Ode to the West Wind

This is another poem that we read last year in Brit Lit, which has helped me sucessfully write my AP paper this year. Although I hate saying this, Percy's wife is much more well known then Percy. But, he does have some very well known poems that are frequently talked about. Ode to the West Wind being one of them. Each of the seven parts contains five stanzas, which are all metered in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme in each part follows a pattern known as terza rima.In the three-line terza rima stanza, the first and third lines rhyme, and the middle line does not; then the end sound of that middle line is employed as the rhyme for the first and third lines in the next stanza. The final couplet rhymes with the middle line of the last three-line stanza. Thus each of the seven parts of “Ode to the West Wind” follows this scheme: ABA BCB CDC DED EE. Something else that I noticed about this poem in particular is that, Shelley uses the West Wind to symbolize the power of nature and of the imagination inspired by nature. Unlike pieces he wrote however, the West Wind is active and dynamic in poems, such as “Ode to the West Wind.” While some others are immobile, the West Wind is an agent for change. Even as it destroys, the wind encourages new life on earth and social progress among humanity. Another awesome thing I discovered about this poem, was an actual note from Shelley himself.  Shelley appended a note to the "Ode to the West Wind" when it appeared in a Promethus Volume in 1820. "This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions." This note from Shelley, bascailly backs up my hypothesis of him using specific experiences within his life to write his poetry.