My name
  is Ozymandias, king of kings / Look on my works,
  ye Mighty, and despair! But around the decaying
  ruin of the statue, nothing remains, only the
  lone and level sands, which stretch out around
  it, far away.
• Form
• Ozymandias is a sonnet, a fourteen-line poem
  metered in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is
  somewhat unusual for a sonnet of this era it
  does not fit a conventional Petrarchan pattern,
  but instead interlinks the octave (a term for the
  first eight lines of a sonnet) with the sestet (a
  term for the last six lines), by gradually
  replacing old rhymes with new ones in the form
  ABABACDCEDEFEF.

41

• Commentary
• This sonnet from 1817 is probably Shelleys most
  famous and most anthologized poemwhich is
  somewhat strange, considering that it is in many
  ways an atypical poem for Shelley, and that it
  touches little upon the most important themes in
  his oeuvre at large (beauty, expression, love,
  imagination). Still, Ozymandias is a masterful
  sonnet. Essentially it is devoted to a single
  metaphor the shattered, ruined statue in the
  desert wasteland, with its arrogant, passionate
  face and monomaniacal inscription (Look on my
  works, ye Mighty, and despair!). The once-great
  kings proud boast has been ironically disproved
  Ozymandiass works have crumbled and disappeared,
  his civilization is gone, all has been turned to
  dust by the impersonal, indiscriminate,
  destructive power of history. The ruined statue
  is now merely a monument to one mans hubris, and
  a powerful statement about the insignificance of
  human beings to the passage of time. Ozymandias
  is first and foremost a metaphor for the
  ephemeral nature of political power, and in that
  sense the poem is Shelleys most outstanding
  political sonnet, trading the specific rage of a
  poem like England in 1819 for the crushing
  impersonal metaphor of the statue. But Ozymandias
  symbolizes not only political powerthe statue
  can be a metaphor for the pride and hubris of all
  of humanity, in any of its manifestations. It is
  significant that all that remains of Ozymandias
  is a work of art and a group of words as
  Shakespeare does in the sonnets, Shelley
  demonstrates that art and language long outlast
  the other legacies of power.

42

• Of course, it is Shelleys brilliant poetic
  rendering of the story, and not the subject of
  the story itself, which makes the poem so
  memorable. Framing the sonnet as a story told to
  the speaker by a traveller from an antique land
  enables Shelley to add another level of obscurity
  to Ozymandiass position with regard to the
  readerrather than seeing the statue with our own
  eyes, so to speak, we hear about it from someone
  who heard about it from someone who has seen it.
  Thus the ancient king is rendered even less
  commanding the distancing of the narrative
  serves to undermine his power over us just as
  completely as has the passage of time. Shelleys
  description of the statue works to reconstruct,
  gradually, the figure of the king of kings
  first we see merely the shattered visage, then
  the face itself, with its frown / And wrinkled
  lip and sneer of cold command then we are
  introduced to the figure of the sculptor, and are
  able to imagine the living man sculpting the
  living king, whose face wore the expression of
  the passions now inferable then we are
  introduced to the kings people in the line, the
  hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
  The kingdom is now imaginatively complete, and we
  are introduced to the extraordinary, prideful
  boast of the king Look on my works, ye Mighty,
  and despair! With that, the poet demolishes our
  imaginary picture of the king, and interposes
  centuries of ruin between it and us ?Look on
  my works, ye Mighty, and despair! / Nothing
  beside remains. Round the decay / Of that
  colossal wreck, boundless and bare, / The lone
  and level sands stretch far away.

43

• ??????
• ????????????
• ??????????
• ???????
• ??????,????????
• ???,???,??????
• ?????,????????
• ?????????
• ?????,????
• ?????????
• ??????,???????
• ????,????
• ??,????
• ????,??????
• ????,?????
• (???)

44

• ??????
• ?????,??????
• ?????,????
• ??????????,
• ????,???????,
• ???,????????,
• ???????????,
• ???????????,
• ??????????
• ????????????
• ????????,
• ????,??????!
• ?????,??????,
• ???????,
• ????????
• ???????????????????????
• ????????????,????????????
• (????)

45

• Song-To the Men of England
• Men of England, wherefore plough
• For the lords who lay ye low?
• Wherefore weave with toil and care
• The rich robes your tyrants wear?
• Wherefore feed and clothe and save,
• From the cradle to the grave,
• Those ungrateful drones who would
• Drain your sweat -nay, drink your blood?
• Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
• Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
• That these stingless drones may spoil
• The forced produce of your toil?
• Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
• Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?
• Or what is it ye buy so dear

46

• The seed ye sow another reaps
• The wealth ye find another keeps
• The robes ye weave another wears
• The arms ye forge another bears.
• Sow seed, -but let no tyrant reap
• Find wealth, -let no imposter heap
• Weave robes, -let not the idle wear
• Forge arms, in your defence to bear.
• Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells
• In halls ye deck another dwells.
• Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
• The steel ye tempered glance on ye.
• With plough and spade and hoe and loom,
• Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
• And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
• England be your sepulchre! Meet us on Facebook

47

• ??????????????,??????????????????????????????
  ?????????????????,????????,??????,???????????
  ???????,????????,??????????,??????,??????????
  ?????,???????????????????????????????????????
  ??,?????????????????,??????????,??????????????
  ?

48

• ????????,????????????,???????????,?????????
  ???,?????????????????????????????????
  ????????????????!???????????????,?????????
  ???????????????????????!?????????????????????
  ?,???????????,??????,?????????,????????????????
  ???(???)

49

• TO A SKYLARK
• Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
• Bird thou never wert,
• That from Heaven, or near it,
• Pourest thy full heart
• In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
• Higher still and higher
• From the earth thou springest
• Like a cloud of fire
• The blue deep thou wingest,
• And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever
  singest.
• In the golden lightning
• Of the sunken sun
• O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
• Thou dost float and run,
• Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

50

• The pale purple even
• Melts around thy flight
• Like a star of Heaven
• In the broad daylight
• Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill
  delight
• 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.
• All the earth and air
• With thy voice is loud.
• As, when night is bare,
• From one lonely cloud
• The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is
  overflowed.

51

• What thou art we know not
• What is most like thee?
• From rainbow clouds there flow not
• Drops so bright to see
• As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
• 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
• Like a high-born maiden
• In a palace tower,
• Soothing her love-laden
• Soul in secret hour
• With music sweet as love, which overflows her
  bower

52

• Like a glow-worm golden
• In a dell of dew,
• Scattering unbeholden
• Its aerial hue
• Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from
  the view
• Like a rose embowered
• In its own green leaves,
• By warm winds deflowered,
• Till the scent it gives
• Makes faint with too much sweet these
  heavy-winged thieves.
• Sound of vernal showers
• On the twinkling grass,
• Rain-awakened flowers,
• All that ever was
• Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth
  surpass.

53

• 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.
• Chorus hymeneal
• Or triumphal chaunt
• Matched with thine, would be all
• But an empty vaunt--
• A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden
  want.
• What objects are the fountains
• Of thy happy strain?
• What fields, or waves, or mountains?
• What shapes of sky or plain?
• What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of
  pain?

54

• 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.
• Waking or asleep,
• Thou of death must deem
• Things more true and deep
• Than we mortals dream,
• Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal
  stream?
• 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.

55

• Yet if we could scorn
• Hate, and pride, and fear
• If we were things born
• Not to shed a tear,
• I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
• Better than all measures
• Of delightful sound,
• Better than all treasures
• That in books are found,
• Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the
  ground!
• 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!

56

• Summary
• The speaker, addressing a skylark, says that it
  is a blithe Spirit rather than a bird, for its
  song comes from Heaven, and from its full heart
  pours profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
  The skylark flies higher and higher, like a
  cloud of fire in the blue sky, singing as it
  flies. In the golden lightning of the sun, it
  floats and runs, like an unbodied joy. As the
  skylark flies higher and higher, the speaker
  loses sight of it, but is still able to hear its
  shrill delight, which comes down as keenly as
  moonbeams in the white dawn, which can be felt
  even when they are not seen. The earth and air
  ring with the skylarks voice, just as Heaven
  overflows with moonbeams when the moon shines out
  from behind a lonely cloud.
• The speaker says that no one knows what the
  skylark is, for it is unique even rainbow
  clouds do not rain as brightly as the shower of
  melody that pours from the skylark. The bird is
  like a poet hidden / In the light of thought,
  able to make the world experience sympathy with
  hopes and fears it heeded not. It is like a
  lonely maiden in a palace tower, who uses her
  song to soothe her lovelorn soul. It is like a
  golden glow-worm, scattering light among the
  flowers and grass in which it is hidden. It is
  like a rose embowered in its own green leaves,
  whose scent is blown by the wind until the bees
  are faint with too much sweet. The skylarks
  song surpasses all that ever was, / Joyous and
  clear and fresh, whether the rain falling on the
  twinkling grass or the flowers the rain
  awakens.

57

• Calling the skylark Sprite or Bird, the speaker
  asks it to tell him its sweet thoughts, for he
  has never heard anyone or anything call up a
  flood of rapture so divine. Compared to the
  skylarks, any music would seem lacking. What
  objects, the speaker asks, are the fountains of
  thy happy strain? Is it fields, waves,
  mountains, the sky, the plain, or love of thine
  own kind or ignorance or pain? Pain and
  languor, the speaker says, never came near the
  skylark it loves, but has never known loves
  sad satiety. Of death, the skylark must know
  things more true and deep than mortals could
  dream otherwise, the speaker asks, how could
  thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
• For mortals, the experience of happiness is bound
  inextricably with the experience of sadness
  dwelling upon memories and hopes for the future,
  mortal men pine for what is not their laughter
  is fraught with some pain their sweetest
  songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
  But, the speaker says, even if men could scorn /
  Hate and pride and fear, and were born without
  the capacity to weep, he still does not know how
  they could ever approximate the joy expressed by
  the skylark. Calling the bird a scorner of the
  ground, he says that its music is better than
  all music and all poetry. He 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.

58

• Form
• The eccentric, songlike, five-line stanzas of To
  a Skylarkall twenty-one of themfollow the same
  pattern the first four lines are metered in
  trochaic trimeter, the fifth in iambic hexameter
  (a line which can also be called an Alexandrine).
  The rhyme scheme of each stanza is extremely
  simple ABABB.

59

• Commentary
• If the West Wind was Shelleys first convincing
  attempt to articulate an aesthetic philosophy
  through metaphors of nature, the skylark is his
  greatest natural metaphor for pure poetic
  expression, the harmonious madness of pure
  inspiration. The skylarks song issues from a
  state of purified existence, a Wordsworthian
  notion of complete unity with Heaven through
  nature its song is motivated by the joy of that
  uncomplicated purity of being, and is unmixed
  with any hint of melancholy or of the
  bittersweet, as human joy so often is. The
  skylarks unimpeded song rains down upon the
  world, surpassing every other beauty, inspiring
  metaphor and making the speaker believe that the
  bird is not a mortal bird at all, but a Spirit,
  a sprite, a poet hidden / In the light of
  thought.

60

• In that sense, the skylark is almost an exact
  twin of the bird in Keatss Ode to a
  Nightingale both represent pure expression
  through their songs, and like the skylark, the
  nightingale wast not born for death. But while
  the nightingale is a bird of darkness, invisible
  in the shadowy forest glades, the skylark is a
  bird of daylight, invisible in the deep bright
  blue of the sky. The nightingale inspires Keats
  to feel a drowsy numbness of happiness that is
  also like pain, and that makes him think of
  death the skylark inspires Shelley to feel a
  frantic, rapturous joy that has no part of pain.
  To Keats, human joy and sadness are inextricably
  linked, as he explains at length in the final
  stanza of the Ode on Melancholy. But the
  skylark sings free of all human error and
  complexity, and while listening to his song, the
  poet feels free of those things, too.
• Structurally and linguistically, this poem is
  almost unique among Shelleys works its strange
  form of stanza, with four compact lines and one
  very long line, and its lilting, songlike diction
  (profuse strains of unpremeditated art) work to
  create the effect of spontaneous poetic
  expression flowing musically and naturally from
  the poets mind. Structurally, each stanza tends
  to make a single, quick point about the skylark,
  or to look at it in a sudden, brief new light
  still, the poem does flow, and gradually advances
  the mini-narrative of the speaker watching the
  skylark flying higher and higher into the sky,
  and envying its untrammeled inspirationwhich, if
  he were to capture it in words, would cause the
  world to listen.

61

• The Cloud
• I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
• From the seas and the streams
• I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
• In their noon-day dreams.
• From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
• The sweet buds every one,
• When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
• As she dances about the Sun.
• I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
• And whiten the green plains under, 10
• And then again I dissolve it in rain,
• And laugh as I pass in thunder.

62

• I sift the snow on the mountains below,
• And their great pines groan aghast
• And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
• While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
• Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
• Lightning my pilot sits
• In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
• It struggles and howls at fits 20
• Over Earth and Ocean, with gentle motion,
• This pilot is guiding me,
• Lured by the love of the genii that move
• In the depths of the purple sea
• Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
• Over the lakes and the plains,
• Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
• The Spirit he loves remains
• And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue
  smile, 30
• Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

63

• The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
• And his burning plumes outspread,
• Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
• When the morning star shines dead
• As on the jag of a mountain crag,
• Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
• An eagle alit one moment may sit
• In the light of its golden wings.
• And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit Sea
  beneath,
• Its ardours of rest and of love, 40
• And the crimson pall of eve may fall
• From the depth of Heaven above,
• With wings folded I rest, on mine äery nest,
• As still as a brooding dove.

64

• That orbed maiden with white fire laden
• Whom mortals call the Moon,
• Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor
• By the midnight breezes strewn
• And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
• Which only the angels hear, 50
• May have broken the woof, of my tent's thin roof,
• The stars peep behind her, and peer
• And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
• Like a swarm of golden bees,
• When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
• Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
• Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
• Are each paved with the moon and these.

65

• I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone
• And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl 60
• The volcanos are dim and the stars reel and swim
• When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
• From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
• Over a torrent sea,
• Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof --
• The mountains its columns be!
• The triumphal arch, through which I march
• With hurricane, fire, and snow,
• When the Powers of the Air, are chained to my
  chair,
• Is the million-coloured Bow 70
• The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove
• While the moist Earth was laughing below.

66

• I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
• And the nursling of the Sky
• I pass through the pores, of the ocean and
  shores
• I change, but I cannot die --
• For after the rain, when with never a stain
• The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
• And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex
  gleams,
• Build up the blue dome of Air -- 80
• I silently laugh at my own cenotaph
• And out of the caverns of rain,
• Like a child from the womb, live a ghost from the
  tomb,
• I arise, and unbuild it again. --

67

• IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
• "The Cloud" brings out the ethereal quality of
  Shelly's poetry. Often the mysteries of life and
  death have fascinated the poet and he has dealt
  with this mystery in his various poems. This poem
  is no exception. The Poem contains subtle hints
  about the eternal cycle of life and death. In
  this poem we see the never ending water cycle and
  the transfer of water from liquid to vapour and
  again to the liquid form, that the formation of
  the cloud and its subsequent transfer into rain
  and again its reformation. This in fact is an
  allegorical hint towards the eternal cycle of
  life and death. According to the belief death is
  not the full stop to life but the beginning of a
  new life and the preparation of rebirth. This
  belief is again at par with our oriental school
  of thought.