Keats And Shelly

8 Pages 1993 Words

A season of autumn is traditionally associated with dying of nature and expectations of the

following winter time. For Romantic poets who are known for their extraordinary sensitivity

to natural moods the period of fall becomes a great force for poetic creativity. Percy Bysshe

Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and John Keats's ode "To Autumn" are two beautiful

poems which were blown to their authors by the English autumn. Both poets are influenced

by the seasonal process in nature which ushers them into the mood of transience and aging.

However, the two of them differently perceive the same natural manifestations.


The radical poet Shelley observes the deadly changes in nature caused by the autumnal wind

with an expectation for the following spring and revival. In the seasonal process he sees a

symbolic prototype for possible revolutionary changes both in his own life and in the existing

social structure of his country. His "Ode to the West Wind" primarily appeals to the active

sublime power of the west wind to give him that energy which is able to change the world. At

the same time, another Romantic poet Keats accepts the idea of aging and accomplishment. In

his ode "To Autumn" he celebrates fruitfulness of the autumn and bides farewell to the

passing away year and together with it to his great poetry. The Romantic autumnal odes of

Shelley and Keats are born from the poetic observations of natural changes and from their

ability to penetrate the mood of fall which provides them an incentive for artistic creativity. In

"Ode to the West Wind" Shelley mainly concentrates his attention on his observations of the

death caused by the autumnal wind. He compares the "dead leaves" to "ghosts", and the

"winged seeds" to dead bodies which "lie cold and low... within [their] grave". All these

images talk to the author of the "dying year", of transience of time and of ag...