Imagery is the employment of images of word pictures by poets and writers. A poet uses them to signify all the objects and qualities of sense perception referred to in his poem. Shelley is a great master in the use of images. His imagination is such that it takes us away from the common world into an unsubstantial fairyland of colours and light and sound. Images pour in rich profusion from his mind. In his essay called "The Defence of Poetry" Shelley describes poetry as a glowing coal with the winds of imagination blowing over it. His images, at any rate, glow and alter like palpitating coal. A peculiar kind of imaginary that we find in Shelley is the use of figurative language (simile, metaphor, etc) Myth also forms part of his imagery. "Ode to the West Wind" is an excellent example of Shelley's skill in creating myths.
Right at the opening the poet compares the West Wind to the breath of autumn's being. The leaves are imagined as a crowd of 'pestilence-stricken multitudes' which are scattered by the West Wind like ghosts driven away by an enchanter. The leaf-image is maintained throughout the poem. Assigning the West Wind the roles of Destroyer and Preserve is a striking example of his imagery. The Wind is like a chariot which carries all the winged seeds to their wintry bed. Here, through a metaphor, the seeds are compared to dead bodies.
The arrival of the spring is described as the sounding of a clarion, when the seeds sprout out into the air just as a flock of sheep move forward, driven by s shepherd. Then comes the description of the rain clouds gathered in the evening sky. This is a brilliant piece of imagery wrought by the ethereal imagination of Shelley. Images merge into one another and one may find it a little difficult to logically disentangle the meaning. The rain clouds tumbling about in the sky are first described as leaves shaken down from branches of Heaven and Ocean. Then suddenly they are described as the uplifted hair of a frenzied Maenad. The sharp howling of West Wind is described as the funeral song for the dying year (as autumn signifies the death of the year) and the dark, overcast sky is called the vaulted tomb in which the dying year is going to be buried. One thing to note about Shelley's imagery is its scientific correctness. In the next stanza Shelley describes the effect of the West Wind on the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Here again powerful and evocative images are employed.
The arrival of the spring is described as the sounding of a clarion, when the seeds sprout out into the air just as a flock of sheep move forward, driven by s shepherd. Then comes the description of the rain clouds gathered in the evening sky. This is a brilliant piece of imagery wrought by the ethereal imagination of Shelley. Images merge into one another and one may find it a little difficult to logically disentangle the meaning. The rain clouds tumbling about in the sky are first described as leaves shaken down from branches of Heaven and Ocean. Then suddenly they are described as the uplifted hair of a frenzied Maenad. The sharp howling of West Wind is described as the funeral song for the dying year (as autumn signifies the death of the year) and the dark, overcast sky is called the vaulted tomb in which the dying year is going to be buried. One thing to note about Shelley's imagery is its scientific correctness. In the next stanza Shelley describes the effect of the West Wind on the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Here again powerful and evocative images are employed.
The whole poem is a series of myths worked into an all enclosing myth by which the West Wind becomes the Spirit of Freedom encouraging human society to change, as nature does from autumn to spring, from an old order to a new one.
