Poem mock

Nature introduction

Both Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’ and Blake’s ‘The Tyger’ explore the use of power in political regime change through natural imagery and Romantic descriptions of nature. Shelley, an exiled radical expressed his criticisms of the corrupt British monarchy through his portrayal of the overwhelming force of nature, whilst Blake reveals his religious rebellion and critique of the organised Church and the Industrial Revolution through his explorations of an uncontrollable sublime force. Both poets utilise the concept of the sublime to diminish human agency and highlight the lack of power within corrupt institutes compared to the natural world. In Shelley’s poem, the speaker is positioned as a spokesperson for social reform, and in Blake’s poem, the speaker appears to interrogate the ‘fearful symmetry’ of existence. 

Nature OTWW 1 - quote

"Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead / Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing"

Nature OTWW 1 - ao2

- Terza rima rhyme scheme = interlocking momentum - mirrors uncontrollable wind power

- Nature’s purgative force = a physical inevitability not a possibility

- Simile = implies old world is spiritually dead + requires nature to be metaphysical exorcist

- Polysyndetic list of sickly colours = leaves dead

Nature OTWW 1 - ao5

- Harold Bloom

- Views this as a myth of inspiration

- Wind = spirit of revolution

- Paul de man = if the presence is unseen it reveals Shelley’s anxiety regarding whether his radical vision can actually manifest ina void of political failure

Nature OTWW 2 - quote 

 "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is... Be thou, Spirit fierce, / My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!"

Nature OTWW 2 - ao2 "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is... Be thou, Spirit fierce, / My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!"

- Supplicates himself through staccato imperative verbs

- Evaluates nature as primary ‘legislator’ + poet as mere instrumental ‘voice’

- Demand for ontological synthesis attempts to collapse the distance between mortal poet + sublime force

- Shift forest - unextinguished heart

- Indicates scaling of power

- Shelley presents his dead thoughts as latent sparks - require elemental breath of nature.

Nature TT 1 - quote 

 "What the hammer? what the chain? / In what furnace was thy brain? / What the anvil?"

Nature TT 1 - ao2  "What the hammer? what the chain? / In what furnace was thy brain? / What the anvil?"

- Blacksmith semantic field = nature’s power as manufactured with labor

- Furnace = represents internal force of nature

- Power of natural world driven by an almost volcanic energy

- Chain = restraint symbol, nature is sublime, terrifying + beautiful.

- Trochaic tetrameter = relentless hammering pulse

- Mirrors physical labour of the forge

Nature TT 2 - quote

Did he who made the Lamb make thee? ... Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"

Nature TT 2 - ao2 Did he who made the Lamb make thee? ... Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"

- Lamb juxtaposes tyger (innocence vs power)

- Symbolic of moral duality of natural world

- Final stanza lexical shift ‘could’ - ‘would’

- Technical capability - audacity

- Is the same divine power responsible for peace + violence