I\u2019ve never warmed to Shelley as a man, and when I\u2019ve tried reading his poetry in bulk I\u2019ve found the process curiously unsatisfying. This is odd: his writing shows staggering verbal power, and he clearly was a man of great intelligence as well as of what seem to me inspiring general principles. Let the psychologist, novelist or biographer explore relations between his genius and what seem like his emotional deficiencies. I want to glance at one tiny splinter illustrating his enormous gifts: not for the moment the superb \u2018Ozymandias\u2019, but a line from \u2018Ode to the West Wind\u2019 in which the brilliance is more purely verbal. I\u2019ve italicised the line in question:<\/p>\n
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion,
\nLoose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
\nShook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,<\/p>\n
Angels of rain and lightning<\/em>: there are spread Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere I\u2019ve tried to understand what makes \u2018angels\u2019 and \u2018rain\u2019 seem so radio-actively evocative in their context. Of course there\u2019s sheer surprise at the sudden entry of a Judaeo-Christian metaphor, and the incongruous fusion of the bright, sunlit idea of angels with that of rain. However, I think it\u2019s above all a matter of sound and rhythm. The \u2018a\u2019 sound stands out phonetically because it\u2019s much more heavily stressed than the only previous occurrence in \u2018decaying\u2019. It\u2019s also emphasised by the way the speaking voice moves into it. It seems to me to drop on the unstressed second syllable of \u2018Ocean\u2019, at what might well have been the end of a sentence; to gather itself in the following line and stanza break; then to explode into the marvellous \u2018ANGels of rain and lightning\u2019. Meter emphasises how \u2018An-gels\u2019 divides into two syllables, making us register the n and the soft g as separate consonant sounds, so that the voice seems to hang suspended for the fraction of a second in the middle of the word. This greatly heightens its sonic force and so underlines the leaping way in which disparate ideas come together or explode out of each other in the metaphor. \u2018Angel\u2019, from the Greek \u2018???????\u2019 or \u2018messenger\u2019 brilliantly infuses the literal fact of the clouds\u2019 being forerunners of storm with ideas of divine presence and benevolent divine power. There\u2019s a compressed drama to \u2018Angels of rain and lightning\u2019 \u2013 \u2018angels\u2019 creates a sense of anticipation; \u2018rain and lightning\u2019 of the actual arrival of the storm. \u2018Rain\u2019 is one of those odd words whose very sound seems impregnated with its meaning but the effect is especially intense here, perhaps because of the assonance between \u2018angels\u2019 and \u2018rain\u2019. Although in terms of the logic of what\u2019s being said we\u2019re still only anticipating the coming rain the imaginative impression the word gives is so strong that it feels as if the rain\u2019s arrival<\/em> is almost simultaneous with its annunciation.<\/p>\n All that seems to me true to the way the poem works, but what\u2019s so dazzling about Shelley\u2019s achievement here is what a tiny scratching at the complex life of the lines such an analysis is. Any inspection of details, it seems to me, merely paddles at one or another edge of what\u2019s truly astounding about the poem, the dazzling speed and brilliant, instinctive adroitness with which it swerves and spins through cadences, sound patterns, metaphors and ideas. In the end, I think, all one can do is register one\u2019s awe at such a brilliantly lit, sensuously evocative, ecstatic tumult of impressions and know that what makes it what it is is not any of the separate bits, anything that can be detached for inspection, but the sheer movement<\/em> of the whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve never warmed to Shelley as a man, and when I\u2019ve tried reading his poetry in bulk I\u2019ve found the process curiously unsatisfying. This is odd: his writing shows staggering verbal power, and he clearly was a man of great intelligence as well as of what seem to me inspiring general principles. Let the psychologist, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shelley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2911"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2913,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions\/2913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOn the blue surface of thine a\u00ebry surge,
\nLike the bright hair uplifted from the head<\/p>\n
\nOf the horizon to the zenith’s height,
\nThe locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge<\/p>\n
\nWill be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
\nVaulted with all thy congregated might<\/p>\n
\nBlack rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!<\/p>\n