Author: Ano Sensei
Format: Video
Subject Matter: change, nature, nature poetry, power, prophetic poetry, revolution, revolutionary verse, the sublime, wind
Related content:
Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind" - In-depth analysis of the symbolism, techniques and core meaning.
0:00 Introduction
0:11 Canto 1: Textual analysis
1:16 Canto 1: Context and comments
2:58 Canto 2: Textual analysis
4:37 Canto 2: Context and comments
5:28 Canto 3: ...Textual analysis
6:33 Round-up of cantos 1-3
7:20 Canto 4: Textual analysis
8:54 Context and comments
10:12 Canto 5: Textual analysis
11:08 Concluding comments
This video explains how Shelley describes the West Wind in his poem, focusing on its wild and unseen qualities and its role in nature. I discuss how the wind drives away dead leaves, carries seeds, and is connected to the changing seasons, providing a detailed description of the imagery used. This is an English story about poetry, exploring the rhythm and language of the poem.
This is a companion video to my dramatized reading of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem (https://youtu.be/IOV5LqecTOI).
I have made in-depth videos on Keats's Odes (https://tinyurl.com/anokeats), Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" (https://tinyurl.com/anokubla), Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" (https://tinyurl.com/anotintern) and many others. Subscribe/join and get the best poetry analysis videos on YouTube!
A Spanish-language version of this video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyBAt7xENHg%5D.
And here is a version in Italian: https://youtu.be/M8pPpb1T1nI
You can also see the reading and analysis combined as a playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzVb6yL_jY68kvKQYjfOBXwK3NZyy0pCj).
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O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes ! O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
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
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;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!
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
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 with burst: O hear!
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision―I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
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.
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,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?Show More
230 Comments
Amazing commentary! Congratulations. Clear and exaustive. Thanks!!!!
Thank you for the feedback! I’m glad you enjoyed it and found it useful.
Thank you for the fabulous analysis! This is my first time watching your video. I learned so much!
Thank you for the feedback. I’m so glad you enjoyed it and found it useful!
This was extremely helpful. Thank you very much. All lectures and poems should be analysed in this way.
I’m glad you liked it. I’m working on adding more poetry videos, but everything takes time!
Amazingly informative video. Just what I needed. Thank you!
You’re welcome!
Thank you for the clear analysis.I love this poem but found it hard to understand!
You’re very welcome!
This is fantastic. Educational, entertaining and incredibly clear! Thank you! 💗
Thank you for the feedback. Yes, that sums up what I aim for pretty well! 👍
You rock, sir. I really struggled with this poem, and my exam is coming
Many thanks
Ha! Well, I’m sure you’ll ace it now! More than that, though, I hope you will carry poetry with you through life, regardless of whether you’ve got a test coming up or not!
Thank you so much, i’m a student at faculty of languages and translations, Al Azhar university, in Egypt.
Your Explanation makes the poem so easy to understand. ❤❤❤❤❤❤
Thank you for the feedback. Good luck with your studies! I’ll be making more poetry videos in the new year. Let me know if you have any particular requests.
thank you 💙
You’re welcome!
Ooooh hear
I wish you were my AP English literature teacher. I love your analysis, their clarity and conciseness. Thank you so much for your hard work!
Thank you for the feedback. You are welcome!
this is such a magnificent analysis of the poem, thank you for your help!
You are most welcome. I’m glad you liked it!
this is actually the best explanation video on Shelley that I’ve found!
Praise indeed!
An intellectually and technically rich master class.
Thank you! Please check my other literature videos here on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/anoliterature.
Excellent interpretation. Thank you very much Sir
You are very welcome! Please check out my other poetry videos on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/anopoetry
you are amazing man, please explain and analyze kubla khan with same way 🙏
I already have!! Here’s the link to the playlist, with a range of different viewing options: https://tinyurl.com/anokubla
please make a video on robert brownings monologue MY LAST DUCHESS
Thank you for your suggestion, but I’m afraid I can only consider requests from full channel members of good standing.
You sir are the reason I’ll pass my Neoclassical literature at my Uni <3
I’m very glad to know it!
Thank you sir. You explained the poem so beautifully.
You’re welcome! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
@anosensei I did. Very much. Thanks a million for the beautiful explanation, sir. I’m won over by your lucid way of teaching. I have become our subscriber for life.
@HAP27 Great! I hope you will find many more things to enjoy on this channel!
Sir watching from Bangladesh 🤎💚