Romanticism and Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" MH Abrams wrote: "The Romantic period was eminently obsessed with violent change" ("Ode to the West Wind") Revolution" 659). And Percy Shelley is often considered the quintessential Romantic poet (Appelbaum x). The “Ode to the West Wind” perfectly expresses the goals and views of the Romantic period. Shelley's poem expresses the aspiration to genius. In the Romantic era, it was common to associate genius with a spirit or force of nature from which it came; the romantics perceived the artist as a vessel through which genius circulates. For example, in “A Defense of Poetry,” Shelley says that poets are hierophants of elusive inspiration, mirrors of the gigantic shadows that the future casts on the present. . .(Defense 817)In "Ode to the West Wind," Shelley implores the west wind, a powerful force of nature that Shelley identifies with its rapidly changing reality, to "lift me up like a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! He also expresses his almost melancholy wish to be able to be like me in my childhood and to be the companion of your wanderings above the sky (Ode 815). “Ode to the West Wind” invokes the accompanying spirit where Genius comes from to also grant Creativity. . “If I were a dead leaf, you could carry it,” he pleads, “If I were a cloud swift to fly with you” (Ode 815). In the fifth section, he implores the West Wind (with which he identifies at the beginning of the section) to scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth, Ashes and sparks, my words among humanity! (Ode 815) Once again, Shelley asks the force that gives him inspiration to act through him. "Ode to the West Wind" also expresses the f...... middle of paper ...... fathers of the world, and thinks it might be possible. Shelley's poem is his attempt to let the West Wind work through him. Works cited and consulted: Appelbaum, Stanley. Introduction to English Romantic Poetry: An Anthology. Mineola, New York: Dover, 1996. iii-xii “Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Norton Anthology: Masterpieces of the World, Volume Two. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: Norton, 1995. p. 811-812. “Revolution and romanticism in Europe and America. » Norton Anthology: Masterpieces of the World, Volume Two. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: Norton, 1995. p. 657-664.Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “A Defense of Poetry.” Norton Anthology: Masterpieces of the World, Volume Two. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: Norton, 1995. p. 816-817Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ode to the West Wind.” Norton Anthology: Masterpieces of the World, Volume Two. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: Norton, 1995.. 814-815.