Winds and Fires of Change

The prophetic visions offered by Blake and Shelley differ substantially in energy and presentation. Blake's verse is wrought in the forge of fierce rebelliousness and dynamic antagonism, while Shelley's Ode to the West Wind is more accurately characterized by caprice of spirit and a transcendental flight. Interestingly, the contrast between the two can be accurately sublimated into a difference of prime element -- Blake is fire, Shelley air.

The passage in America: A Prophecy most critical to an understanding of the underlying spirit is lines 8.1 - 8.17, which express Orc's mission. He is to bring back "The fiery joy, that Urizen perverted to ten commands." In his vision "Fires inwrap the globe, yet man is not consumd." Rather he walks among the "lustful" fires and is transmuted to his true, higher self. Blake's globe-enwrapping fire is the ire of human passion, here manifesting as an angry, destructive response to the static of the old. Thus the spirit of Blake's prophecy is characterized by fire. With this fire he hopes to consume the scourge of Urizen and his minions and once again make men free.

Shelley, on the other hand, imagines himself the companion of the west wind, from which "the leaves dead are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing." We soon learn that Shelley's wind is not the antagonistic destructor of Blake, for the dead leaves it bears along are not swept away so much as revitalized, "a wave to pant beneath [the wind's] power, and share the impulse of [it's] strength." For Shelley, the enemy is the "thorns of life" rather than the repressive agent of established society. Thus his prophecy is decidedly less angry, and his element is the air and the wind. With this wind Shelley aspires to revitalize himself and his fellow man, scattering "ashes and sparks, [his] words among mankind!"

Ric Heaton