A Wind For Every Season Essay Research — страница 2
and fire and hail…” (28) also helps the reader prepare for the apocalyptic climax which Shelley intended. As the rising action continues, Shelley talks of the “Mediterranean” (31) and its “summer dreams” (30). In the dream, the reader finds the sea laying “Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay/ And saw in sleep old palaces and towers/ Quivering within the wave’s intenser day” (32-34). Shelley implants the idea of a volcano with the word “pumice.” The “old palaces and towers” stir vivid images of ancient Rome and Greece in the readers mind. Shelley also uses these images in the sea’s dream to show that the natural world and the human social and political world are parallel. Again, he uses soft sounding words, but this time it is used to lull the reader into the same dream-like state of the Mediterranean. The “pumice” shows destruction and creation for when the volcano erupts it destroys. But it also creates more new land. The “pumice” is probably Shelley’s best example of rebirth and rejuvenation. The word “Quivering” is not just used to describe the reflection of images in the water. It is also used to show a sense of fear which seems to be the most common mood and emotion in this poem. Is Shelley perhaps making a comment that at the root of people’s faith is fear of vengeful god? Maybe, but the main focus of this poem is not just religion, but what religion stands for which is death and rebirth. Could line 34, also be a comment on Shelley himself? In the final stanzas, Shelley has the wind transforming from the natural world toward human suffering. Shelley pleads with the wind: “Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!” (54). He seeks transcendence from the wind and says: “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed” (55). Shelley shows Christ not as a religion, but as a hero of sacrifice and suffering, like the poet himself. He again pleads for the wind: “Drive my dead thought over the universe…to quicken a new birth!” (63-64). He asks the wind to “Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth/ Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!/ Be through my lips to unawakened Earth” (66-68). The words “unextinguished hearth” represent the poets undying passion. The “hearth” is also at the centre of the earth which helps make the connection between humanity and nature. Both are constantly trying to reinvent themselves. When one scatters “ashes” it’s at one’s death and that person becomes one with the earth. When one scatters “sparks” it is these sparks that create new fires of creation and destruction. These new “sparks” arise when the “dome” explodes and abandons old ways. Can one ever escape the roots of creation? Shelley has many Blakean overtones of creation and destruction in the final tercet of this poem. Shelley’s says that his lips are the “trumpet of prophecy” (69). And many say that Wordsworth is egotistical? Again, he uses biblical sounding words to add drama and importance to his prophetic vision. And it definitely helps achieve Shelley’s intended climax when he asks with hope: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? (70).This sentence could be rewritten substituting the word death, for the word “Winter,” and the word rebirth, could take the place of “spring.” Shelley, like all of the Romantic poets, constantly tries to achieve a transcendence to sublime. In “Ode to the West Wind,” Shelley uses the wind as a power of change that flow through history, civilization, religions and human life itself. Does the wind help Shelley achieve his transcendence? It seems it has in some sense, but Shelley never achieves his full sublime. In poems such as “Stanzas written in Dejection Near Naples” Shelley uses images of “lightning” (15) and “flashing” (16) which help demonstrate that he can only attain a partial sublime unlike a poet like William Wordsworth. Perhaps that’s why he tries to give rebirth to his individual imagination. One can never restart totally new. Even the trees that will grow from “the winged seeds” are not totally new, but that is the point Shelley is trying to make. He feels himself to be part of a continuing cycle. Since Shelley is an atheist the only way his soul can live on is through the “incantation” of his words. So, if his transcendence is to live on in eternity and create inspiration and change in others like the West Wind, then he has achieved something greater than he could have imagined. But whether he grasped a complete transcendence for himself while he was alive remains to be answered. It seems that it is only in his death that the “Wild Spirit” (13) could be lifted “as a wave, a
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