"Ode to the West Wind"

Paper Summary:

An analysis of the use of the death motif in Shelley's poem "Ode to the West Wind". It tells us not to grieve at the coming of winter because we must have winter to have the joy of the return of spring. The writer states that in this explanation of death, Shelley reflects the common religious belief that our life on Earth is simply short preparation for the joy of life eternal after we pass on. He uses vivid imagery not only to describe the despair of death but the reasons to rejoice in its final outcome.

From the Paper:

"The poem uses the wild west wind (line 1) as his first metaphor for death. All other images of death in the poem refer to the west wind, providing multiple layers of metaphor. He describes it as driving the dead leaves, and describes the dead leaves of fleeing from the wind. In this way he draws a distinction between humans, who can have the joy of life after death, and non-sentient objects such as leaves who simply die and are gone forever. Leaves would flee Death where people should not. The poem's topic becomes particularly poignant from the very beginning because Shelley died at the young age of 30."

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