Engliterarium

Throughout his life he dreamt of a new society, a new world, absolutely free from tyranny and exploration. He was a dreamer of dreams and was always at war with the existing world of complete chaos and confusion. He led a ceaseless war against the existing political, social and economic institutions.

In spite of the failure of the French Revolution, the social and political upheaval in France played a great part in influencing English Romantic Movement. The Revolution was characterized by three phases which affected English romanticism. These are:

These phases had a deep impact on Shelley’s mind. Shelley was the only passionate singer of the Revolution. This was not because he looked beyond the instant disaster to a future reconstruction, but because his imagination was far less concrete than those of his great contemporaries. Ideas inspired him, not episodes. So he drank in the doctrines of Godwin, and ignored the tragic perplexities of the actual situations. Compton Rickett is of the view:

Shelley’s revolutionary attitude was constructive in the long run. In his preface to “The Revolt of Islam”, he pointed out that the wanted to kindle in the bottom of his readers a virtuous enthusiasm for liberty and justice, that faith and hope in something good, which neither violence nor prejudice, can ever wholly extinguish among mankind. In another work “Prometheus Unbound” Shelley made his hero arch-rebel and compared him with Satan of “Paradise Lost”. In the concluding stanza of the song there is a return of belief that Earth shall share in the Emancipation of man:

In “Queen Mab”, he propagated the necessity of reform. As a poet, Shelley conceived to become the inspirer and judge of men. He had a passion for reforming the world which was the direct outcome of that attitude of mind which the French Revolution had inculcated in him.

A third idea contained in the original conception of the Revolution was ‘The Return of Nature’. It held that the essential happiness of man consisted in a simple life in accordance with Nature. Not that it was peculiar to the Revolution; but that it came as a logical result from the first idea. It is a well-known fact that when man groans under the heels of tyranny, corruption, selfish interest and social conventions; when he “lives like worms wriggling in a dish, away from the torment of intelligence and the uselessness of culture”; he cries, almost unwillingly:

Shelley found in Skylark a symbol of the ideal poet who lives in isolation. He appeals to the bird:

“Ode to the West Wind”, was also written by the poet under the direct influence of the times. The moral, social and political regeneration seemed to Shelley possible in the atmosphere of Nature. The ‘West Wind’ seemed to be an expression of this background. Finding his life miserable, he implores the wind:

Shelley’s revolutionary passion flows from his idealism. All his life he dreamed of an ideal world without evil, suffering and misery. It would be a world where reason would rule supreme, and Equality, Liberty and Fraternity wound be no empty words. “Ode to West Wind” expresses the poet’s intense suffering at the tyranny of life and his great hope in the bright future of humanity. The poem symbolizes three things; freedom, power and change. Clutton Brock, his great critic says:

Thus the poet finds the “West Wind” a fit symbol to raise and enliven his spirit out of the depths of desolation, dejection and weariness. Moreover the ‘Wind’ should scatter his thoughts among the universe:

It may be said that the Revolution to Shelley was a spiritual awakening, the beginning of a new life. He traced all evil in life to slavery. Free and natural development is only possible when he enjoy liberty. And liberty in his opinion was freedom from external restraints. Freedom was the first watchword of the French Revolution. Thus the Revolution kindled the imaginative life of Shelley as it did that of Wordsworth. But the fire in Wordsworth extinguished before long; whereas in Shelley it kept burning all through his brief career and permeated all through is poetic work. Cazamian said:

Shelley belongs to that rare species of mankind whom reason and feeling convert revolutionaries in the flush of youth an who remain so for the rest of their life.

Love for Nature is one of the prerequisites of all the Romantics and Shelley is no exception. Love for Nature is one of the key-notes of his poetry. His poetry abounds in Nature imagery. ‘On Love’ reflects colourful Nature imagery and glorification of Nature. He shows fruition and fulfillment in his poems. Other poems e.g. ‘A Dream of the Unknown’, ‘Ode to the Westwind’, ‘The Cloud’, ‘To Skylark’, ‘To the Moon’, etc. are remarkable poems of Nature in which we find a profusion of Nature.

Like Wordsworth, Shelley believes that Nature exercises a healing influence on man’s personality. He finds solace and comfort in Nature and feels its soothing influence on his heart.

Shelley, in his poetry, appears as a pantheist too. In fact, his attitude towards Nature is analogous to that of Wordsworth, whao, greatly influenced Shelly. However, as against Wordsworth, who linked the spirit in Nature with God, Shelley, on the other hand, linked it and identified it with love, for he was an atheist and a skeptic. He believes that this spirit ‘wields the world with never wearied love’.

“Adonais” reflects the most striking examples of Shelley’s pantheism. At an occasion, he thinks that Keats ‘is made one with Nature’ for the power, moving in Nature. Nature’s spirit is eternal. ‘The one remains, many change and pass’. He agrees that there is some intelligence controlling Nature. In fact, he fuses the platonic philosophy of love with pantheism. He finds Nature alive, capable of feeling and thinking like a human organism. Wordsworth equates it with God, Shelley with love.

Shelley loved the indefinite and the changeful in Nature. He presents the changing and indefinite moods of Nature e.g. clouds, wind, lightening etc. ‘Ode to the Westwind’ reflects this particular trend of Shelley, wherein, he shows the West Wind driving the dead leaves, scattering the living seeds, awakening the Mediterranean and making the sea-plants feel its force. His poetry lacks pictorial definiteness and, often, his Nature description is clothed in mist. As compared with Coleridge, Wordsworth etc. he is the least pictorial. It is partly due to the abstract imagery and partly, owing to swift succession of similes which blur the picture. Yet, sometimes, his image is definitely concrete. The picture of the blue Mediterranean, lulled to sleep by his crystalline streams and awakened by Westwind is virtually remarkable and substantial.

Despite his pantheistic attitude, Shelley conceives every object of Nature as possessing a distinct individuality of its own, too, though he believes that the spirit of love unites the whole universe, including Nature, yet he treats all the natural objects as distinguishable entities. The sun, the moon, the stars, the rainbow – all have been treated as separate beings. This capacity of individualizing the separate forces for Nature is termed as Shelley’s myth making power which is best illustrated in “Ode to the Westwind”. He gives the West Wind, the ocean an independent life and personalities. He presents the Mediterranean sleeping and then being awakened by the West Wind, just like a human body.

The ancient Greek gave human attributes to the natural objects whom they personified. Shelley, too, personifies them, but he retains their true characteristics. He personifies the West wind ad the Mediterranean, but both remains wind and ocean. They have not been endowed with human qualities. He has almost scientific attitude towards the objects of Nature. Whatever he says is scientifically true. The Westwind virtually drives the dead leaves and scatters the seeds to be grown in this wind; the sea plants undoubtedly feel the destructive effects of the strong Westwind. Likewise, clouds do bring rain, dew-drops, snow, lightening, thunder etc. He observes the natural phenomenon with a scientific eye, though the description remains highly imaginative.

Time and again, Shelley’s Nature description has a touch of optimism having all the sufferings, tortures, miseries of the world. In “Ode to the Westwind”, he hopes for the best and is confident that “If Winter comes, can spring be far behind?” His nature treatment is multidimensional; scientific, philosophic, intellectual, mythical and of course human. He is a marvelous poet of Nature.