In his passionate hymn "Hymn to the West Wind", Percy Bysshe Shelley focuses on the power of nature and cyclical processes and, through conceit of the wind and social conditions and political revolution brought about by the Peterloo massacre of August 1819, examines the poet's role in it. Although these ideas seem, on the surface, distinct from one another, Shelley weaves them all together in the poem's conclusion. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The poet divides the ode into five stanzas, each of which appears to be a sonnet. The opening two stanzas focus on the wind and its interaction with the leaves and clouds, while the third moves to the waves. These are then brought together in stanza IV as the poet's argument, like the storm, gathers momentum. The opening sees the “wind of the wild west”; here, alliteration echoes the sound of the wind in an almost onomatopoeic melodrama, representing nature's cycle of birth, death, and regeneration, which is then contrasted and complemented by the softer, more breathing inspiration of the "breath of the autumn being" . This duality in the opening foreshadows the description of the wind as “destroyer and preserver” and establishes the idea that is maintained throughout the poem. The wind pushes away the dead leaves, now a redundant mess, to be replaced by the “winged seeds”, whose vivacity and vitality carry the promise of a new life to come. Stanza II compares “loose clouds” to “decaying leaves,” broadening the depiction of the power of the wind, which is further emphasized by the comparison of the storm to “the bright hair raised from the head of some fierce Maenad” and the veiled scale of the storm, which arrives “even from the dark limit of the horizon up to the height of the zenith”. His power is reaffirmed in Stanza III where his course, gathering strength, is detailed by the “blue Mediterranean” and the “Atlantic,” whose “level powers split into the abyss.” The two "c" words here are deliberately linked and emphasized by alliteration as examples of the epic dimension and terrifying power of the wind. This is the kind of power the poet aspires to embody. The “indomitable…and proud” revolutionary seeks to rejuvenate his artistic powers and socio-political commentary by exploiting the varied potential of Nature's force. Shelley also decorates his descriptions, writing that the storm is notable not only for its strength and size but also for its colors, such as the leaves "yellow, and black, and pale, and frantic red" and "black rain and fire," and its movement, reiterated by verbs such as “burst” and “tremble”. Shelley's reaction to the storm is an experience of the sublime, similar to the majestic sight of Mont Blanc in its grandeur and potential danger, as well as the illuminating effect it has on the poet. So we are presented with a storm that is both beautiful and dangerous in its actions – just like the process of revolution. With the undertones of the revolution, the poet's choice of form and setting seem appropriate. The ode was a traditionally noble form used by the ancient Greeks and Romans to praise elite statesmen and emperors. Shelley reverses this tradition by using it to write anti-establishment, pro-revolution poetry aimed at the masses, not the rich and powerful. The relevance of its setting in Baia is therefore evident. In ancient times, emperors and their aristocratic friends vacationed there, none more famous than Julius Caesar and then Nero, who famously killed his mother there. Thus the setting, which recalls images of fullness and excess asideof the aristocracy, pushes us to look at the monarch under whom it was written, George III, who received an annual subsidy of 700,000 from parliament, while the poor were massacred and beaten for peacefully protesting against the constant increase in food prices would lead to they and their families are hungry. Shelley was disgusted by the Peterloo massacre and was further distressed by the memory of his own mortality and impending death: he writes that his “leaves fall” like those of the forest – a reference to his graying hair. How painful it must have been for him to be in exile and always aware of his utter helplessness and transience. By using the third rhyme Shelley not only aligns himself with greats like Dante and Chaucer, but his rhythm of “two steps forward, one step back… and a perfect fusion of forward motion and backward gaze” reflects the energy and wind movement. The rhyme scheme seems to ripple like the wind, with the rhymes coming to the foreground and then remaining in the background throughout the poem. This energetic rhyme scheme combined with the controlled sonnet form for each of the stanzas reflects the vigor of the revolution, but also highlights how it must be, according to Shelley, controlled and not anarchic. The situation in the poem is presented as an apocalypse with the dead and unwanted leaves being “chased away, like ghosts by a fleeing enchanter” and the seeds lying buried “each like a corpse in its grave” – it is fitting, then, that when the west wind of autumn, the “blue sister of spring,” comes to fill the land with “living colors and smells, plain and hill,” it announces its arrival with a “clarion” – a trumpet of war – like the one in Revelation 7 and 8. The effect is not necessarily negative, since these images recall both the Day of Judgment and the Resurrection. The suggestion is therefore that death and decay are simply a part of life and rebirth. It is she, the female equivalent of the autumn west wind, who is the “preserver,” while he is the “destroyer.” They are presented as working together as a higher power or, as Shelley calls it, an “invisible presence.” This sense of greater power appears dangerous in its potency and connection with death, but also reassuring in its ability to preserve the natural order. This “spirit” that “moves everywhere” is not the pantheistic Christian God that Wordsworth deals with in works such as “Tintern Abbey.” Indeed, in their dual role as “destroyer and preserver” respectively, Richard Harter Fogle suggests that they are more like Shiva and Vishnu, two parts of the Hindu trinity who share the association of death as necessary for change and the balance required to maintain life. and order, or dharma, as it is called in Hindu doctrine. In Fogle's essay, however, Brahma, the creator, is not present to complete the trinity. In his place, I believe we have the poet, the original creator, whose role is presented as not existing in nature, but rather in revolution to complete the triad. In the last two stanzas the attention shifts to the poet who, like the wind, gradually gains strength and becomes increasingly unified with the power of the wind. He asks to be lifted “like a wave, a leaf, a cloud” by the wind, recalling the subjects of the first three stanzas, as a passive companion, and then, as a passive accomplice, he asks to be its “lyre” – a great romantic image of mutability and of the beauty of sound, and intrinsically linked to nature and the wind. Power comes with the cohesion of the poet and the wind, first in terms of spirit, and then in terms of transcendence and metamorphosis of identity: “Be thou, proud spirit, my spirit! Be thou impetuous!". Powered by”,.