A Written Report of Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”
I. The Author
Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author of “Ode to the West Wind”, was a significant part of the English literary period we now refer to as the Romantic Age which ran from 1798 to 1832.
The most prominent features of the Romantic period were the reflected effects of the American and French Revolutions, as well as the growth of a new romantic stream in poetry, and the development of a strong sense of delight in the beauty of nature and the world around them.
This literary period is known to be a revolt against reason being used as a standard of creative expressions that was followed by the Classicists of the Puritan Period. Instead, it revolved around political reforms and movements, a rebellion against tyrannical authority, nature’s beauty and vivid imaginations that construct an atmosphere of romance and poetry.
Just as the Romantic Age, Percy Bysshe Shelley supported these reform movements and had a strong desire for change. He, too, can be considered a rebel, taking note of when he was expelled from Oxford. Shelley is somewhat an enthusiast of nature as well. This is based from the fact that a number of his works use nature as an instrument in spreading his messages.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, the son of a well-off family living in Sussex, England, was expelled from Oxford University College when he and his friend published “The Necessity of Atheism”, as earlier mentioned. Eloping with Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of a tavern owner, he gradually channeled his passionate pursuit of personal love and social justice in poetry.
“Ode to the West Wind”, written in 1819, near Florence, Italy and published a year later by Charles and James Ollier in London as a part of the Prometheus Unbound, A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems Collection, is believed to be due to the loss of his son with Mary Shelley, William in 1819. The ensuing pain influenced Shelley