Ode to the West Wind

“England in 1819” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1819)

This is one of Shelley’s earlier, more overtly political poems. He uses the form of a Shakespearean sonnet to savagely critique the English monarchy. The visceral language drips with disgust:         “Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know, / But leechlike to their fainting country cling / Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow” (Lines 4-6). Shelley wrote this poem in the wake of the Peterloo Massacre, a clash between English soldiers and peaceful protestors resulting in 15 civilian deaths.

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats (1819)

One of Keats’s most iconic poems and one of the most iconic Romantic odes, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” puts the Romantic obsession with art and imagination on full display. Like Shelley in “Ode to the West Wind,” Keats elevates a mundane subject with inventive language, building on his images to make observations about the human condition.

“Address to A Child During A Boisterous Winter Evening” by Dorothy Wordsworth (1815)

This poem by fellow Romantic poet (and sister of the much-more-famous William Wordsworth) Dorothy Wordsworth bears some strange similarities to Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind.” It’s a rhymed, metered poem in five parts that begins with extended personification of the wind. The significant divergences make for a productive compare and contrast exercise between the two poems.

“Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt” by Ross Gay (2015)

Poet Pádraig Ó Tuama reads this poem by Ross Gay from his collection Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. This poem couldn’t be more formally distinct from Shelley’s. It is a free verse single stanza of varying line lengths with no rhyme scheme whatsoever. Still, they are both odes, and comparing the two illustrates the wild potential for creativity within the form.