Home > Ode to the West Wind Summary & Study Guide > Ode to the West Wind Group > Question and Answer

Question:

Answers:

1. 
   mrsmonica Teacher
   High School - 12th Grade

   eNotes Editor

   eNotes' Guide to Literary Terms defines personification as "a figure of speech in which abstractions, animals, ideas, and inanimate objects are endowed with human form, character, traits, or sensibilities."

   In "Ode to the West Wind," Shelley speaks to the west wind as though it were a human being. For example, in the first segment, he calls the wind a chariot driver. In the third segment, the west wind is described as a person who rouses the Mediterranean Sea from sleep (personifying also the sea as well as the wind). The wind is described as having a fearsome voice.

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/literary-terms/personification

   http://www.enotes.com/ode-west-wind-text/west-wind

   Rate answer:

   • Flag as inappropriate

   Posted by mrsmonica on Monday June 15, 2009 at 6:57 AM
   
   

2. 
   parkerlee Teacher
   

   eNotes Editor

   
   I
   O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,(apostrophe)
   Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
   Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
   
   Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, (the four humours)
   Pestilence-stricken multitudes: 0 thou,
   Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed   (It drives.)
   

   The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
   Each like a corpse within its grave,until
   Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow  (It has a sibling.)
   
   Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
   (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
   With living hues and odours plain and hill:
   
   Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; (apostrophe again)
   Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!
   
   II
   
   Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
   Loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,
   Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
   
   Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
   On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
   Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
   
   Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
   Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
   The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge (It performs
   a ritual.)
   Of the dying year, to which this closing night
   Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre
   Vaulted with all thy congregated might
   
   Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
   Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear! (apostrophe)
   
   III
   
   Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams  (It sleeps.)
   The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
   Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
   
   Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
   And saw in sleep old palaces and towers     (It can see.)
   Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
   
   All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
   So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
   For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
   
   Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
   The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
   The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
   
   Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,  (It has a voice.)
   And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!  (apostrophe)
   
   IV
   
   If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
   If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
   A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
   
   The impulse of thy strength, only less free
   Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even
   I were as in my boyhood, and could be
   
   The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,     ( It knows
   As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed              friendship.)
   Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven
   
   As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
   Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!   (It has volition or will.)
   I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
   
   A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
   One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.   (It has
   personality traits.)
   V
   
   Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
   What if my leaves are falling like its own!
   The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
   
   Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
   Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
   My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
   
   Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
   Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
   And, by the incantation of this verse,
   
   Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
   Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
   Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
   
   The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,                  (apostrophe)
   If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

   Rate answer:

   • Flag as inappropriate

   Posted by parkerlee on Monday June 15, 2009 at 9:01 AM