Notes to "Ode to the West Wind"
Notes by Li, Jie for EN641, Spring 96;
HTML markup by Elizabeth Fay, May 1, 1996
**"Ode to the West Wind" is one of Shelley's best known lyrics.
The poet describes vividly the activities of the west wind on the earth,
in the sky and on the sea, and then expresses his envy for the boundless
freedom of the west wind, and his wish to be free like the wind and
to scatter his words among mankind.
The ode is a lyric poem of some length, dealing with a lofty theme
in a dignified manner and originally intended to be sung. The English
odes are generally of three types: (1) the Pindaric ode, following the
pattern originated by the ancient Greek poet Pindar, (2) the
Cowley-style ode, named after Abraham Cowley, an English poet of
the 17th century, and (3) the Horatian ode, named after the ancient
Roman poet Horace. Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" is of the
Horatian type, i.e., with stanzas of uniform length and arrangement.
Here Shelley employed the "terza rima," an Italian measure first
used by Dante in his well-known poem La Divina Commedia.
Here we find a variant of the original Italian pattern: five 14-lined
stanzas of iambic pentameter, each ofthe stanzas containing four
tercets and a closing couplet. The rime scheme is aba, bcb, cdc,
ded, ee.
"chariotest"--"est" is here added to the verb stem "chariot" to
indicate the second person singular, after the subject "thou."
"thine azure sister of the Spring"--referring here to the east wind.
"Destroyer and Preserver"--the west wind is considered the
"Destroyer," for driving the last sings of life from the trees; it is
considered the "Preserver" for scattering the seeds which will
come to life in the spring.
"shook"--used for "shaken," an archaism.
"the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean"--The line between the sky
and the stormy sea is indistinguishable, the whole space from the
horizon to the zenith being covered with trialing storm clouds.
"Angels of rain and lightening"--The "angels" refer here to the "clouds,"
the messengers of rain and lightning.
"Maenad"--a very frenzied woman in Greek mythology, a priestess of
Bacchus, the God of Wine.
"The locks of the approaching storm"--referring here to the clouds.
"Thou dirge/ Of the dying year"==referring to the west wind.
"from whose solid atmosphere"--"Whose" here refers to "vapours."
"where he lay"--"he" here refers to the Mediterranean.
"coil"--referring here to the noise of the tide.
"Pumice Isle"--the name of an isle near Naples, Italy, which is formed
by deposits of lava from Vesuvius, a volcano nearby.
"Baiae's bay"--a favourite resort of the ancient Romans on the coast of
Campania, at the western end of the Bay of Naples.
"intenser day"--The translucency of the water is more intense than
the dazzling daylight above its surface. "Day" here refers to
"daylight."
"So sweet, the sense faints picturing them"--so sweet that one
feels faint in describing them.
"the Atlantic's level powers"--the waves of the Atlantic Ocean
moving on its flat surface.
"The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear/ The sapless
foliage of the ocean, know/ Thy voice, and suddently grow
gray with fear,/ And tremble and despoil themselves"--
The plants at the bottom of the ocean, the rivers and the lakes
also fall under the influence of the west wind which announces
the change of the season.
"thy skiey speed"--thy airy and ethereal speed ("skiey," poetical,
variant of "skyey," meaning: of the sky, ethereal).
"as thus with thee in prayer in my sore need"--praying to you,
in my great need, in this way (the two lines below are the
poet's prayer to the west wind).
"One too like thee"--referring to Shelley himself.
"The tumult of thy mighty harmonies/ Will take from both a
deep, autumnal tone"--The tumult of thy might harmonies
will take a deep auntumnal tone from both my depressed
feelings and the falling leaves.
