Percy Bysshe Shelley

a.) first stanza

The first stanza begins with the alliteration 'wild West Wind'. This makes the 'wind' "sound invigorating". The reader gets the impression that the wind is something that lives, because he is 'wild' - it is at that point a personification of the 'wind' in the form of an apostrophe. Even after reading the headline and the alliteration, one might have the feeling that the 'Ode' might somehow be positive. But it is not, as the beginning of the poem destroys the feeling that associated the wind with the spring. The first few lines consist of a lot of sinister elements, such as 'dead leaves'. The inversion of 'leaves dead' (l. 2) in the first stanza underlines the fatality by putting the word 'dead' (l. 2) at the end of the line so that it rhymes with the next lines. The sentence goes on and makes these 'dead' (l. 2) leaves live again as 'ghosts' (l. 3) that flee from something that panics them. The sentence does not end at that point but goes on with a polysyndeton. The colourful context makes it easier for the reader to visualise what is going on - even if it is in an uncomfortable manner. 'Yellow' can be seen as "the ugly hue of 'pestilence-stricken' skin; and 'hectic red', though evoking the pase of the poem itself, could also highlight the pace of death brought to multitudes." There is also a contradiction in the colour 'black' (l. 4) and the adjective 'pale' (l. 4).

In the word 'chariotest' (l. 6) the 'est' is added to the verb stem 'chariot', probably to indicate the second person singular, after the subject 'thou' (l. 5). The 'corpse within its grave' (l. 8) in the next line is in contrast to the 'azure sister of the Spring' (l. 9) - a reference to the east wind - whose 'living hues and odours plain' (l.12) evoke a strong contrast to the colours of the fourth line of the poem that evoke death. The last line of this stanza ('Destroyer and Preserver', l. 14) refers to the west wind. The west wind is considered the 'Destroyer' (l. 14) because it drives the last sings of life from the trees. He is also considered the 'Preserver' (l.14) for scattering the seeds which will come to life in the spring.

[edit] b.) second stanza

The second stanza of the poem is much more fluid than the first one. The sky's 'clouds' (l. 16) are 'like earth's decaying leaves' (l. 16). They are a reference to the second line of the first stanza ('leaves dead', l. 2). Through this reference the landscape is recalled again. The 'clouds' (l. 16) are 'Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean' (l. 17). This probably refers to the fact that the line between the sky and the stormy sea is indistinguishable and the whole space from the horizon to the zenith being is covered with trialing storm clouds. The 'clouds' can also be seen as 'Angels of rain' (l. 18). In a biblical way, they may be messengers that bring a message from heaven down to earth through rain and lightning. These two natural phenomena with their "fertilizing and illuminating power" bring a change.

Line 21 begins with 'Of some fierce Maenad ...' (l. 21) and again the west wind is part of the second stanza of the poem; here he is two things at once: first he is 'dirge/Of the dying year' (l. 23f) and second he is "a prophet of tumult whose prediction is decisive"; a prophet who does not only bring 'black rain, and fire, and hail' (l. 28), but who 'will burst' (l. 28) it. The 'locks of the approaching storm' (l. 23) are the messengers of this bursting: the 'clouds'.

Shelley in this stanza "expands his vision from the earthly scene with the leaves before him to take in the vaster commotion of the skies". This means that the wind is now no longer at the horizon and therefore far away, but he is exactly above us. The clouds now reflect the image of the swirling leaves; this is a parallelism that gives evidence that we lifted "our attention from the finite world into the macrocosm". The 'clouds' can also be compared with the leaves; but the clouds are more unstable and bigger than the leaves and they can be seen as messengers of rain and lightning as it was mentioned above.

[edit] c.) third stanza

The question that comes up when reading the third stanza at first is what the subject of the verb 'saw' (l. 33) could be. On the one hand there is the 'blue Mediterranean' (l. 30). With the 'Mediterranean' as subject of the stanza, the "syntactical movement" is continued and there is no break in the fluency of the poem; it is said that 'he lay, / Lull'd by the coil of this crystalline streams,/Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, / And saw in sleep old palaces and towers' (l. 30-33). On the other hand it is also possible that the lines of this stanza refer to the 'wind' again. Then the verb that belongs to the 'wind' as subject is not 'lay', but the previous line of this stanza, that says 'Thou who didst waken ... And saw' (l. 29, 33). But whoever - the 'Mediterranean' or the 'wind' - 'saw' (l. 33) the question remains whether the city one of them saw, is real and therefore a reflection on the water of a city that really exists on the coast; or the city is just an illusion. Pirie is not sure of that either. He says that it might be "a creative interpretation of the billowing seaweed; or of the glimmering sky reflected on the heaving surface". Both possibilities seem to be logical. To explain the appearance of an underwater world, it might be easier to explain it by something that is realistic; and that might be that the wind is able to produce illusions on the water. With its pressure, the wind "would waken the appearance of a city". From what is known of the 'wind' from the last two stanzas, it became clear that the 'wind' is something that plays the role of a Creator. Whether the wind creates real things or illusions does not seem to be that important.

It appears as if the third stanza shows - in comparison with the previous stanzas - a turning-point. Whereas Shelley had accepted death and changes in life in the first and second stanza, he now turns to "wistful reminiscence [, recalls] an alternative possibility of transcendence". From line