PERCY SHELLEY (INGLESE)

, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

He was an English romantic poet. Shelley, Byron and Keats represented the second generation of Romantic poets (they shared the big success they had and the short life they passed, indeed, they all died very young).

He got married twice: the first time, at the age of 19,but he soon divorced, and he started a new relationship with a writer called Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (and not, as Stefano Angelinis thinks, with a man called Frankenstein). He was deeply interested in politics, and because of his radical ideals, he escaped from England and moved to Switzerland, where he met another famous English poet, Byron, who became one of his best friends. During their stay in Switzerland, they wrote together. He also went to Italy: first, he arrived in Rome, where he met John Keats, and then he went to Tuscany. At the age of thirty, he died in a boat accident.

He is well remembered as a “restless spirit” because he always refused social and political conventions of his country, and he fought for the principles of freedom and love. He’s also remembered as an hopeful person: he believed in change, he was deeply convinced that the future would be better, even if he was living in a  cruel material world. Shelley thought that the poet was a prophet and at the same time a Titan that fought versus the evil society. Nature is also very important, it’s often represented with symbols such as wind, water, clouds, weather and so on. It’s considered as a big divine spirit and it’s the perfect refuge from the injustice of the civil world.

Ode to the west wind

Shelley published this ode in 1819, during his “exile” in Tuscany (vedi Traduzione della nota di Shelley*). He tells us that one day, in a wood near the Arno river, came a big thunderstorm. The west wind announced the “coming-back” of autumn and it blew from the Atlantic Ocean. It is called “breath of Autumn’s being”: it’s strong, wild, sometimes even violent and out of control. The poet says that you can’t see it blowing, but you can clearly see his effects: it carries the leaves in the air and it brings black clouds and a dark sky. This poem is divided into five stanzas. It has an elevated tone and a figurative language. Shelley uses archaisms, invocations and personifications. At the end of each stanza the poet writes “oh hear!” and it is referred to the west wind. This poem shows the great importance of the natural phenomenons and of the Nature in itself. The poets wishes to be like the Wind, free and restless, and even like a cloud, a wave and a leaf. He would like to go everywhere and teach people his philosophy of love and freedom. In the last lines he asks the wind to “scatter his words among mankind” and he says ,with his hopeful spirit ,that if Winter comes, it’s sure that Spring, and so, the rebirth of the whole nature, will come next. In this ode it’s clear to see  the two aspects of Shelley’s ideal poet: prophet, and, at the same time, Titan. There is a personal, quite autobiographical, element: in the fourth stanza he remembers when he was a young boy and he used to stare at the effects of the wind, dreaming to be like it. He personificates the Wind, as if it is the main character of this poem and  speaks about the Zephyr, that is the “sister” of the West Wind ,because it announces the arrival of Spring, in a mild and quiet way.*Shelley  appended  a  note to the 'Ode to the West Wind' when it first
appeared in 1820: “This  poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the
Arno,  near  Florence,  and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose
temperature  is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours
which  pour  down  the  autumnal  rains.  They began, as I foresaw, at
sunset  with  a  violent  tempest  of  hail and rain, attended by that
magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.
The  phenomenon  alluded  to  at the conclusion of the third stanza is
well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of
rivers,  and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change
of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce
it.” 

Questo componimento fu ideato e scritto in un bosco sulle rive del fiume Arno,vicino a Firenze, e in un giorno in cui quel vento tempestoso,la cui temperatura è allo stesso tempo mite e pungente ,stava raccogliendo i vapori che avrebbero fatto cadere le piogge autunnali. Incominciarono,come avevo previsto, al tramonto,con una tempesta violenta di grandine e pioggia,seguita da quel magnifico fenomeno che è il temporale,tipico delle regioni Cisalpine. Il fenomeno a cui alludo nella terza stanza è ben conosciuto dai naturalisti. La vegetazione sul fondo del mare,dei fiumi e dei laghi,è strettamente collegata a quella sulla terraferma nel corso delle stagioni,ed è sempre influenzata,di conseguenza,dal vento che le annuncia(le varie stagioni,come lo Zefiro per la primavera,e il vento dell’Ovest per l’autunno)

Translation:
Oh tu vento selvaggio occidentale, alito
della vita d'autunno, oh presenza invisibile da cui
le foglie morte sono trascinate, come spettri in fuga
Da un mago incantatore, gialle e nere,
pallide e del rossore della febbre, moltitudini
che il contagio ha colpito: oh tu che guidi
I semi alati ai loro letti oscuri
dell'inverno in cui giacciono freddi e profondi
come una spoglia sepolta nella tomba,
Finché la tua sorella azzurra Primavera,
non farà udire le squilla sulla terra in sogno
e colmerà di profumi e di colori vividi
Il colle e la pianura, nell'aria i lievi bocci conducendo
simili a greggi al pascolo: oh Spirito selvaggio,
tu che dovunque t'agiti, e distruggi e proteggi: ascolta, ascolta!
II
Tu nella cui corrente, nel tumulto
del cielo a precipizio, le nuvole disperse
sono spinte qua e là come foglie appassite
Scosse dai rami intricati del Cielo e dell'Oceano,
angeli della pioggia e del fulmine, e si spargono
là sull'azzurra superficie delle tue onde d'aria
Come la fulgida chioma che s'innalza
sopra la testa d'una fiera Menade, dal limite
fioco dell'orizzonte fino alle altezze estreme dello zenit,
Capigliatura della tempesta imminente. Canto funebre
tu dell'anno che muore, al quale questa notte che si chiude
sarà la cupola del suo sepolcro immenso, sostenuta a volta
da tutta la potenza riunita dei vapori
dalla cui densa atmosfera esploderà una pioggia
nera come fuoco e grandine: oh, ascolta!

III
Tu che svegliasti dai loro sogni estivi
le acque azzurre del Mediterraneo, dove
si giaceva cullato dal moto dei flutti cristallini
Accanto a un'isola tutta di pomice del golfo
di baia e vide in sonno gli antichi palazzi e le torri
tremolanti nel giorno più intenso dell'onda, sommersi
da muschi azzurri e da fiori dolcissimi al punto
che nel descriverli il senso viene meno!
Tu per il cui sentiero la possente
superficie d'Atlantico si squarcia
e svela abissi profondi dove i fiori
del mare e i boschi fradici di fango, che indossano
le foglie senza linfa dell'oceano, conoscono
la tua voce e si fanno all'improvviso grigi
per la paura e tremano e si spogliano: oh, ascolta!
IV
Fossi una foglia appassita che tu potessi portare;
fossi una rapida nuvola per inseguire il tuo volo;
un'onda palpitante alla tua forza, e potessi
Condividere tutto l'impulso della tua potenza
soltanto meno libero di te, oh tu che sei incontrollabile!
Potessi essere almeno com'ero nell'infanzia, compagno
Dei tuo vagabondaggi alti nei cieli, come quando
superare il tuo rapido passo celeste
sembrava appena un sogno; non mi rivolgerei
A te con questa preghiera nella mia dolente
necessità. Ti prego, levami come un'onda, come
una foglia o una nuvola. Cado
Sopra le spine della vita e sanguino! Un grave
peso di ore ha incatenato, incurvato
uno a te troppo simile: indomito, veloce e orgoglioso.
V
Fa di me della tua cetra, com'è della foresta;
che cosa importa se le mie foglie cadono
come le sue! Il tumulto
Delle tue forti armonie leverà a entrambi un canto
profondo ed autunnale, e dolcemente triste.
Che tu sia dunque il mio spirito, o Spirito fiero!
Spirito impetuoso, che tu sia me stesso!
Guida i miei morti pensieri per tutto l'universo
come foglie appassite per darmi una nascita nuova!
E con l'incanto di questi miei versi disperdi,
come da un focolare non ancora spento,
le faville e le ceneri, le mie parole fra gli uomini!
E alla terra che dorme, attraverso il mio labbro,
tu sia la tromba d'una profezia! Oh, Vento,
se viene l'Inverno, potrà la Primavera essere lontana?

England in 1819

This political poem was written in 1819,during the exile in Italy. Shelley denounces his country’s political-social problems starting from the Peterloo massacre. People despised the King and his sons, they were sick and tired of their political injustice, so, one day, in Manchester, they were demonstrating for their rights, but the Army came and killed a large number of people. This event is remembered as a great disaster in the English political history. Shelley represents the thoughts of thousand and thousand of English people. The king was officially declared insane, mad and blind. He was dying, and people hated him and his sons. Laws weren’t honest, they appeared to be good but they only worked in the interests of rich people, punishing humble people. The rulers, the ones that had made the laws, were considered like monsters: after sucking all the population’s “blood”, they drop it and threw it away. Shelley attacks the english politicians and even religion, because he thinks that a “christless” religion wouldn’t save poor people from that evil society.

Ozymandias

Ozymandias is the Greek name of an Egyptian pharaoh, maybe one of the most famous, called Ramses II. This short lyric was written in 1817. The fundamental theme is the vanity of human ambitions (something like what you find in Gray’s elegy: “everything ends in the grave”). Shelley starts the poem with a traveller’s tale: he met a man who went to this isolate land, in the middle of the desert, and saw Ozymandias’ statue. He could only see a pair of stone legs, because the statue was very big. Near the legs, on the sand, he finds Ramses’ stone face: the sculptor was so good at his art that you can even capture, from the visage lies, his passions and his strong ideals. Ramses II was a powerful and ambitious man. He was completely sure that no other man on earth was better than him. He considered himself as an immortal being. Ozymandias wanted to celebrate himself with huge monuments to let people know how extraordinary he was. Shelley speaks about this “mortal” pride with a bit of irony, because he well knows that human ambitions are insignificant, compared to the infinity of time. Nothing lasts forever, no human being has an eternal life, that’s why all the ambions, all the pride and glory are useless in front of the action of time.

(Pagine di riferimento: D119-120-122-123-124-134)