Shelley’s poetry is a vehicle of his
prophetic mind – Discuss with reference to ‘Ode to the West Wind’.
The poem “Ode to
the West Wind” shows Shelley’s keen ardour of passion, eager sensibilities
and his sense of personal sorrow. It expresses not only his personal
despondency but also embodies his fervent hope of a world delivered from evil. To
quote S.A. Brooke, “He (Shelley) passes from magnificent union of himself with
Nature and magnificent realization of her storm and peace to equally great self-description,
and then mingles all Nature and all himself together, that he may sing of the
restoration of mankind”.
Shelley was an idealist who conjured up visions of
glorious future of mankind. He was disgusted with his contemporary society
which was a play-ground for the forces of tyranny, hypocrisy, injustice and
superstation. In “Ode to the West Wind” he
dreams of a golden age where human relation
will be guided by love and justice after the ultimate overthrow of age-old
corruption. This is how the note of despondency arising out of the poet’s
frustration in the personal life is counter balanced by the happy note of his
vision of a golden age to come in future.
The poem begins with an invocation to the West wind,
first as a spirit of destruction and creation which moves over the land
sweeping away the old and sowing seeds of new, next as the shower that moves
the sky with fierce outburst of lightning of clouds and rains; and finally, as
the inmost recesses of the ocean and fills it with the play of life and death............................................................................
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.