![]() ![]() Finally, Pindar’s odes were written in regular stanzas: a strophe, an antistrophe, and an epode. However, also incorporated within this celebratory poem were reminders of the victor’s mortality, a prayer to ward off bad luck, an awareness of the pitfalls of vanity or the dangers of provoking envy in the gods, and the importance of inherent excellence. The formal structure of the Pindaric ode included an announcement of victory, praise for the champion, an invocation to the gods, and praise of the athlete’s city and family. The tone was emotional, exalted, and intense, incorporating whatever divine myths were appropriate to the occasion. These odes commemorated some of the highest human achievements. The first type is based on the odes written by Pindar (between 522 and 442 B.C.) that were designed for choric song and dance to be performed in a Dionysiac theatre (or in the Agora to celebrate athletic victories). Two types of odes can be identified in “Ode to the West Wind.” In other words, it is a mode of public address. The ode is a very formal, complexly organized poem that was meant for important state functions and ceremonies, such as a ruler’s birthday, an accession, a funeral, or the unveiling of a public work. In its most simple terms, the genre of this poem is an ode, a poem that originated in the ancient Greek world and was intended to be sung or chanted. The structure is equally important in understanding the poem. Shelley will employ all of these attributes of the wind within his poem. The wind can have regenerative powers, but it can also mean intimation, something stated in an indirect or concealed manner in this sense the wind can be a messenger or prophet of things to come. Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” is an address to a powerful though invisible agent, and a wish for the blessing of poetic inspiration. In this poem, as in so much of Romantic poetry, the wind and the surrounding natural environment are thought of as linked to the poet’s inner being, and thus the wind becomes a source of spiritual and poetic vitality. Shelley’s note to the poem tells us it was written in the Cascine wood near Florence “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,” a place where the rustling leaves are remarkably loud. ![]() “Ode to the West Wind” was begun in October 1819 and published in the Prometheus Unbound volume in 1820. If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? ![]()
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