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Difficulty: MediumFigurative Language Devices

Read the following lines from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Ode to the West Wind" (1820) carefully:

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

In the passage, the speaker’s use of apostrophe in directly addressing the wind primarily functions to do which of the following?

  1. A
    Classify the wind as a personified character in order to categorize the literary devices used throughout the stanza.
  2. B
    Provide a realistic description of a severe autumn storm to document the regional weather patterns of the speaker’s environment.
  3. C
    Express the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley’s personal, autobiographical struggles as a political exile living in Italy.
  4. Elevate the wind to a conscious, sublime force, establishing a relationship in which the speaker can appeal to it for transformation.Answer
  5. E
    Maintain a consistently serene and tranquil mood that ignores the chaotic forces of natural decay.

Answer

Elevate the wind to a conscious, sublime force, establishing a relationship in which the speaker can appeal to it for transformation.
The correct option explains that the apostrophe elevates the wind to a conscious, sublime force, establishing a relationship in which the speaker can appeal to it for transformation. By addressing the wind directly as 'thou' and describing it as the 'breath of Autumn's being,' the speaker treats the wind as a living deity with agency, setting up the speaker's subsequent pleas for spiritual and creative renewal.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the figurative language device highlighted in the question and locate its presence in the passage.
The device is apostrophe, which appears in the direct addresses "O wild West Wind" and "O thou."
Establishes the specific text evidence and device that needs to be analyzed.
2
Analyze how this direct address functions in the context of the poem rather than merely labeling it.
The speaker addresses the wind as a conscious, living entity ("breath of Autumn's being", "thou... who chariotest"), transforming a natural force into a sublime power with agency.
Moves beyond simple identification to interpret the device's functional and thematic role.
3
Evaluate the options to find the one that accurately describes the wind's role as a sublime force and its relationship to the speaker.
The option describing the wind as a conscious, sublime force that the speaker appeals to for transformation aligns with the analysis of Shelley's apostrophe.
Selects the correct option based on the thematic and functional analysis of the device.

Key Concept

The function of apostrophe in poetry
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Topics

Figurative Language Devices

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