ANALYSIS OF "ODE TO THE WEST WIND"

"Ode To The West Wind" is a ode written by P.B.Shelley  in the 1819.

The ode consists of five stanzas, each stanza has got three triplets and a distich.

The ode has got a lot of rhetoric speech, the most evident is the rhyme ( Italian rima (rima baciata)),then the metaphor and the simile but there are a lot of antropomorfizations too!

The first three stanza ends with a refrain: the words "oh, hear!" wants to  transmit to the reader emotions and a involvement in the situation that the poet lives.

Shelley writes this ode when he is in Italy in a wood on the Arno, he wants to transmit to the reader  the atmosphere that there is near him, the scenes he sees.

The main theme of the ode is the theme of nature and the emotion that the man can feels when he is in a so suggestive place.

In the first stanza there is the presentation of the scene. The reader can understand that the poem deals with in autumn and there is a west wind ( it is wild).

 In the third lines there is a simile that has the function to describe the scene.

 In the fifth lines there is a metaphor used to describe better the scene.

 In the eight lines there is simile too.

In the end of the stanza there is an antropomorfization: the wind is  a wild spirit who destroys and preserves everything.

More over we can understand the effects of the wind, his function is on the heart and " on the dead leaves".

In the second stanza the poet explains the effect of the wild wind on the sky and in the clouds. There are simile in lines 16 and 20.

There is an antropomorfization: the ocean is seen like a woman.

in the third stanza there is a description of the ocean and the effect of the wind in it.

The four stanza starts with the word "if" it means a wish of the poet to be like a dead leaf, then he wants to be like a cloud.

 This stanza recollects together the elements of the previous stanzas but also shows the wishes of the poet, Shelley uses the nature to speak about himself.

In the fifth stanza there is an invocation of the wind.

There is an panteistica vision. The poet uses the images of the leaves to speak about himself. The leaves are his words. The leaves fly away, his words fly without do their function, nobody understands his message.  He wants the wind takes his thinking over the universe because in the society nobody can understand him.