Shelley’s use of nature in her poems

Percy Bysshe Shelley, the revolutionary poet of the English Romantic period, uses nature as a vehicle for his revolutionary faith and regeneration. He, in the poem “Ode to the west wind”, considers it as a tremendous force of nature that can destroy and create. The wind also symbolizes “despair and hope” and “death and rebirth”.

In the first section of the poem “Ode to the west wind”, we find an image of death I in which all the leaves are driven away by the wind like ghosts. As the poet says:

“Oh wild west wind, you breath of the being of autumn,

You, whose invisible presence the dead leaves

They are driven, like ghosts of a lovely escape, “

Here the West Wind symbolizes Death or Destruction.

In the following image, we find the West Wind as a docking symbol because it preserves the seeds by driving them underground until they germinate and fill the hills and plains with “bright hues and smells.”

In the second section of the poem, the powerful impact of the West Wind on the sky is described.

In the third, Shelley describes the commotion that the west wind creates on the surface and depth of the sea.

In the fourth section, the poet transforms the poem from the world of nature to the world of humanity. Here he very cleverly connects three symbols of nature, leaf, cloud and wave, in a knot. As the poet says:

“If I were a dead leaf, you could bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with you;

A wave to gasp under your power and share “

Once again, the poet invokes the wind, the tremendous power of nature, in his earned life and asks the wind to regenerate him from despair. He wants to share the momentum of the West Wind and lift him above the painful and miserable condition. As he says:

“Oh! Lift me up like a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall on the thorns of life! I bleed! “

In the final section of the poem, Shelley wants to regenerate all of humanity using the revolutionary power of the wind. He wants the Wind to blow on him and fill him with the untamed energy he needs to change the world. The poet wants to expel the useless customs and conventions while the wind destroys the old and dead leaves. The essential spirit of the Wind represents the spirit of reform. The poet wants new shoots to sprout in spring.

“Lead my dead thoughts through the universe

Like withered leaves to accelerate a new birth! “

Shelley believes that regeneration always follows destruction. As he knows, the deeper the night becomes, the closer the morning becomes. So his poem “Ode to the West Wind” ends with the same expectation of regeneration.

“If winter comes, can spring be far away?”

In his poem “Adonais” we also find the use of nature. Adonais has a great love for the beauties of nature and that is why the powers of nature come to mourn his death. When Adonais is killed by an arrow, shot in the dark, his mother Urania, the goblin in the poem, is not by his side. Urania cries and kisses the corpse of Adonais. the poet also joins in that duel. By using nature, Shelley’s agony over Keat’s death becomes universal and sublime.

Furthermore, in the poem “To Skylark” and Ozymandias “we find the excellent use of natural objects.

Finally, we can end our discussion by saying that Shelley is very optimistic in his view of nature. He wants the West Wind, a force of nature, as the destroyer of the old and conventional orders, to regenerate with a new and peaceful one.