Hello Romanticists,
Excellent work analyzing Shelley’s sonnets in class
today. As we discussed, the sonnet form
allows Shelley to exercise his powers of renovation, his ability to produce new
meaning from something tired, conventional, or familiar.
You will find the same ideology of renovation in Shelley’s
great work of poetic theory, “A Defence [sic] of Poetry.” A poet’s language, he argues, “marks the
before unapprehended relations of things,” often by revitalizing images and
words that have become meaningless through overuse. This is why he claims that poetic language is
“vitally metaphorical”: poetic language is “vital” in the etymological sense of
being alive with meaning rather than deadened by custom, and it is metaphorical
because metaphor is the central tool for revealing connections or “relations”
between seemingly diverse things.
We’ll talk through this concept further in class. For your posts, investigate one or more of
the many metaphors Shelley employs in one of the poems. You might choose the wind or the dead leaves
in “Ode to the West Wind,” the glow-worm or rose of “To a Skylark,” or the
string of metaphors used to describe Intellectual Beauty. Or indeed any other metaphor that strikes
your fancy.
Happy reading,
Prof. M.
To get you thinking about birds and wind and other fleeting, incorporeal things, enjoy some of Romantic painter John Constable's famous cloud studies:
I liked Shelley's poet metaphor in "To a Skylark". It struck as somewhat different from the other metaphors Shelley uses to describe the skylark's joy. The other metaphors, like the scenting rose or the glowing glow-worm or the singing maiden in the palace-tower, describe things which are having measurable, if unobtrusive impacts on the world. If no one hears the poet who sings unbidden, does it still count as influencing the world? It's sort of like the classic question of the tree that falls in the wilderness when no one's' around. By choosing to group this metaphor with the others, it seems like Shelley considers poetry to serve a purpose even if it isn't shared with the public. This is supported by the end of the stanza, where the world sympathizes with the poetry without directly hearing it. The power of poetry can apparently change the world without mass circulation.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that Shelley's poet is "hidden in the light of thought" - most things hide in darkness and are revealed in light. The intellect is often compared to light, but it's interesting that Shelley decided to use this metaphor despite the element of hiddenness. It makes me think of a person who is lost in thought in public, and how no one can tell what he's thinking. He's hiding in plain sight - in the light.
I really enjoyed reading Shelley’s “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”. Many of the metaphors which the poet employs in the beginning of the piece hint to the teasingly temporary nature of this intellectual appreciation. For instance, he writes that it is compared to “the summer winds that creep from flower to flower”. This comparison suggests that intellectual inspiration is fleeting, since he speaks of the wind as belonging to a particular season, summer, and as traveling from flower to flower and not staying at any for too long. He also compares it to the “hues and harmonies of evening”, intimating that intellectual beauty is perceived during the evening hours, i.e. during a limited time frame. Furthermore, he compares it to a “memory of music fled”. The words “memory” and “fled” both speak of the temporary nature of intellectual inspiration. This kind of philosophical connection is also paralleled with “clouds in starlight widely spread”. The fact that it is compared to things which are spread widely apart hints that it does not strike often; intellectual inspiration appears in intermittent bursts. Shelley states outright that it “leaves our state / this dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate”. In these lines, the poet acknowledges the fleeting and temporary nature of intellectual inspiration, and the aching void it leaves in the wake of its departure.
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ReplyDeleteFrom To a Skylark, the metaphor of the hidden poet. What does it mean to be hidden in the light of thought? Perhaps it means that the output of the poet overshadows the poet himself. Maybe the work of the poet lives on in a way, while the poet becomes a mere memory of the work itself. In advanced topics we were discussing how the work of the poet influences the narrative of the writer himself, like what we know about Shakespeare comes mostly from his works. Maybe this is what this means, that the work will live on without the poet in the spotlight. Even the next line kind of removes the poet from the scene- the hymns unbidden- the book footnotes this and says these are poems that are the direct result of inspiration. Inspiration is an outside source- perhaps God or a Muse that grants the poet the ability to "poetize" things- this also hides the poet in the "light" of that outside inspiration.The poet, the poem says, also wrought the world- the poet is the vehicle that helps the public make sense of ideas too lofty to understand at surface level- like when faced with majestic sights, or deep, hidden, or painful emotions, the poet, using his special inspiration, is able to translate and form those feelings and sights into something more accessible for people to grasp- kind of a superpower in a way.
ReplyDeleteOde to the West Wind is full of images of death as the world settles down for winter. Already at the second line Shelley has two images of death “Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead / Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.” These images are stark reminders of both natural and human mortality. Although the speaker acknowledges that death will bring eventual rebirth in a new spring, even this is uncertain. The extended metaphor in the poem is directly addressed by the speaker who begins to long for the attributes of the leaf. More than that, he seems to want to become one with the Western Wind, as if in joining its spirit he can spread his ideas further and faster. I found this particularly interesting, if not a bit confusing because the speaker seems to want to be both the agent of changes (the wind) and the prophecy (leaves that are spread). As he grapples with his mortality, he obviously longs for rebirth but instead focuses on the leaves as his representation of his ideas spreading.
ReplyDeleteI loved how each verse was made of three besides for the last verse in every part of the poem. It was as if the speaker was building up his momentum, then remembered his mortality and was humbled.
We’re used to the idea of wind as a metaphor for G-d or spirituality, an unseen force which is only recognizable due to its effects on nature. Shelley certainly echoes this idea in the use of his metaphors. The enchanter’s magic itself is invisible; it is only the movement of the ghosts which tells us he’s using it. (Speaking from experience here). Water (the “stream” the wind is compared to) is also clear and only visible due to its movement of other things, or at least its reflections of other things (like the sky, for instance). In his third stanza, Shelley describes not the wind itself but its effect upon the sea, carving it up and making waves through its blows. This way of describing the wind puts one in mind of the Aeolian harp, with the wind as the force of music or spirituality becoming manifest as it brushes against creation.
ReplyDeleteYet, though Shelley deliberately references the Aeolian harp (“Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is”) his message is almost directly opposed to Coleridge’s. True, the wind blows against creation, but the wind is not making sweet, spiritual music – rather, it is a “dirge / Of the dying year,” a “tumult of…mighty harmonies.” Whatever it brushes across, it frightens and moves, causing the dead leaves to scurry into their graves, the clouds to becomes a storm, the sea to split and the sea foliage to “grow grey with fear.” This is not the benevolent pantheistic god of Coleridge. This is a vengeful god, an awful god, the god of the Apocalypse or Judgement Day rather than of a utopia.
And the direction of the inspiration is also unclear. Coleridge’s harp is a one way street – nature inspires man. Here, though the speaker asks to be “thy lyre,” he wants it to go both ways. He wants the wind to “be thou me….Drive my thoughts over the universe / like withered leaves.” I will be you, and you will be me, and then you will carry my thoughts over the masses, and my ideas will be the “trumpet of prophecy,” the trumpet at the end of days. Though he describes his thoughts as “dead,” they are simultaneously capable of awakening the “unawakened earth.” In a strange way, the speaker is both giver and receiver, inspired and inspiring, and the wind is both the actor and merely a conduit.
Thus, this use of the wind metaphor is entirely different from the traditional Romantic one. nature, first of all, is not a beautiful, lovely, peaceful thing. Nature is power, danger, and fear. In addition, nature and/or religion do not inspire passive man. Rather, there is a give and take, to the point where it’s unclear who is imposing its vision on whom.
(I forgot to say - I'm writing about "Ode to the West Wind")
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