Percy Bysshe Shelley`s Ode to the West Wind

Percy Bysshe Shelley`s Ode to the West Wind

Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the most prominent authors of British Romanticism that left a lasting imprint on the development of the genre Many of his works carry distinct features of this style that took the readers ' imagination with its passionate and rebellious stance . `Ode to the West Wind` adheres to the canons of Romanticism in many important ways

Let us review briefly the basic features of Romanticism to see if `Ode to the West Wind` uses any or most of these concepts

. The Romantic period in literature is conventionally believed to have started in 1798 with Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge and ended in 1832 with the deaths of Walter Scott and Goethe (Brooklyn College . The evolution of Romanticism was heavily influenced by the revolutions in America and France as well as significant changes in the economic and social spheres triggered by the Industrial Revolution . Romantic artists reacted to these revolutions with an intense desire to change the world to meet the changed reality . Apart from the flaring revolutionary energy they added to the world of literature , their works are characterised by the prominence of imagination that was elevated to a position as the supreme faculty of the mind (Brooklyn College . The Romanticists discarded the veneration of reason that was so prevalent in the Classicist eighteenth century . They systematically tried to separate themselves from Versailles neoclassicism , trying to underscore their scorn for mechanical rules . Unlike their predecessors who tried to concentrate on the universal manifestations of human nature and typical situations , the new movement was more interested in the individual hero who stands out from the often alien crowd . Romanticism is also widely known to favor s of exotic localities and cultures , although many Romantic such as Woodsworth also initiated the trend of `local color . Concerning the society around them , Romantic authors tended to be politically and socially involved , but at the same time they began to distance themselves from the public (Brooklyn College Henry R . Beers in his book A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century ' cites the following features of romanticism emotional stress , sensitiveness to the picturesque , love of natural scenery , interest in distant times and places , curiosity of the wonderful and mysterious , subjectivity , lyricism , intrusion of the ego impatience of the limits of the genres , eager experiment with new forms of art (Beers 1901 :227

Shelley 's poem exhibits Romantic features in its content . First , it addresses a peace of natural scenery , the west wind Zephirus personifying this natural phenomenon to the extent that the whole poem is addressed towards this heartless creature . Second , the poem refers to the experience that happened in the area of Arno , near Florence relatively far away from the poet 's motherland and thus focuses on the place that is not really exotic since it is in Europe , but still associated with outlandish southern beauty

`Ode to the West Wind` clearly has the `emotional stress ' mentioned by Henry...