Analysis of Ode to the West Wind
Analysis of Ode to the West Wind
Percy Bysshe Shelley begins his poem by addressing the 'Wild West Wind'. He then introduces the theme of death and compares the dead leaves to 'ghosts'. The imagery of 'Pestilence-stricken multitudes' makes the reader aware that Shelley is addressing more than a pile of leaves. His claustrophobic mood is shown when he talks about the 'wintry bed' and 'The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low. Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow'. The 'closing night' is used to mean the final night. The 'pumice' shows destruction and creation because when the volcano erupts it destroys. This acts as an introduction and a shadow of what is to come later also helps us prepare for the climax which Shelley intended. It seems that it is only in his death that the 'Wild Spirit' could be lifted as a wave, a leaf, a cloud to blow free in the 'Wild West Wind'. The 'pumice' is probably Shelley's best example of rebirth. As the rising action continues, Shelley talks about the 'Mediterranean' and its 'summer dreams'. Again, he uses soft sounding words to calm the reader into the same dream-like state of the Mediterranean. He then writes like a mourning song 'of the dying year, to which this closing night will be the dome of a vast sepulchre V aulted with all they congregated might. Percy sees his dome as a volcano and when the 'dome' does 'burst,' it will act as a 'Destroyer and Preserver' and creator.
In 'Ode to the West Wind,' Shelley uses the wind to represent driving change and a carrier for his ideas. The speaker invokes the Wild West Wind of autumn, which scatters the dead leaves and spreads seeds so that they may be nurtured by the spring, and asks that the wind, a destroyer and preserver, hear him. The speaker calls the wind the dirge of the dying year, and describes how it stirs up violent storms, and again implores it to hear him. The speaker says that the wind stirs the Mediterranean from ―his summer dreams, and cleaves the Atlantic into choppy chasms, making the ―sapless foliage of the ocean tremble, and asks for a third time that it hear him. The speaker says that if he were a dead leaf that the wind could bear, or a cloud it could carry, or a wave it could push, or even if he were, as a boy, ―the comrade of the wind is wandering over heaven, then he would never have needed to pray to the wind and invoke its powers.
He pleads with the wind to lift him ―as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!—for though he is like the wind at heart, untamable and proud—he is now chained and bowed with the weight of his hours upon the earth. The speaker asks the wind to ―make me thy lyre, to be his own Spirit, and to drive his thoughts across the universe, ―like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth. He asks the wind, by the incantation of this verse, to scatter his words among mankind, to be the ―trumpet of a prophecy. Speaking both in regard to the season and in regard to the effect upon mankind that
he hopes his words to have, the speaker asks: ―If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
Form each of the seven parts of ―Ode to the West Wind contains five stanzas—four three-line stanzas and a two-line couplet, all metered in iambic pentameter. In the three-line 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.
In the fifth section, the poet then takes a remarkable turn, transforming the wind into a metaphor for his own art, the expressive capacity that drives ―dead thoughts like ―withered leaves over the universe, to ―quicken a new birth—that is, to quicken the coming of the spring. Here the spring season is a metaphor for a ―spring of human consciousness, imagination, liberty, or morality—all the things Shelley hoped his art could help to bring about in the human mind. Shelley asks the wind to be his spirit, and in the same movement he makes it his metaphorical spirit, his poetic faculty, which will play him like a musical instrument, the way the wind strums the leaves of the trees. The thematic implication is significant: whereas the older generation of Romantic poets viewed nature as a source of truth and authentic experience, the younger
generation largely viewed nature as a source of beauty and aesthetic experience.
In this poem, Shelley explicitly links nature with art by finding powerful natural metaphors with which to express his ideas about the power, import, quality, and ultimate effect of aesthetic expression.
The poem Ode to the West Wind can be divided in two parts: the first three cantos and the last two cantos.
The first stanza begins with the alliteration Wild West Wind. The form of the apostrophe makes the wind also a personification. However, one must not think of this Ode as an optimistic praise of the wind; it is clearly associated with autumn. The second canto of the poem is much more fluid than the first one. Shelley also mentions that when the West Wind blows, it seems to be singing a funeral song about the year coming to an end and that the sky covered with a dome of clouds looks like a 'sepulchre' , a burial chamber or grave for the dying year or the year which is coming to an end. Shelley in this canto expands his vision from the earthly scene with the leaves before him to take in the vaster commotion of the skies. It appears as if the third canto shows in comparison with the previous cantos – a turning-point. Whereas Shelley had accepted death and changes in life in the first and second canto, he now turns to wistful reminiscence recalls an alternative possibility of transcendence. From line 26 to line 36 he gives an image of
nature. But if we look closer at line 36, we realize that the sentence is not what it appears to be at first sight, because it obviously means so sweet that one feels faint in describing them. At the end of the canto the poet tells us that a heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed. This may be a reference to the years that have passed and chained and bowed, the hope of the people who fought for freedom and were literally imprisoned. The West Wind acts as a force for change and forward movement in the human and natural world.
西风颂查良铮译本
第一节
哦，狂暴的西风，秋之生命的呼吸！你无形，但枯死的落叶被你横扫，有如鬼魅碰到了巫师，纷纷逃避；黄的，黑的，灰的，红得像患肺痨，呵，重染瘟疫的一群：西风呵，是你以车驾把有翼的种子催送到黑暗的冬床上，它们就躺在那里，像是墓中的死穴，冰冷，深藏，低贱，直等到春天，你碧空的姊妹吹起她的喇叭，在沉睡的大地上响遍，（唤出嫩芽，像羊群一样，觅食空中）将色和香充满了山峰和平原。不羁的精灵呵，你无处不远行，破坏者兼保护者：听吧，你且聆听！这一节翻译出了诗篇整体的气势。“横扫、鬼魅、红得像患肺痨、不羁的精灵”选词讲究。最后一句翻译出了呼告的表达效果。
第二节
没入你的急流，当高空一片混乱，流云像大地的枯叶一样被撕扯脱离天空和海洋的纠缠的枝干。成为雨和电的使者：它们飘落在你的
磅礴之气的蔚蓝的波面，有如狂女的飘扬的头发在闪烁，从天穹的最遥远而模糊的边沿直抵九霄的中天，到处都在摇曳欲来雷雨的卷发，对濒死的一年你唱出了葬歌，而这密集的黑夜将成为它广大墓陵的一座圆顶，里面正有你的万钧之力的凝结；那是你的浑然之气，从它会迸涌黑色的雨，冰雹和火焰：哦，你听！
这一节同样选词丰富，尤其是比喻句翻译得栩栩如生，“狂女飘扬的头发、直抵九霄的中天、摇曳、万钧之力的凝结、浑然之气”等词势如贯虹。
第三节
是你，你将蓝色的地中海唤醒，而它曾经昏睡了一整个夏天，被澄澈水流的回旋催眠入梦，就在巴亚海湾的一个浮石岛边，它梦见了古老的宫殿和楼阁在水天辉映的波影里抖颤，而且都生满青苔、开满花朵，那芬芳真迷人欲醉！呵，为了给你让一条路，大西洋的汹涌的浪波把自己向两边劈开，而深在渊底那海洋中的花草和泥污的森林虽然枝叶扶疏，却没有精力；听到你的声音，它们已吓得发青：一边颤栗，一边自动萎缩：哦，你听！
本节最后两句是亮点，“吓得发青”符合表达习惯，比较地道。
第四节
哎，假如我是一片枯叶被你浮起，假如我是能和你飞跑的云雾，是一个波浪，和你的威力同喘息，假如我分有你的脉搏，仅仅不如你那么自由，哦，无法约束的生命！假如我能像在少年时，凌风而舞便成了你的伴侣，悠游天空（因为呵，那时候，要想追你上云霄，似乎并非
梦幻），我就不致像如今这样焦躁地要和你争相祈祷。哦，举起我吧，当我是水波、树叶、浮云！我跌在生活底荆棘上，我流血了！这被岁月的重轭所制服的生命原是和你一样：骄傲、轻捷而不驯。
同样，排比句的翻译气势磅礴，选词考究，句式灵活，读来朗朗上口。第五节
把我当作你的竖琴吧，有如树林：尽管我的叶落了，那有什么关系！你巨大的合奏所振起的音乐将染有树林和我的深邃的秋意：虽忧伤而甜蜜。呵，但愿你给予我狂暴的精神！奋勇者呵，让我们合一！请把我枯死的思想向世界吹落，让它像枯叶一样促成新的生命！哦，请听从这一篇符咒似的诗歌，就把我的话语，像是灰烬和火星从还未熄灭的炉火向人间播散！让预言的喇叭通过我的嘴唇把昏睡的大地唤醒吧！西风啊，如果冬天来了,春天还会远吗?
“深邃的秋意”选词优美；“灰烬、火星、播散”看似普通词语却把原文之意表达得惟妙惟肖。最后一句本诗的点睛之笔，译者同样以设问的方式呈现出来，读来朗朗上口。
参考文献
[1] 李志斌、苏文菁《外国文学作品选》长江文学出版社，2012.
[2] 覃先美,李阳. 英美修辞学概论. 长沙:湖南师范大学出版社, 2006.
[3] 辛中华，雪莱《西风颂》主题探索，内蒙古工业大学报.