Wind blowing the stanzas

In Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" there is not only the description of the wind in the poem, but it feels as though the wind is actually present for the reader. The poem jumps quickly and presents many different images. Shelley does this by writing very short, three or even two line stanzas. The small number of lines in each stanza gives each small chunk of writing a sort of lightness. It is as if Shelley wanted the wind to be able to blow the reader through the poem, bringing with him or her each pervious stanza. If that were the case, he would have to ensure that no stanza were to heavy for the wind to blow along.
I also really liked the image or idea that Shelley presents when he offers the hypothetical reality in which he is a "dead leaf" (43). It contorts the relationship between poet and poem by giving the poem and the wind its own course, separate from the poet's control. He relinquishes his ownership over the poem and the various ways it can be interpreted when he presents himself as a "wave to pant beneath thy power" (45). The power he refers to could be seen as the power of the wind that carries the dead leaf in whatever direction it is blowing, and then discards the leaf in a new place without any concern for the leaf's desires. However, it also seems to suit the poem that Shelley is some how beneath his own poem. As the same line ends on a discontinued thought, and then picks back up with the start of the next stanza, there is the sense that the poem is speaking to itself. It is almost as if the stanzas are somehow interconnected in a way that even Shelley did not necessarily intend, but that they somehow work together to create something larger than Shelley created when he put the words on the page. All of this functions nicely within the idea that the wind blows things in all directions, reshuffling the natural world, and recreating the visual effect of an environment. This poem works in a similar way in that the stanzas seem to all have had their own place, and then the wind came and blew them all together onto the page.

Vishnu and Siva

In many ways, Shelley often acts as Siva and Vishnu when he writes. Every Shelley poem we have read so far focuses on the importance of paradoxes. For example, in the “Ode to the West Wind” the speaker says that the winter prepares for spring and later that sorrow prepares a way for joy. The wind brings about these seasons and changes, which makes the wind both a preserver of beauty and harmony. Unlike Wordsworth’s usually comforting imagery and inspirational thoughts on nature, Shelley addresses the fact that nature is a preserver (as Wordsworth points out often) but nature is also a destroyer. When winter is here, spring is always following closely behind, and the wind takes winter away in order to bring spring back.  

Similarly to “To a Sky-lark”, Shelley begs the ‘spirit’ in the poem, in this case the West wind, to teach him how to be like the wind. He shows a need for this understanding and begs for the wind to make him its lyre with hopes of eventually becoming the wind. If Shelley were to take on this position, he too would be the preserver and the destroyer. He cannot beg for nature’s gifts without accepting the complicated duality of it.

In his writing Shelley attempts to be like the West wind by showing presence through absence or through paradox. I believe Shelley thought of poets as paradoxes as well. He believed nature was a powerful thing that humans could never fully understand, this is especially conveyed in “Mont Blanc.” He personifies the mountain because it is so vast and inexplicable in any other form. Later in the poem though, Shelley questions what nature would be without man to perceive it. This is a very complicated paradox where poets (and people) are nothing without nature and nature is nothing without it. This is not to say that either is equivalent. Shelley makes certain to point out that the one of the only contributions that can be made by people is to stand in utter awe of nature yet nature is timeless and powerful and serves as an element of inspiration and destruction.

 

On a Sky-Lark

The separation of skylark in the title is interesting—in the footnote it’s one word, so I wonder what was the normal way to write it at that time/is now. I looked it up on oed.com and found it both ways. Written as it is in “To a Sky-Lark,” the emphasis on “sky” as an adjective describing the noun—“lark”—is greater. It draws attention to the other meaning of "lark," too--and increases this consideration of the bird as simple/fun/amusing--not knowing pain. The emphasis of the word is  more split—in skylark it is more strongly on the first syllable while Sky-Lark gives both parts of the word equal weight. It also implies that there may be a lark that is not in the sky—perhaps the emphasis is made to make clear that the bird the speaker is referring to is flying, and therefore probably singing (at least according to the footnote). This is interesting—I don’t know that there is any place in the poem where the bird is on the ground or it is even acknowledged that the bird does come down—the speaker seems to only view it as going “higher and still higher” (6) and, in accordance with this, sees the bird as an idol above humanity, with “ignorance of pain” (75).

I wonder about the first footnote: “The European skylark is a small bird that sings only in flight, often when it is too high to be visible”

How important is this? Couldn’t we have figured out that this poem was about a bird on our own? I definitely think the ideas are interesting and beautiful—a bird that can only sing when it can fly, and when we cannot see it—and I wouldn’t necessarily have known it after reading the poem if I hadn’t read the footnote. I wonder if this kind of information about skylarks was common knowledge at the time (that seems like an odd idea)?

This fact does seem to align with the ideas of the poem, of course—the bird only sings when it is flying (not in pain but transcending it) while humans “sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought” (90). The idea of not being able to see the bird is also reflected in the poem—“Until we hardly see—we feel that it is there” (25).

While the speaker is says he is jealous of the skylark’s ability to sing most beautifully of happiness and have the world listen to its “harmonious madness” (103)—I wonder whether he is just simply jealous of the skylark’s inability to feel pain---or perhaps the only value he sees in pain is the beauty that results from it, and therefore he is jealous of the skylark's ability to have that beauty without the pain.

here are some random associations I made while reading this poem that may have no relevance but you may enjoy:

Marianne Moore's "The Fish"

It’s very different obviously but the rhyme scheme/stanza arrangement just made me think of it//along with the nature-focus

Elton John’s “Skyline Pigeon”

I know this is talking about a pigeon, which may be weird (maybe not as pretty as skylarks) but it is also in the sky

Also here’s what a skylark really sounds like:

There may be something to this “world should listen then—as I am listening now” thing///I listened to this a lot a lot after I found it. Now that we can separate the birdsong from the bird with youtube videos, though, I wonder if it really has the same meaning or can sound quite as good.

Elegy and Line Break in Shelley’s “To Wordsworth”

I think this post builds off of Addie and Jared's thoughts on "To Wordsworth." Like Addie, I too was surprised at the different readings this seemingly simplistic short poem presented.

On first reading Shelley’s pseudo-elegy of Wordsworth, which is not about Wordsworth’s passing from life into death but rather his passing from a younger frame of thinking to a more conservative mode (according to the first footnote), I was disappointed by what seemed like a rather straightforward and un-strange poem in its description of the subject. The figurative language Shelley uses to compliment Wordsworth’s old viewpoint, composed of “sweet dreams,” a “lone star,” and a “rock-built refuge” (4, 7, and 9) seemed rather tired and cliché. Bloom suggests that this is Shelley mocking Wordsworth; I wouldn’t read the poem the same way and was far more interested in looking beyond the content of the poem and trying to figure out other, more subtle methods of reading the poem.

The content of the poem is obviously important: but what is more striking to me is the first point I made, which is that this reads elegiacally, despite its subject still being alive at the time of Shelley writing the poem. Bloom argues that Shelley is presenting himself as the new Romantic poet, a successor to Wordsworth’s mantle; however, Shelley’s comment seems not championing the downfall of poor William, but instead genuinely grieve-felt “that thou shouldst cease to be” (15). What’s more interesting is that Wordsworth’s very existence, this “having been” (15), is bound up in his old poetic mode and beliefs. To Shelley, Wordsworth is only alive in the verse that believes in “childhood and youth, friendship and love’s first glow” (3). The “loss is mine,” admits Shelley, because to Wordsworth this loss is perhaps not deplorable (6) and Wordsworth himself literally keeps on living without self-mourning. But to Shelley, the poet having “desert[ed] these” provides the space to mourn Wordsworth, who is, perhaps, now deceased in spirit (14).  

The other interesting facet of the work seemed to hinge on the structure of the poem. Although the content wasn’t too gripping in my reading, I was fascinated by how Shelley played with the line break. Five of the fifteen lines run into the next without pause except by their existence as a line’s end. I especially enjoyed the playfulness of line 1, where the “Poet of Nature, though has wept to know” as if knowledge itself were a cause to weep. The followup – “that things depart” – is not much more specific in its complaint, but Shelley allows a kind of epistemological tragedy to dangle in front of the reader at the very start of the poem. That knowing could itself be an occasion for weeping seems to build off Milton’s Paradise Lost and the Edenic narrative that Wordsworth takes so much pride in re-building among crags and rivers. The other moment I thought this worked especially well was when Shelley comments that Wordsworth’s light, like a lone star shined (brilliantly!) but then, following the break from line 7 to line 8, we discover that the light shined on some frail bark. I wouldn’t read this, like Bloom does, as a criticism of Wordsworth. Instead, it seems to segregate Wordsworth further from every other poet and member of the throng and shows a greater tragedy: the first line simply displays his light, even as a lone star, and then we discover that it only shines on something frail, later described as “the blind and battling multitude” (10).

Sounds of "Mont Blanc"

          In “Mont Blanc” Shelley refers to sound talking about his own mind, the poet and narrator seeming to act as one, as well as the scene around him. This focus on the auditory spans from the first stanza through to the “Silence” (144) of the final line. And with all of these instances, Shelley seems to draw out the main dichotomy of the piece, that of the mind’s vision of nature and nature itself, from the philosophical (his reference to Plato comes in lines 41-48) all the way to the sensory. His comparison of the two caves points to this exactly, with the outer one “echoing to the Arve’s commotion,/ A loud sound no other sound can tame;” (30-1) and his own mind, “the still cave of the witch Poesy,/ Seeking among the shadows that pass by/ Ghosts of all things that are” (44-6). The caves are not only inherently different, one of action and the other of death, but different because of their sounds, the former “A loud sound no other sound can tame,” and the former “still.” But one of the most interesting instances of sound is in section 2 where Shelley describes the trees near the river.

[...]—thou dost lie,
Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,
Children of elder time, in whose devotion
The chainless winds still come and ever came
To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging
To hear—an old and solemn harmony; (19-24)

          Here, sound is both heard and made, yet none of this seems to be tainted by the human psyche. There is no human observer, only the wind “drinking [the tree’s] odours” (23) and coming “[t]o hear” the branches swinging. And yet nature does not revel in its own creation and adoration, but creates “an old and solemn harmony” (24). And yet nature as nature can have no sense of time for it is endless; the wind continues to fly without age. So here’s the downfall of Shelley’s nature, it is all in conversation with the human. The wind is personified with the ability to hear and taste, and thus is also left to understand these sensations in a human way. And in some ways it seems the wind understands this sensory blend as a man would understand his 20-year-old daily routine. And this reaction seems at odds with the grandeur and power in the rest of the poem. A point of dread in the midst of wonder.

The Shortcomings of Humanity in "Mont Blanc" and "To a Skylark"

            Both “Mont Blanc” and “To a Skylark” are poems that emphasize the inability of humans to define the world around them.  Both poems fail to resolve their central mysteries.  The narrator in “To the Skylark” attempts to understand how a bird can feel inexhaustible joy, while the narrator “Mont Blanc” attempts to separate nature from mind’s conception of it.  Both poems end in the narrators acquiescing to nature’s enigma.

            The narrator of “To a Skylark” exalts the bird as a “blithe Spirit!” (1) – a creature who knows no sadness.  However, the narrator struggles to directly define the winged creature, instead relying on diverse comparisons.  He notes the bird’s similarity to such disparate phenomena as “a cloud of fire” (8) and  “a star of Heaven” (18).  He finally admits of the bird, “What thou art we know not” (31).  The narrator directly inquires to the bird, “What is most like thee?” (32), suggesting that the bird is wiser than he in this respect.  The narrator questions whether the skylark is similar to humans (a “Poet” (36) 0r “maiden” (41) specifically), other animals (a glow-worm (46)) and even plants (a “rose” (51)).  The bird has so many diverse characteristics it is difficult to coalesce into one creation.  Shelley not only identifies the limitations of humans, but also those of poetry itself.

            Being unable to define the skylark, the narrator questions how the bird maintained its happiness, which seems to trump the efforts of humans to celebrate happiness (examples being the “Chorus Hymeneal, / Or triumphal chant” (66-67)) in sheer joyous power.  The narrator searches for logic in the bird’s capacity for seemingly unlimited delight, comparing the bird to humans whose happiness must always be tempered by “saddest thought” (90).  This is similar to the father in “Anecdote for Fathers” and his attempts to extract logic from his son’s childish musings.   The undertaking in “To a Skylark” ultimately proves futile, for the narrator cannot relate to the animal just as parent cannot relate to child.

                In “Mont Blanc,” the narrator demonstrates how his view of nature is entirely a construction of his mind.  Therefore, nature itself is indeterminate.  The narrator emphasizes this through the narrator’s own description of Mont Blanc, which he imbibes with all his senses. The narrator states, “I seem as in a trance sublime and strange / To muse on my own separate fantasy, / My own, my human mind” (35 - 37), directly articulating that his vision of nature is an individual conception and the world as he knows it would not exist if it were not for his mind.  This even includes religion, for “The secret Strength of things / Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome / Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!” (139-141).  “Mont Blanc” is a poem that accentuates how nature (like the intentions of the Skylark) is unknowable, because we as individuals are responsible for creating it.    

                As a possible solution to the question of why he cannot find the same happiness as the skylark, the narrator of “To the Skylark” looks to the bird itself for guidance.  He says to the bird, “Teach me half the gladness / That thy brain must know” (101-102).  By evoking this impossible exchange of knowledge between a bird and a human, Shelley demonstrates how true understanding is unattainable.  The curse of the poet, and of humanity, is living with unresolved mysteries.  We do not know the inner-mechanisms of the mind of a small child or of a skylark, just as we do not know what exists after death.  A poet's courage is revealed when he or she is willing to contemplate these issues.

Sky-Lark and Intellectual Beauty

"Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" is a praise to the "Spirit of Beauty" that Shelley seems to use as a muse. He "vowed that [he] would dedicate [his] powers" to the ghost like idea of beauty (13,61). While reading "To a Sky-Lark", it felt as though Shelley was talking about this same spirit but in the form of the bird.

There are many comparisons of the sky-lark to some type of spirit or creature that isn't of the earth. Immediatley, the bird is referred to as a "blithe Spirit" who soars "higher still and higher / From the earth" (1,6-7). This no longer seems like a bird as it is said to be "unbodied" and "a star of Heaven / in the broad day-light / ... unseen" (15,18-20).

The bird is also praised for being so beautiful and singing "music sweet as love" (45). It seems as though Shelley writes about the bird because the spirit of beauty is coming through its music. He is struck by how it sounds and wants to recreate the loveliness with his own writing.

This similar theme shows that Shelley thinks of nature as his muse, or as something he wants to harness in his writing. Like Addie said in her previous post, the last stanza makes it seem as though Shelley is jealous of the sky-lark's ability to cause others to listen to its own beauty. Shelley wants the ability to share the spirit of beauty the way the bird does.