Topic > A Comparative Analysis of Ted Hughes's The Wind and Ode to the West Wind

A Comparison of Ted Hughes's The Wind and Shelley's Ode to the West WindThe Notion Common to the Poems of Hughes and Shelley it is that of the wind as a tremendous, uncontrollable force and the need to reconnect humans with the natural world. There is a number of images in Hughes's poetry which associate wind with strength and violence, for example the 'light of the blade wielded by the wind' gives rise to images of war and Anglo-Saxon weapons. This is similar to Shelley's description of the wind as a "chariot", a link to images of powerful rulers or gods. Both poems are strongly linked to the human senses and use the wind as a regenerative tool; in Shelley's poem the west wind is personified by pushing the dead leaves 'like an enchanter's fleeting ghosts'. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay "Hymn to the West Wind" is a lyric poem that combines the connotations of the text and the ode; a presentation of intense emotional qualities and the use of elevated language to address a topic. In the first section of the ode, the poet outlines the relative "powers" of the west wind, addressing the wind's authority over the sky, land, and sea in the first three stanzas, and establishing the wind as both "Destroyer and Conservative". While the wind preserves the regularity of the seasonal cycle, a twisted logic is presented creating a parallel between life and death, demonstrated by the way the wind scatters dead leaves across the forest floor, allowing them to eventually take root and bring new life. In a similar style, the opening line of Hughes' poem is highly sensorial, exposing time, surroundings, and distance to the reader in the phrase "out to sea all night." This use of metaphor implies total isolation; "out at sea" portrays the image of the house surviving the constant buffeting of the inexhaustible wind as a boat might the waves, while the representation of time in "all night" implies that the power of the wind is so intense that it seems prolonged for a very long time scale. Uselessness is coupled with isolation; the alliteration of “blinding” and “black” generates a strong emphasis on individual words and increases the reader's sensory awareness while remaining in line with the thematic material of the poem. This is shown in the image of the house "struggling" helplessly. The idea of ​​the cycles of life extends to humanity as a whole, as indicated in Shelley's poem by the different colors of leaves, "Yellow, black, pale and frenetic." red'. The phrase "each like a corpse in its grave" supports the idea of ​​multiculturalism, as the different colors of the leaves could be read as symbols of the widespread death of humanity across a wide range of ethnicities. The falling leaves are personified to become the "multitude" of people around the world who suffer from disease and highlight the role that all humanity takes in the cycle of life and death. It is also significant to note that the rhyme scheme here is very regular and exemplifies the need for continuous movement. This is demonstrated by Shelley's decision to place a grave accent on the letter E in 'wingèd', ensuring that the word is pronounced with two syllables, the first stressed and the second unstressed, to remain in line with the pre-established iambic pentametric metrical scheme. This implies that regularity in daily life is the only way humans can survive unruly, external forces, such as the west wind. Furthermore, in the second stanza, another cycle is established as the wind helps the clouds to disperse: "...clouds loose like leaves in.