Analysis of Natural Image in Shelley’s Poetry

[Abstract] Shelley had a profound affection on nature. Thus, natural image played an important role in shelley’s poetry. It not only provided the particular characteristics but also contained the deep feelings of Shelley’s thoughts. Natural Image was a carrier of the poet’s feeling. The poet used the objective image to convey his abstract thought in order to get the vivid expression. This essay would study the natural image in Shelley’s poetry.

[Key words] natural image；Shelley；poet

1. A brief introduction of P. B. Shelley’s life and works

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in 1792 in a wealthy family, as a child he was good at independent thinking and began to like literature. He wrote that he wanted to sit in white cloud car, went forward, towards the future of the ideal. There was sunshine which was bright and beautiful with no exploitation, no hatred, everywhere was full of happiness and freedom. Unfortunately, in 1822 Shelley suffered wind and rain when boating in the Italian coast, and drowned when he was only 29 years old.

Shelley was one of British romantic poets in 19th century and his poetry occupied an important position in the history of British literature and even in the world literature.

He loved nature and advocated that there should be more works to eulogize nature in literature. He opposed the restoration of one’s personality and emotion of the classical disciplines and advocated the liberation of individual character to express their true feelings. The same as other English romantic poets, Shelley was very fond of describing nature. He found the real reality wasn’t what Plato’s concept of the world, but rather the nature and the people of the world.

2.The concept of image and natural image in Shelley’s poetry

2.1 The concept of image

Image is the basic characteristics of poetry. In poetry creation, life experience must sublimate into literature, the process of experience is in fact the process of image. Image is the unity of subject and object which consists of the factors of emotional and rational and so on. It is a multilevel, full of rich content and expression form; Image, as a very aesthetic meaning category, worth our constantly thinking and discussion.

Unique and excellent image will instantly illuminate our mind, opening our sensual and intellectual observing the nature of things. Image creation as a special spiritual production, its outstanding characteristic is to make the strong subjective factors penetrate into artistic creation.

2.2 The natural image in Shelley’s poetry

One of the common characteristics of romantic poetry was to express emotion by nature. Using nature as his main theme to express his thoughts and feelings and then paid closer attention to the progress of humanity played a vital role of Shelley’s life. Shelley’s poem revealed the darkness of the society and sang praise to the battle hymn of democracy and freedom. He struggled against the tyranny of the spirit and ideal and looked for the ideal of happiness. He was good at using nature to achieve his ideal. His praise of nature was the praise of the ideal heart. He argued that social reality was too dirty and hoped that his soul could get purification in nature. So he gave vigor to nature and made it free like a bird song freedom in the sky. Nature to Shelley was the symbol of power and freedom. Shelley’s work of nature part was the most splendid chapter, such as Ode to the West Wind and so on.

The natural image in Shelley’s poem was various and colorful. For example, in Ode to the West Wind, “west wind” was a colorful and meaningful image captured by the poet. Shelley took the west wind as the center to create a series of natural phenomenon. He wrote the huge change of natural images such as seeds, moss, flowers, leaves, forests, cloud, hail, heavy rain, thunder and lightning, sea, sky, mountains, plains and so on under the influence of the west wind. The intension of the natural image in poetry and the lyrical of the poet was integrated, momentum, and foresight. In addition, the poem had many profound metaphor, which contained a rich content in the context of western culture. For example in the first section of the poem, Shelley used the characters and events in the bible to describe the natural images. Wintering seeds had been compared to the cold body in the tomb. In spring, however, it grew up with the new bud, like a group of grazing sheep, giving color and fragrance full of mountains and plains. “seed” was associated with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the western readers; While “grazing sheep” would make people think of the shepherd that dedicated to the salvation of Jesus Christ to sacrifice himself to save the world. Also it was the reminiscent of the pastoral idyll. To sum up, Shelley was good at creating specific nature imagery by metaphor, symbol and description which were colorful, exquisite, fable

3.Conclusion

Natural image in Shelley’s poetry had an important natural aesthetic value, which reflected the lacking of natural aesthetic perspective in the contemporary literature. Shelley was a poet sang for future. In the contemporary context, to re-read the Shelley’s poem, carefully tasted natural imagery in his poetry would give us more profound revelation.

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