Romantic Literature-P.B. Shelley

Q: The sublimity of Shelley’s poetry lies in its wonderful lyrical intensity; discuss. Or Write an essay on the greatness of Shelley as a lyric poet.

Answer: Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the greatest lyric poets in the field of English literature. Shelley is intense lyricist as Alexander Pope is an intense satirist. He converts forms as diverse as drama, prose-essay, romance, satire etc into lyric. Even the narrative poems of Shelley are stamped by his lyricism. On this regard Prof. Elton says, “Shelley’s genius was essentially lyrical. All his poetry is really lyrical, for his lyrical impulse penetrates through even his unlyrical verse.” Shelley combines his passion and simplicity with other remarkable qualities, namely the quality of music and the art of combining the outward rhythm of the verse with an inner rhythm of thought and imagery. The most outstanding quality of Shelley’s lyricism is its spontaneity. His lyrics move so flowingly because they come straight from his heart. Shelley is swept forward by a rush of poetic energy and goes on producing image after image, all inspired by the original thought. The imagery in these lyrics, therefore, give the impression of being the product of no laborious thought but of a spontaneous growth of poetic impulse. Here is an example of his spontaneous writing:

“Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow

The world should listen them—as I am listening now”

Shelley’s lyrics almost always express an intensity of feeling or a deep passion. There is, too, a note of desire and longing in most of his lyrics. No wonder, therefore, that a note of sadness runs through most of his lyrics. In the poem “To a Skylark” we have the following stanza expressive of human sadness:

“We look before and after

And plea for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought”

Many of Shelley’s lyrics have an abstract quality and some of the best known is ethereal. His poems seem to have been written by a man living not on earth but in the aerial regions above. The “Ode to the West Wind” and “The Cloud” especially illustrates this quality. Such poems seem to justify to some extent. Mathew Arnold’s criticism of Shelley as “an ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain”

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Q: Write a critical appreciation of the poem “Ode to the West Wind”.

Answer: The English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the following ode on a blustery day in 1819, while in a forest near Florence, Italy. In it he addresses an autumn wind known in the region as Ausonius. In the final stanza—which ends with the now famous line “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”—Shelley appeals to the wind to help him spread the moral and political messages of his work

Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the subtlest and profounder thinkers among poets. He is the rebel poet of the Romantic Revival. He was as much revolutionized as Byron. From his boyhood days he was rebel and he was a radical nonconformist in every aspect of his life and thoughts. Shelley’s classmates called him “Mad Shelley” and “Eton Atheist” for his nonconformist and revolutionary attitudes. French Revolution inspired him to be rebel. He hated and condemned the tyranny of state. Religion and society which stand for a heavenly blissful life. He longs for a golden age. He writes many poems to make the people aware. By awareness of people he can build up a society which will be free from oppression, precaution and exploitation. “Ode to the West Wind” is one of the greatest poems of Shelley. In this poem, he uses a natural symbol as a vehicle of his revolutionary belief in the regeneration of the world. The poem “Ode to the West Wind” has five sections each of which is an integral part of the total design of the poem. The theme of regeneration dealt with the three different levels- natural, personal and universal. The poem is remarkable for its theme, range of thought, spontaneity, poetic beauty, lyrical quality and quick movement. This poem is replete with symbolism, imagery, myth making and his technical excellences.

 

Now we will discuss about the critical appreciation of the poem “Ode to the West Wind”. The poem was written in the autumn of 1819 in the beautiful Cascine Gardens outside Florence and was published with Prometheus Unbound in 1920. Shelley’s own quotation is so important about the composition of the poem—

“This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once wild and animating, was collecting the vapors, which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cinalpine regions.”

This poem along with “The Cloud” and “The Skylark” an abiding monument to Shelley’s passion for the sky. Shelley himself writes—

“I take great delight in watching the change in the atmosphere”.

In the first stanza of this poem Shelley describes the manner in which the “West Wind” affects the earth. He addresses it as the very spirit of autumn. He presents it as a tremendous force or power, which drives leaves before it leaves rush away from it just as ghosts run away from a magician or enchanter. So, he starts his poem by addressing the West Wind like that— “O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves the dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing”.

Shelley uses the wind as a power that carries the seeds to their beds, where they lie in their beds. Just as dead bodies’ lie in graves. But when spring comes, they grew into flowers of different colors and fragrance. The west wind destroys dead leaves and preserves useful seeds. He says—

“Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!”

In the second stanza the poet describes the influence of the west wind upon the air and the sky. The surface of the west wind is covered with pieces of cloud that fall upon it. Just as leaves fall from the trees and cover the earth. The west wind scatters the clouds in the sky. The clouds seem like leaves of the intertwined branches of the trees of Heaven and Ocean. The stormy sea and the sky seem to be meeting. The clouds floating on the surface of the west wind are compared to the frenzied flowers of Baccus with disheveled hair. These clouds are the signals of the coming storm and the sound of the wind is like the funeral song of the year. The year is dying. The last night is like the dome of the grave of the dying year. The members of the funeral procession are vapor, hail, rain and lightning. In the third stanza, Shelley turns to the effect of the west wind on the seas and oceans. The west wind wakes up the blue Mediterranean, which sleeps calmly in summer. It was put to sleep by the soothing music of its dear stream and its sleep it had dreamt of old palaces and towers reflected in it water. The west wind creates furrows on the smooth waters of the Atlantic Ocean. At the bottom of the Atlantic grow plants and vegetation. These plants are dry, without sap though they live in water. When the west wind blows in autumn, the plants on the land wither the plants that grow at the bottom of the sea. He can imagine the effect of the west wind upon them. Besides, he has personified the Mediterranean Sea and Ocean. In the fourth stanza the poet creates bond between the personality of west wind and his own personality. From this point onwards, the poem takes on an autobiographical note. He wishes that he himself were dead leaves and the clouds. He remembers his own boyhood when he was as fast and tempestuous as the west wind. So, the poet to appeal to the wind to save him from his present plight:

“Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”

 

Another pessimistic quotation:

“A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud”

The last stanza turns personal to universal. He appeals to the west wind to treat him as its lyre. Again, we find a natural fact turned into a poetic form. The wind blows through the jungle and produces music out to the dead leaves. Shelley requests it to create music out of his heart and to inspire him to write great poetry, which may create a revolution in hearts of men. He wants the west wind to be his guiding spirit and to help him in the propagation of his thoughts through the universe:

“Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!

And, by the incantation of this verse”

Thus he wants to the west wind scatters his revolutionary message in the world just as it scatters ashes and sparks from a burning fire. His thoughts may not be as fiery as they once were, but they still have the power to inspire man. Before finishing the poem he tells the west wind to take the following message to the sleeping world—

“The trumpet of a poetry! O, Wind

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

 

Symbolism: Most of Shelley’s poetry is symbolic. Shelley makes use of symbolism by means of his normal use of images including the personified force of nature and filled in it various symbolic meanings to suit the purpose of the poem. The “West Wind” appears to him as a symbol of change of the old destroyer and the preserver of the new. The wind also symbolizes Shelley’s own personality. When he was a boy was one like the wind “tameless and swift, and proud”. He still possesses these qualities but they lie suppressed under “a heavy weight of hours”. At this hour of distress the poet can look upon the wind as a competent savior, a symbol of aid and relief. Finally, the west wind is treated by the poet as representing the forces that can help bring about the golden millennium when the miseries and agonies of mankind will be replaced by all round happiness.

Imagery: In the poem “Ode to the West Wind” the image of the west wind, its appearance and action, has been shown through three vivid images:

(i)  Vapor rising from the Ocean to form clouds,

(ii) The stormy wind in the image of the dancing Maenad in intoxication and

(iii)The image of the dome formed out of Clouds.

Myth-making:  Shelley holds a unique place in English Literature by virtue of his power of making myths out of the objects and forces of Nature. Shelley’s myth-making power as revealed in the “Ode to the West Wind”.

Technical excellence: Technically this poem is one of the most perfect of Shelley’s lyrics. It is nearer to music than to painting, and yet it gives us a more vivid sense of experience than we could get from any pictorial description. The metre, which is terza rima devided into short periods is managed with complete mastery. The verse pattern each stanza of “Ode to the West Wind” is joined to the one following by a common rhyme: aba, bcb, cdc, ded, ee. Shelley has made the heroic lines move swiftly so as to give the impression of the irresistible and fast movement of the wind. Idealism is a part and parcel of Shelley’s temperament. He is not only a rebel but also a reformer. He wants to reconstitute society in keeping with his ideals of good, truth and beauty. According to Compton Rickett- “To renovate the world, to bring about utopia, is his constant aim, and for this reason we may regard Shelley as emphatically the poet of egar, sensitive youth; not the animal youth of Byron, but the spiritual youth of the visionary and reformer”. Shelley is pessimistic about the present, but optimistic about the future. In “Ode to the West Wind”, his prophetic note is present, and present the greatest intensity of expression:

“If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

 

After the whole analysis of the poem “Ode to the West Wind”, now we can come to the conclusion. This is universally accepted as one of the best poems of Shelley. Shelley, it has become clear greatly expended the metrical and stanzaic resources of English versification. He uses West Wind here as a symbol of very spirit. As the West Wind scatters and destroys the dead leaves, the poet wants to expel useless customs and conventions; as the Wind helps the growth of new flowers in spring, the poet too wishes to bring about a new order beneficial to mankind. He believes that regeneration always follows destruction and that a new and utopian order is certain to come when the present degenerate system is ended.

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Q: Write a critical appreciation of the poem “To a Skylark”

 

Answer: Percy Bysshe Shelley is the highly intellectual poet of the Romantic Revival. He was a dreamer and visionary. He had a great passion for reforming the world by the power of his writing. His idealism is best reflected in his poem “To a Skylark”. Shelley’s “To a Skylark” is a remarkable masterpiece. If Shelley had died composing it only, he might have been regarded as a great poet in English Literature. Skylark is an imagery bird, which is invisible in the sky. It is a source of poetic inspiration. This poetry stands as a distinguished achievement because of some particular characteristics such as spontaneity, lyrical quality, audibility or music, series of imagery, personification and idealism etc.

 

“To a Skylark” perhaps the most famous Shelley’s poem was written in July 1820 and published with “Prometheus Unbound” in the same year. At the time of its composition

The Shelleys were staying in Grisbornes house who was on a visit to England. The idea of the skylark singing in the sky to represent a spiritual power that can spread its influence through the world may have come from Plato. The skylark is not a earthly bird, it is the embodied spirit of ecstasy of absolute delight, joyous. Wordsworth’s poem on the same describes the skylark as

“Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?”

The poet starts his poem with an address or apostrophe like—

“Hail to thee, blithe spirit!”

It is the endless source of pleasure. The song of skylark is heard from the lost point of vision. The poet refers to the spontaneous flow of music, which comes from the skylark. The music overflows profusely from the heart of skylark; there is nothing artificial. The skylark flies higher and higher. It never backs to this world. Like a club of fire it rises. The singing and soaring of the bird are simultaneous. In it for him a joyful spirit that begins its upward flight at sunrise and become at evening an invisible song just like star in the day light. The poet describes the overflow of the skylark’s song over the earth and in the heaven. He says in his poem—

“All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,

As, when night in bare

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams and heavens over flowed.”

The poet is at loss to know what the bird really is! Its song may be compared to the bright rain droops from rainbowed clouds. The bird lost in the sunlight may be compared to a poet like—

“Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,

Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world’s wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not”

The poet’s world is secret world of thoughts and fancies, which is hidden from men. The poet’s song flows out from his heart with great spontaneity. The poet’s unbidden songs move the world to sympathy and hopes, which it would not otherwise have known. Next, the poet compared the skylark to a highborn maiden who is imprisoned in lonely tower. She sings sweet love song to soothe her love-laden heart and her sweet music overflows her bower. Now, the skylark is compared to a glow-worm. The glow-worm is hidden in a valley scatters its light without being. The light which is shed by the glow-worm in soft and elusive. The glow-worm is hidden and screened from view by the flowers and grass among which it lies. The skylark is also compared to the rose which sheds its fragrance abroad, though it is hidden from view. The warm wind scatters the petal of the rose, and spreads its fragrance everywhere. The song of the skylark is an idealism of Shelley. It remains ever fresh and ever perfect. No earthy dirt and filth can touch it. The sound vernal shower cannot even surpass it. When we recite this poem we feel that the skylark itself is singing. But again Shelley is not sure whether the skylark is a spirit or bird. The poet wonders from where the skylark got its inspiration for its harmony. So he raises his voice like—

“Teach us, Spirit or Bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine:

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.”

The poet says that skylark’s songs do not stand any comparison with things that we know. When it is compared with all gay; clear and fresh things pale into insignificance. Marriage and triumphed songs dwindle into nothingness in comparison with the skylark’s song. The poet wonders about the unknown source of inspiration of the bird’s song.

“What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?”

The skylark’s song is full of joy. Its love knows no satiety. On earth love becomes after some time insipid and cloying. Skylark knows more of life and death than we mortals can ever know. We can’t imagine how could the skylark pour forth such a clear stream of music. The source of the songs of skylark is not known to us because we are crude. Men never know any moment of un allowed joy. Sorrow is ever present in human life and the most beautiful songs are those inspired by some sadness. So the poet introduces us with universal truth:

“We look before and after

And pine for what is not;

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fought:

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought”

Sorrow is mingled with the very best of human joys. Even if men are free from hate, pride, fear and sorrow, they can’t think of attaining such joy as that of the skylark. Our knowledge is saturated with pangs and our joy is never a match with that of the skylark. The poet wants to experience half the gaiety of the bird—

“Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow

The world should listen then-as I am listening now”

 

Theme: In “To a Skylark” Shelley records the thoughts evoked in him by a singing skylark.

He finds a contrast between the skylark’s easy movement and fluent song and man’s clumsiness in these spheres. The poet is led to feel that the skylark’s superiority over man lies in his superhuman talents. Despond King-Hele writes,

“The theme is thus a conceit, not an eternal truth; but Shelley contrives the faction so persuasively that we gladly suspend disbelief.”

“The keen joyance” of the skylark is contrasted with the pains and agonies of mankind. Like the Ode, this poem too ends on a not of yearning, this time not for energy and intellectual powerful, but for pure rapture and unbounded joy.

 

Spontaneity: “To a Skylark” like Shelley’s other lyrics, shows spontaneity typical of the poet. The flow of the poem is as effortless as that of a stream. The emotion that has inspired the poet is genuine and has come from first hand experience. The joyful singing of the skylark has indeed inspired in the poets mind an over flowing yearning for ecstasy. This intensity of passion has added considerably to the lyric spender of the poem. The poem is melodious because it is not just a poem but the skylark’s song itself translated the poet into stanzas.

 

Symbolism: Most of Shelley’s poetry is symbolic. The poem “To a Skylark” bears strong testimony of the poet’s use of symbolism. The poet employs skylark as a symbol of musical ecstasy. Skylark is an invisible bird, source of music symbolizing the romantic poet, Shelley’s poetic soul. Again, the skylark symbolizes perfect or ideal happiness. Here, the happiness of the bird is contrasted with the sorrows and sufferings of mankind. The abundance of symbols makes the poem obscure. A common reader will find it difficult to understand the theme of the poem. Shelley’s symbols are vague. In some cases, the reader should go beyond the surface level to find out the meaning of the symbols clearly.

 

Lyricism: Shelley is one of the greatest lyric poets in the field of English literature. The most outstanding quality of Shelley’s lyricism is its spontaneity. Shelley’s lyrics come straight from his heart. Here is an example of his spontaneous writing—

“Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow

The world should listen then-as I am listening now”

Shelley’s lyrics always express an intensity of feeling, or a deep passion. There is too a note of desire and longing also sadness through most of his lyrics. In the poem “To a Skylark” we have the following stanza expressive of human sadness:

“We look before and after

And pine for what is not;

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fought:

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought”

Shelley’s lyrics are surprising musical and sweet. Some of Shelly’s lyric are highly embellished composition. They have a glittering quality because of the ornamental imagery in which they abound. The most striking example of this quality is “To a Skylark” the striking phrases are: “The golden lightening of sunken sun”, “A star of heaven”, “Rainbow cloud”. Melancholy is found to be the dominant note in most of Shelley’s lyrics. Shelley’s melancholy is never depressing. Shelley never allows morbidity to overcome the enjoyment in his lyric. He has deep faith in future.

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Imagery and Figures of Speech: The poem contains series of images and figures of speech that have added to the beauty and charm of the poem. The skylark is described as a “blithe spirit” that pours its heart “from heaven or near it”. It is linked to “a cloud of fire” and it “singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest” the skylark floats and runs like an embodied joy whose race is just begun. It remains unseen “Like a star of Heaven. In the broad daylight”.  The bird is then compared to a poet hidden in the light of thought, a high born maiden in a palace tower, a golden glow worm scattering its “aerial hue” unseen among the flowers and grass and an unseen rose giving out its sweet smell. Each figure of speech used in the poem is a picture in itself and contributes to the charming sensuousness of the poem. Shelley’s pessimism as well as optimism is exposed in this poem. With reference to the song the poet laments over the crude and impure emotions of human beings. Corrupted society can never give us pure pleasure. So, the poet is keening over the present condition of human life. But, he talks of the future he becomes joyous. Thus he turns into a optimist.