Ode to the West Wind Literary Elements

First-person speaker

The poem is arranged into five stanzas in iambic pentameter.

Metaphor: line 5: "Pestilence-stricken multitudes." The fallen leaves are compared to a group of ill people.

Metaphor: lines 24–25: “to which this closing night / Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre." The night sky is compared to a huge tomb.

Simile: lines 2–3: “the leaves dead / Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.” Falling leaves are compared to ghosts fleeing from a user of magic.

Simile: line 66: "Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth." The poet's words are compared to sparks from a fireplace that was not put out.

Alliteration: line 1: "O wild West Wind"

Alliteration: line 38: "Cleave themselves into chasms"

Assonance: lines 4–5: "hectic red, / Pestilence-stricken"

Assonance: lines 7–8. "cold and low, / Each like a corpse"

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Ode

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The poem is a solemn meditation on change that ranges in tone from dejected to triumphant.

The protagonist is the poet, the speaker who wishes to use his poetry to change the world.

The major conflict in the poem is between the speaker and his own sense of being trapped by the challenges of aging and modern life.

The climax of the poem comes between lines 55 and 58, where the speaker first acknowledges that he has been "chain'd and bow'd" by life, but then, in a triumphant moment, decides to overcome his struggles and become the "lyre" of the west wind—an instrument for change.

The reference to "Autumn" in the first line hints at a changing of the seasons, which may foreshadow the theme of death and regeneration, as, in the speaker's own words, "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

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The phrase "some fierce Maenad" is an allusion to Greek mythology, in which maenads are female followers of the God Dionysus.

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The wind is personified throughout the poem as a force that acts on its surroundings willfully and with the intent to cause great change.

Line 54: "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!"

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