Arghya Jana Literature Guide

Ans. The poem, Ode to the West Wind represents some important characteristics of Shelley’s poetry. The west wind is the symbol of revolution with its destructive aspects and creative principle. He implores the west wind to inspire him with its tameless spirit of that he can destroy the old and the worn-out and-create a new world based on equality, fraternity and liberty. Shelley’s revolutionary idealism is best illustrated in the poem. The poem sounds two important notes of Shelley’s poetry—his personal despondency and his prophetic vision. He “falls upon the thorns of life, he bleeds.” He prays to the west wind to lift him as a leaf, a cloud and a wave. But his faltering accents become trumpet tones when he utters the woes of man instead of his own sorrows. The tired child becomes a prophet and sings a mighty song to quicken the sleeping world to a new birth—“O wind ! if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind.” Shelley is most vitally with romantic idealism. He gives hims

“Modern man, out of his indiscriminate selfishness dares to uproot Nature and its very soul” – Evaluate this statement with reference to the poem “ON KILLING A TREE”.Gieve Patel belongs to the present day generation of Indian poets writing in English. He is one of those writers who subscribe themselves to the “Green Peace Movement”. His poems give expression to his anxiety and bitterness at man’s cruelty to Nature. Patel’s “On Killing a Tree” is a poem which presents a graphic picture of the total annihilation of a tree. In the poem the tree symbolizes Nature. Modern man out of his indiscriminate greed and selfishness roots out nature and its very spirit. Man’s greed is not quenched by the mere physical process of killing a tree.Man realizes that it is not easy to kill a tree because it has grown slowly consuming the earth and absorbing water, air and sunrise for years. The mere act of hacking and chopping is not sufficient to kill a tree. The tree overcomes man’s onslaught by