请准备回答问题和接下来的讨论

请准备回答问题和接下来的讨论 - 1 - Percy B Shelley (1792-1822) 1. Traditional classification of the two kinds of romantic poets: But owing to their differences in political attitudes, they split into two schools. One group turned to the past, i.e., the merry old England as their ideal. The other group held out an ideal of the future society which was free from oppression and - 2 - exploration. Wordsworth ---- Lake District, Nature ---- To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower, Even the looser stones that cover the highway, I gave a moral life. Byron ---- lonely, physically handicapped ---- hatred for all injustice, sympathy with the down-trodden and the oppressed. a libertine< --- > the poet with a noble heart Don Juan When a Man Hath no Freedom to Fight For at Home Let him combat for that of his neighbors; Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome, And get knocked on his head for his labors. But now at thirty years my hair is gray (I wonder what it will be like at forty? I thought of a wig the other day)--- My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I Have squandered my whole summer while 'twas May, And feel no more the spirit to retort; I Have spent my life, both interest and principal, And deem not, what deemed, my soul invincible.‖ ------ Don Juan - 3 - Shelley Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! . . . . . . Percy Shelley, the person English Romantic poet who rebelled against English - 4 - politics and conservative values. A social outcast for his life style. He drew no essential distinction between poetry and politics. ----- 1792, fascinated by the Gothic and the magical, and angered by all forms of tyranny, whether political or parental. Shelley’s rebellious temperament manifested not only in the family, but also at the school, he refused to conform to societal expectations. ―Mad Shelley‖. ----- Eton and then Oxford: Shelley was never very devoted to formal course of study. Began to publish ---- The Necessity of Atheism --- expelled in 1811 --- disowned. Shelley had been brought up to be a politician, and a conservative one at that, but his later development into a radical and atheist poet was in severe contrast both to his education and his family's wishes. ----- eloped in 1811 with Harriet Westbrook, (a fellow radical and soul-sister). The following two years traveling in England and Ireland ---- a small community of free spirits in Devon ---- was watched by Home Office spies . - 5 - In 1813,Queen Mab, (the "Chartist's Bible"). Eloped with Mary Godwin in 1814. (the daughter of the philosopher and anarchist William Godwin). (Mary's young stepsister Claire was in the company). The death of his grandfather brought a measure of financial security. ----- 1816 was significant year for Shelleys: Harriet drowned herself --- Shelley married Mary, his favorite son William born --- the summer with Lord Byron at Lake Geneva. (Mary Shelley: Frankenstein.) A short return-visit to England that year brought a darker vision to Shelley’s life. - 6 - ------ The years after 1816 were a period of great creativity: ----1817, The Revolt of Islam, a political pamphlet ---- 1819, Prometheus Unbound, a lyrical drama drawn from Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. ---- 1819, The Mask of Anarchy Ode to the West Wind ----1820, Ode to a Skelark . . . ----- In 1822, Italy: Byron, Hunt, Shelley had decided to form a political and literary journal, The Liberal. Drowned when his boat the Don Juan sank in a storm, returning from a welcoming visit to the Hunts. A legendary death. Shelley's body washed ashore several days later. His heart, which refused to burn, was first passed to Hunt who later gave it to Mary Shelley. When Mary Shelley died in Gravestone of Percy 1851 her husband's Shelley heart was found - 7 - amongst her belongings. Poem translation: To a Skylark Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue depth thou wingest And singing still does soar, and soaring ever singest. …… Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then – as I am listening now. - 8 - , ..…. - 9 - One word is too often profaned One word is too often profaned For me to profane it; One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it; One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother; And pity from thee more dear Than that from another. I can give not what men call love; But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow? (to be learned by heart) Questions for the next class: 1. How does the west wind work as a preserver and destroyer? 2. Why does the poet claim identification with the west wind? - 10 - - 11 - - 12 - Ode to the west wind I O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, - 13 - Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill; Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear! II Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge - 14 - Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear! III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear! - 15 - IV If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seem'd a vision—I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud. V Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit - 16 - fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? - 17 - Questions and analysis: Destroyer and Preserver (death and life)The wind of destruction for which the "West Wind" stands is part of the cycle of nature. The revival is necessary, because without it nothing new can develop. This is as radical as Shelley’s political opinion. Every part or life is a revival/birth, but death is part of it, too. The verse ends with an appeal to the "Wild Spirit", which is the destroyer and preserver, to listen to Shelley and his ideas and demands. II 1. The meaning of the first three lines? 2. Who is Maenad? What effect can you feel in comparing the loose clouds to the hair of the Maenad? 3. What is the meaning of ―locks‖? ―Dirge‖? ―The dying year‖? - 18 - night, i.e., the death of one day, i.e., the death of one year, the dome of a vast tomb The image of death + the image of the promise of life The second stanza presents the wind as a "stream" in which the clouds like dead leaves are taken away from heaven and sea and are then carried away. So the wind is not only part of our world, it has got also something to do with the universe (heaven, ocean). The world is a huge grave and the wind and the air are bringing "black rain, and fire, and hail". Shelley’s presentation of the world and its condition at that time is negative, but also positive, because Shelley hopes that because of the cycle of life the bad and old things will be destroyed and so new things can develop and grow. III 1. What is the image of ―blue Mediterranean‖? It lies in its summer dream, lulled by the coils …beside a pumice isle: quiet, sweat, refined, mysterious, and delicate --------> In its sleep it sees the old palaces ….quivering, - 19 - overgrown with moss and flowers: decay, ruin. 2. What is Atlantic’s power? Destroyer What effect the Atlantic’s waves produce on the refined Mediterranean world? Chasm and cleave: sharp and powerful (mighty strength, wildness) ---under the influence of the West Wind … The third stanza deals with the awakening of nature. The Mediterranean has been awakened by the "West Wind" out of his long sleep in which it has seen "old palaces and towers‖ which are covered with "moss and flowers". But the third verse also tries to convey the power of the "West Wind". Because of it, the Atlantic separates and "the sea-blooms and oozy woods" change their colour and become grey. Conclusion of the three parts: 1. It tore the dead leaves from the trees; at the same time, it also carried the seeds to the earth, planting the elements of new lives. 2. West wind affected the clouds violently. But from those clouds congregated by the vapors, possibilities of life are created and burst out. 3. Atlantic waves, under the effect of the West wind, broke the sleeps of Mediterranean, destroying the decay and ruins there, and thereby bringing vitality to the dullness. - 20 - IV and V : West Wind -------- poet himself IV. How does the poet describe himself in boyhood? IV. The Fourth stanza differs from the preceding ones: Shelley expresses his wishes. He wants to be as free as the wind, but not like it. He wants to be a dead leaf, a cloud or a wave, which escorts him on its way. The company of the wind would give him the chance to get his youth and his liberty back. And the wind could also help Shelley, because when he wrote the poem he had got a lot of problems (his two children died). The "West Wind" is meant to protect him from "the thorns of life". Life has changed him. Because of all the events he is "chained and bowed", but still "tameless, and swift, and proud". He compares himself with the wind and its liberty and untamedness. V. 1. What’s the connection between the image of ―lyre‖, ―the forest‖ and ―west wind‖? 2. What are the ―dead thoughts‖? - 21 - 3. What the two metaphors he uses in these lines? (leaves, ashes sparks---seem to be weak, tiny in strength, yet having the potentiality of leading to a huge flame) Shelley uses the fifth stanza to tell the "West Wind" his wish and demands. "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is" Shelley wants to convey the spirit of the "West Wind" to mankind and at last he wants to be the "West Wind" itself. The wind is meant to inspire Shelley, because he feels like a dead leaf. The wind is meant to help Shelley to spread his words and ideas like ash and sparks in the world. The "West Wind" is intended to be the lips which announce a prophecy. The poem ends with the question "O, Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?‖ This question connects the beginning of the poem with the three verses and the demands of Shelley. The winter with its darkness and sleeping nature has begun. So now, because of the cycle of life, spring must follow.