In what respects is the ‘Ode to the West Wind’ a representative poem of Shelley ?

Ans. The poem, Ode to the West Wind represents some important characteristics of Shelley’s poetry. The west wind is the symbol of revolution with its destructive aspects and creative principle. He implores the west wind to inspire him with its tameless spirit of that he can destroy the old and the worn-out and-create a new world based on equality, fraternity and liberty. Shelley’s revolutionary idealism is best illustrated in the poem.

The poem sounds two important notes of Shelley’s poetry—his personal despondency and his prophetic vision. He “falls upon the thorns of life, he bleeds.” He prays to the west wind to lift him as a leaf, a cloud and a wave. But his faltering accents become trumpet tones when he utters the woes of man instead of his own sorrows. The tired child becomes a prophet and sings a mighty song to quicken the sleeping world to a new birth—“O wind ! if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind.”

Shelley is most vitally with romantic idealism. He gives himself up to the swelling waves of the wind and mingles his own voice with the mighty harmonies of the west wind. He makes a magnificent union of himself with nature and then passes equally to great self-description. He thus mingles Nature and himself together. Shelley's romanticism is best expressed in his fervent idealism and in his complete absorption into the spirit of Nature.

Shelley is a lyric poet per excellence. In Ode to the West Wind we find a harmony that swells like the surge of the mighty west wind. It is an inspired lyric glowing with the fire of emotion. In it, we see the marriage of the most exquisite words to the most exquisite harmonies. Its vigorous lines capture the rush and swell of the wind. Always working with a white heat of imagination, Shelley pours images, metaphors and similes drawing as much from the world of imagination as from the real world: “The leaves dead are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeting,” the west wind “is the dirge of the dying year,” “the breath of Autumn’s being.” These images testify to Shelley's love of the world of the abstract and the intangible.

The poem testifies to Shelley’s myth-making power. Shelley has the simplicity and wonder of a primitive man. With the instinctive truths of a fervid imagination, he creates myths and relations so fitting that he is said to have imported “Hellenic thought in English”. His myth-making power is evident when he personifies the west wind as destroyer and preserver, and describes how the blue Mediterranean is lulled by the coil of its crystalline streams.

The poem is characterised by solemn grandeur and stately music. The majestic march of music and rhythm echo the rush and movement of the wind. Shelley, as Swinburne has said, “is the perfect singing god.” He has brought new music in English poetry. It is the music of the waves and the winds and the heavenly music of the planets that he has caught and reproduced with great skill. The Ode to the West Wind now rings like wild wails from the forest, now like the sighs on the fitful breeze from the river.

ON KILLING A TREE

“Modern man, out of his indiscriminate selfishness dares to uproot Nature and its very soul” – Evaluate this statement with reference to the poem “ON KILLING A TREE”.Gieve Patel belongs to the present day generation of Indian poets writing in English. He is one of those writers who subscribe themselves to the “Green Peace Movement”. His poems give expression to his anxiety and bitterness at man’s cruelty to Nature.
Patel’s “On Killing a Tree” is a poem which presents a graphic picture of the total annihilation of a tree. In the poem the tree symbolizes Nature. Modern man out of his indiscriminate greed and selfishness roots out nature and its very spirit. Man’s greed is not quenched by the mere physical process of killing a tree.Man realizes that it is not easy to kill a tree because it has grown slowly consuming the earth and absorbing water, air and sunrise for years. The mere act of hacking and chopping is not sufficient to kill a tree. The tree overcomes man’s onslaught by branching off small stems close to the ground and resumes life and grose again to its former size.
Knowing a tree’s power to come to life again, man decides to pull out the root of the tree. Like a butcher, he makes several cuts in the tree and cuts it down. He then cuts it into several convenient pieces. Still his greed is not quenched. Man is determined not to allow Nature a second life. He makes a deep cavity on the earth and roots out the tree which uses anchored safety inside the earth. The earth has so far protected and fed the tree like a mother. But, the cruel man uproots this safety.After pulling the tree down, the man further subjects it to various processes of rendering it fit for commercial purposes. He further tortures the tree by scorching and choking it in sun and air. He also subjects the tree to various methods such as browning and hardening. With this, the total killing of the tree is complete. Man is ensured that the tree has no second life. “And then it is done” says the speaker triumphantly.
The poet describes mans cruelty to nature with bitter irony and detachment. But his own sympathy is with Nature. The poem is a telling commentary on one of the major environmental issues that encounters modern man.