Perspectives

To better understand a poem like “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley – and any literary work, for what matters – it is necessary to be able to put the text into perspective and focus on other aspects related to the context in which it was written.

Other texts by the same author

Percy Bysshe Shelley was a British Romantic poet, whose most famous poems remain “Ozymandias”, “The Cloud” and “Ode to the West Wind”. We recommend you read “Ozymandias”.

In this poem, the poet explores the theme of transience, connected to both individuals and empires. The poem depicts the decay of the empire of Ramesses II and the sad image of a single statue remaining of what once was a flourishing realm. Read the poem and compare the way in which the theme of decay is explored there with the way in which it is explored in “Ode to the West Wind”. While “Ozymandias” depicts the decay of rules and empires, the po...