Shelley Keats & Romantic odes

Percy Bysshe Shelley

• Aug 4,1792 – July 8, 1822

Shelley Bio

• well educated, politically radical• bullied as a child, against oppression as an adult• expelled from oxford for writing “the necessity of

atheism” with friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg• married Harriet Westbrook, friend of his sisters. • Moved to Dublin, but his politically pamphlets

were not much in favor.

Shelley bio

• After 4 years of marriage (and 2 kids), he feel in love with Mary Godwin, 16 year old.

• Ran off with Mary and her sister

• Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein

• Saw the poet as a reforming prophet capable of energizing human spirit by showing it perfect, eternal truth

• Symbolic of youthful rebellion

Ode to West Wind

• What was it inspired by?

• How does Shelley describe the wind? How is this significant?

• What does he compare to the wind?

Ode to West Wind

• Terza rima– How many lines?– What is the rhyme scheme?– What is the effect of this format?

• Personification– Where does it exist in the poem?– What is its effect?

Ode to West Wind

• What three major I mages demonstrate how the West Wind effect the world?

• What is the theme then?

Ozymandias

• Egyptian King Ramses II (died 1234 BCE)

• Italian sonnet– How many lines? What format?– What is the traditional rhyme scheme?– What is the rhyme scheme in Ozymandias?

What is the effect of this?

• What is the theme?

Keats bio

• Moorsfield, London• At 15, his mom died of tb,

guardian Richard Abbey• apothecary (historical name for

a medical practicioner who formulated and dispensed medicine).

• Wanted to be a poet but Abeey wouldn’t approve, so became apothecary and even studied to be a surgeon.

• When he was 21 he was free of Abbey and became a full time writer.

• Got TB. Died at age 26

Homework

• Keats ‘Ode to Grecian Urn” and ‘ode to Nightingale”

• Byron “The Walks in Beauty”

• Wednesday you will create a review sheet for Romanticism; Thursday we will review; Friday you will have your Romanticism test

Romantic ode Extra Credit

• If you write a poem following the format of one of the romantic odes, due Monday, you will receive an extra credit quiz. The format was be explicitly followed in order to receive credit.

Odes - form

- Lengthy

- Serious in subject matter

- Elevated in its diction and style

- Elaborate in its stanzaic structure

Odes – subject matter

• Celebratory

• About a particular subject or person

• An Ode to something is written as address with second person reference (you)

• An Ode on something is more detached and written with 3rd person reference to the subject (it, he, she)

Green/Pindaric Ode

• Patterned after movements of the chorus in Greek Drama

• Three stanza structure that is repeated throughout the poem– STROPHE – set meter and rhyme scheme. – ANTISTROPHE – same as the strophe– EPODE – has a different meter and rhyme scheme

• As the poem is repeated, the epodes are all the same

Horatian/Roman ode

• Metrical & rhyme scheme that is the same in all three stanzas

• Is more personal

• Horace (roman poet) wrote them to be said and not sung

Romantic Ode

• An outgrowth of the Roman/Horatian ode

• 30-200 lines

• Meditates progressively on an object or condition (it can also address it)

Romantic Ode

• Three major requirements– The description of a particularized outer

natural scene– An extended meditation, which that original

scene prompts, and that focuses on a specific problem (personal and/or universal)

– An insight or vision, which signals a return to the original scene with a new perspective because of the insight.