Music and Drama in "Ode To The West Wind"

“Ode to The West Wind” is like a grand dramatic music piece (might be an opera scene), in which different voices interplaying with each other create the drama. The characters in this scene are the west wind, the speaker and other things in the unawakened human world (dead leaves, the blue Mediterranean, etc.)

The west wind is characterized by a violent and gloomy voice, as the ocean or storm motif in Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. The speaker is dying to express his passion, but his sound is mute. He asks the west wind to lift him and to make him its lyre. But the west wind never replies, because it doesn’t hear him. And he asks the west wind to drive his dead thoughts over the universe and scatter his words among mankind, because nobody can hear him.

Other things in the unawakened human world sound helpless or languid. I hear the moans of the loose clouds when they like earth’s decaying leaves are shed and the yawns of the blue Mediterranean when it is wakened from its summer dreams. I even hear the silence of death when the winged seeds lying cold and low on their dark wintry bed, each like a corpse within its grave.

In this poem, the west wind has complete dominance over the human world. The Atlantic’s level powers cleave themselves into chasms for its path, while the sea-blooms and the oozy woods know its voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear. The speaker and the rest of the human world are powerless and helpless. Besides what I say above, the last line of the poem (“If winter comes, will spring be far behind”) add color to their weakness.

For me, “Ode to The West Wind” is an autumn poem, because of the descriptions of many typical pictures in autumn, such as withered leaves in the wind. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker even says directly, “O wild west wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being!” So in the last line, he wishes in autumn for the spring’s coming. He knows for sure after autumn comes the dead winter. But with a mite of hope that spring, the season of new birth, will come after the dead winter, he enjoys the fierce spirit of autumn (and winter).

Shelley’s idea of autumn is fairly new to me. I usually consider autumn to be a season of mellow fruitfulness and of the most pleasant weather in a year; while winter a time when a year is dying and people expect for the world’s new birth. However, I believe Shelley’s idea of autumn brings about a more thrillingly sorrowful effect.

In “Frühlingstraum (Spring Dreams)” from Franz Schubert’s well-known song cycle Winterreise, the poet wishes in cold and dismal winter for spring’s coming, dreaming of the colorful flowers and the sound of endless birdsongs. Awakened by the cock and the raven, he realizes that the beauty and sweetness in his dream are only illusions. What sorrowful beauty and sweetness!

However, how can it be compared with the sorrow in “Ode to The West Wind”, in which the speaker prays to the wild wind, the fierce spirit of autumn. He enjoys the west wind’s cruelty, humbly asking that after he endures the wild autumn and the dead winter, whether spring will be far behind.

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Here is a link to Overture of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. The ocean or storm motif is presented in the beginning.

Here is a link to Thomas Quasthoff's wonderful performance of "Frühlingstraum" from Franz Schubert's song cycle Winterreise.