Learning Paths » 5A Interacting
ODE TO THE WEST WIND
Just considering the title the reader can make some hypothesis about the content of the text. First of all the term “Ode” refers to a specific literary genre: a ode is a lyrical composition whose content may deal with love, the homeland or morality. It is also connected with a musical track. The West Wind reminds us to the beginning of Autumn, of the cold and so the “death of Nature”.
As a matter of fact the poem begins describing the landscape in the moment when the wild west wind is blowing. The most important theme of the strophe is death. The Autumnal wind make leaves and seeds die and it brings them away. The theme of death is conveyed through the use of similes and metaphors taken from its semantic field (pestilence, dark bed, hectic red, ghosts, corpse). The wind is defined wild, destroyer and preserver at the same time: it is in contraposition with the “azure sister of Spring” that fills hearth and air of colours, odours and buds.
At the end of the strophe the speaking-voice asks the wind to hear him.
In the second stanza the poet describes the Autumnal climate: a thunderstorm is going to arrive and the speaking-voice describes its first signs: clouds, lightning, the aery surge. The simile with a Maenad reminds the reader to anger, unpredictability, as the storm. The violence of the natural phenomenon conveys the idea of death again: it can be found in words such as “dirge”, “dying year”, “sepulchre”. But in this strophe the theme of death has a minor role. I think that it is just the effect of another important aspect: the power of Nature, especially in Autumn. It is expressed through the use of terms such as “storm”, “congregated might”, “black rain”, “fire”, “burst” “shook” etc…
So the main theme of the first two stanzas is the effects of the power Autumn and of its west wind on Nature and so also on man.