Conclusion
This poem is a highly controlled text about the role of the poet as the agent of political and moral change. This was a subject Shelley wrote a great deal about, especially around 1819, with this strongest version of it articulated the last famous lines of his "Defence of Poetry": "Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the most unacknowledged legislators of the world."
Read more about this topic: Ode To The West Wind
Famous quotes containing the word conclusion:
“So this
Is man; so—what better conclusion is there—
The day will not follow night, and the heart
Of man has a little dignity, but less patience
Than a wolf’s,”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness
of the flesh.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep
his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”
—Bible: Hebrew Ecclesiastes (l. XII, 13)
“I’ve heard the wolves scuffle, and said: So this
Is man; so what better conclusion is there
The day will not follow night, and the heart
Of man has a little dignity, but less patience
Than a wolf’s....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)