Ramji Lall :
Like the other romantic poets, Shelley had a deep and passionate love of Nature. Nature is, indeed, one of the main themes of his poetry. Almost all his poems abound in Nature-imagery. But some of is poems are purely of Nature, such as A Dream of the Unknown, A Widow Bird Sate Mourning, Ode to the West Wind, The Cloud, To a Skylark, To the Moon, and Lines Written in the Euganean Hills. All these poems contain a profusion of Nature-pictures, some of which are remarkable for their vividness and sensuousness. The colourful and glittering picture of the sunrise in the Euganean Hills is one such picture. A Dream of the Unknown is a fragrant poem because of the abundance and variety of flowers mentioned in it and because of other refreshing and stimulating Nature pictures. Then there are those poems, which, though not wholly poems of Nature, have Nature as one of their leading themes. Such are The Invitation, The Recollection, To A Lady With A Guitar, and Stanzas Written In Dejection. In The Invitation, Shelley gives us a description of the lovely natural surroundings in which he proposes to spend his time in the company of Jane Williams. In fact, the freshness of Nature-pictures in this poem gives to it its principal charm. In The Recollection, Shelley gives us a remarkable picture of the peace and serenity of a selected scene of Nature.
Not only are we given vivid images of the pine trees standing still and the waves of the ocean half-asleep, but we also get striking pictures of the reflection of the sky, the trees, the sun, etc, seen in the pools by the side of which Shelley and Jane pause. The poem called Epispychidion is also remarkable for its abundance of Nature pictures and especially the passage, which describes a paradisal island:
“It is an isle under Ionian skies, Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise.” This description, too, is richly sensuous. Shelley was also a believer in the healing influence of Nature on the human mind. In the Euganean Hills, he undoubtedly draws comfort from his contemplation of the natural scene around him and also from his fanciful description of an imaginary island where he, and those he loves, might lead a happy and care-free life. The Recollection also illustrates Shelley’s belief in the power of Nature to soothe the human heart.
Furthermore, Shelley appears as a pantheist in some of his poems. In The Invitation, the concluding lines make a reference to the existence of a Divine spirit in all objects of Nature.
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.
In The Recollection, he again expresses a similar pantheistic belief by speaking of the Spirit that seems to pervade the whole natural scene. His perception of this Spirit, and the soothing effect of the natural scene, find expression in the following lines:
A Spirit interfused around,
A thrilling silent life
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature’s strife;
In the Euganean Hills, there is a vague panthetistic belief in the lines (310-3.19) where Shelley speaks of the interpenetration of his spirit by the glory of the sky. It may be “love, light, harmony, odour or the soul of all.” But the most striking illustration of Shelley’s pantheism is found in Adonais (Stanzas XLII-XLIII) where Shelley says that Adonais (or Keats) has become one with Nature and has been united with the Divine Spirit which rules the world with an inexhaustible love and which sustains the world from below and illumines it from above. Adonais, says Shelley, has now become a part of the Spirit of Beauty or the Universal Spirit, which animates the world:
He is made – one with-Nature: there is heard
His voice in all her music from the moan
Of thunder, to the song of night’s sweet bird;
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and light from herb and stone.
Spreading itself wherever that power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which wields the world with never-wearied live,
Sustains it from beneath, and’ kindles it above.
Shelley loved the indefinite and the changeful in Nature This enabled him to describe better than any other English poet the scenery of the clouds and the sky whose appearance undergoes a constant change. Shelley’s love for the indefinite and changeful in Nature may be seen in his conscription of the approach of the gale in the Ode to the West Wind, where the West Wind is first seen driving the dead leaves before it and scattering the living seeds, then bearing the clouds on it, next awakening in the Mediterranean from his sleep, and finally making its force felt by the sea-plants at the bottom of the Atlantic.
Shelley gives us an abundance of pictures of the landscape sky-scape, and sea-scrape in the first three stanza of this poem. The imagery in the second stanza is certainly abstract and ethereal, but the imagery in the first and third stanzas is perfectly concrete. The picture of the blue Mediterranean, lulled to sleep by the coil of his crystalline streams and awakened by the West Wind, is remarkable.
The cloud also shows Shelley’s preference for the shifting and changing scenery of Nature. This poem contains a series of pictures of the activities of the cloud. The cloud sifts the snow on the mountains.
In spite of his pantheism, Shelley had the power of conceiving each separate object of Nature as possessing a distinct individuality of its own. Even though he expresses his belied in the existence of the Divine Spirit or the Spirit of Beauty pervading the whole universe (including all objects of Nature), he could yet treat the objects and forces of Nature as distinct and distinguishable entities.
He conceived of a cloud as having a separate and independent existence like the other objects of Nature. For him the moon, the earth and the ocean had each a distinct existence.
He divided and sub-divided the life of Nature in a manner not to be found in the work of any other poet. This has been termed as his myth-making power and is best illustrated in the Ode to the West Wind and The Cloud. In the former poem, the West Wind has been treated as a distinct force of Nature, driving the leaves before it, and scattering the seeds. Similarly the Mediterranean and the Atlantic are conceived of as separate existences. In the other poem, the cloud has been given a separate life. It moves about, sends rain or hail, roars and thunders, and so on.
Like the other romantic poets, Shelley had a deep and passionate love of Nature. Nature is, indeed, one of the main themes of his poetry. Almost all his poems abound in Nature-imagery. But some of is poems are purely of Nature, such as A Dream of the Unknown, A Widow Bird Sate Mourning, Ode to the West Wind, The Cloud, To a Skylark, To the Moon, and Lines Written in the Euganean Hills. All these poems contain a profusion of Nature-pictures, some of which are remarkable for their vividness and sensuousness. The colourful and glittering picture of the sunrise in the Euganean Hills is one such picture. A Dream of the Unknown is a fragrant poem because of the abundance and variety of flowers mentioned in it and because of other refreshing and stimulating Nature pictures. Then there are those poems, which, though not wholly poems of Nature, have Nature as one of their leading themes. Such are The Invitation, The Recollection, To A Lady With A Guitar, and Stanzas Written In Dejection. In The Invitation, Shelley gives us a description of the lovely natural surroundings in which he proposes to spend his time in the company of Jane Williams. In fact, the freshness of Nature-pictures in this poem gives to it its principal charm. In The Recollection, Shelley gives us a remarkable picture of the peace and serenity of a selected scene of Nature.
Not only are we given vivid images of the pine trees standing still and the waves of the ocean half-asleep, but we also get striking pictures of the reflection of the sky, the trees, the sun, etc, seen in the pools by the side of which Shelley and Jane pause. The poem called Epispychidion is also remarkable for its abundance of Nature pictures and especially the passage, which describes a paradisal island:
“It is an isle under Ionian skies, Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise.” This description, too, is richly sensuous. Shelley was also a believer in the healing influence of Nature on the human mind. In the Euganean Hills, he undoubtedly draws comfort from his contemplation of the natural scene around him and also from his fanciful description of an imaginary island where he, and those he loves, might lead a happy and care-free life. The Recollection also illustrates Shelley’s belief in the power of Nature to soothe the human heart.
Furthermore, Shelley appears as a pantheist in some of his poems. In The Invitation, the concluding lines make a reference to the existence of a Divine spirit in all objects of Nature.
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.
In The Recollection, he again expresses a similar pantheistic belief by speaking of the Spirit that seems to pervade the whole natural scene. His perception of this Spirit, and the soothing effect of the natural scene, find expression in the following lines:
A Spirit interfused around,
A thrilling silent life
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature’s strife;
In the Euganean Hills, there is a vague panthetistic belief in the lines (310-3.19) where Shelley speaks of the interpenetration of his spirit by the glory of the sky. It may be “love, light, harmony, odour or the soul of all.” But the most striking illustration of Shelley’s pantheism is found in Adonais (Stanzas XLII-XLIII) where Shelley says that Adonais (or Keats) has become one with Nature and has been united with the Divine Spirit which rules the world with an inexhaustible love and which sustains the world from below and illumines it from above. Adonais, says Shelley, has now become a part of the Spirit of Beauty or the Universal Spirit, which animates the world:
He is made – one with-Nature: there is heard
His voice in all her music from the moan
Of thunder, to the song of night’s sweet bird;
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and light from herb and stone.
Spreading itself wherever that power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which wields the world with never-wearied live,
Sustains it from beneath, and’ kindles it above.
Shelley loved the indefinite and the changeful in Nature This enabled him to describe better than any other English poet the scenery of the clouds and the sky whose appearance undergoes a constant change. Shelley’s love for the indefinite and changeful in Nature may be seen in his conscription of the approach of the gale in the Ode to the West Wind, where the West Wind is first seen driving the dead leaves before it and scattering the living seeds, then bearing the clouds on it, next awakening in the Mediterranean from his sleep, and finally making its force felt by the sea-plants at the bottom of the Atlantic.
Shelley gives us an abundance of pictures of the landscape sky-scape, and sea-scrape in the first three stanza of this poem. The imagery in the second stanza is certainly abstract and ethereal, but the imagery in the first and third stanzas is perfectly concrete. The picture of the blue Mediterranean, lulled to sleep by the coil of his crystalline streams and awakened by the West Wind, is remarkable.
The cloud also shows Shelley’s preference for the shifting and changing scenery of Nature. This poem contains a series of pictures of the activities of the cloud. The cloud sifts the snow on the mountains.
In spite of his pantheism, Shelley had the power of conceiving each separate object of Nature as possessing a distinct individuality of its own. Even though he expresses his belied in the existence of the Divine Spirit or the Spirit of Beauty pervading the whole universe (including all objects of Nature), he could yet treat the objects and forces of Nature as distinct and distinguishable entities.
He conceived of a cloud as having a separate and independent existence like the other objects of Nature. For him the moon, the earth and the ocean had each a distinct existence.
He divided and sub-divided the life of Nature in a manner not to be found in the work of any other poet. This has been termed as his myth-making power and is best illustrated in the Ode to the West Wind and The Cloud. In the former poem, the West Wind has been treated as a distinct force of Nature, driving the leaves before it, and scattering the seeds. Similarly the Mediterranean and the Atlantic are conceived of as separate existences. In the other poem, the cloud has been given a separate life. It moves about, sends rain or hail, roars and thunders, and so on.
