Mont Blanc (poem)

Last updated

First page of "Mont Blanc" from History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817) MontBlancFirstPage.jpg
First page of "Mont Blanc" from History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817)

Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni is an ode by the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poem was composed between 22 July and 29 August 1816 during Shelley's journey to the Chamonix Valley, and intended to reflect the scenery through which he travelled. "Mont Blanc" was first published in 1817 in Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley's History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland , which some scholars believe to use "Mont Blanc" as its culmination.

Contents

After Percy Shelley's early death in 1822, Mary Shelley published two collected editions of her husband's poetry; both of which included "Mont Blanc". Mary's promotion of his poetry helped to secure his enduring reputation and fame.

In "Mont Blanc", Percy Shelley compares the power of the mountain against the power of the human imagination. Although he emphasised the ability of the human imagination to uncover truth through a study of nature, he questions the notion of religious certainty. The poet concludes that only a privileged few can see nature as it really is, and are able to express its benevolence and malevolence through the device of poetry.

Composition and publication

Percy Bysshe Shelley painted by Amelia Curran in 1819 Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Curran, 1819.jpg
Percy Bysshe Shelley painted by Amelia Curran in 1819

Percy Shelley formulated "Mont Blanc" at the end of July 1816, when along with Mary Godwin and Claire Clairmont (Mary Godwin's step-sister) he toured the Arve Valley by Mont Blanc, Europe's highest mountain. [1] Percy Shelley was inspired by the scenery surrounding a bridge over the river Arve in the Valley of Chamonix in Savoy, near Geneva, and decided to set his poem in a similar landscape. [1] He wrote that his verse was "composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wilderness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang". [2] Later, when describing the mountains in general terms, he wrote, "The immensity of these aerial summits excited when they suddenly burst upon the sight, a sentiment of ecstatic wonder, not unallied to madness." [3]

He was just short of his 25th birthday when he began the draft, which he finished before September. It was published the following year in the volume he and Mary Shelley jointly compiled, their travel narrative History of a Six Weeks' Tour Through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland . [1]

The published edition was not based on the first finished copy of Shelley's poem, but on a second copy written after Shelley misplaced the first. The first manuscript copy contains many differences from the first published edition and was discovered in December 1976. [1] Advertisements for the Tour appeared on 30 October in the Morning Chronicle and on 1 November in The Times , promising a 6 November release. However, it was not until 12 and 13 November that the work was actually published. [4] It has been argued by leading Percy Shelley scholar Donald Reiman that History of a Six Weeks' Tour is arranged so as to lead up to "Mont Blanc". Tour editor Jeanne Moskal agrees with Reiman that the book was constructed to culminate in the poem and she notes that this was accomplished using a traditional hierarchy of genres—diary, letters, poem—a hierarchy that is gendered as Mary Shelley's writings are superseded by Percy's. [5] However, these traditional gender-genre associations are undercut by the implicit acknowledgment of Mary Shelley as the primary author, with her journal giving the entire work its name and contributing the bulk of the text. [6] Moreover, those who see the Tour as primarily a picturesque travel narrative argue that the descriptions of Alpine scenes would have been familiar to early nineteenth-century audiences and they would not have expected a poetic climax. [7]

The publication of "Mont Blanc" in History of a Six Weeks' Tour was the first, and it was the only publication of the poem during Percy Shelley's lifetime. [8] In 1824, two years after his death, Mary Shelley included it in the first collection of his poems and later in her definitive Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1840. Circumventing the ban that Percy Shelley's father had imposed upon her biographical writing, she added extensive editorial notes in these publications. [9] She declared in 1824: "I am to justify his ways...I am to make him beloved to all posterity." [10] As Mary Shelley scholar Betty T. Bennett explains, "biographers and critics agree that Mary Shelley's commitment to bring Shelley the notice she believed his works merited was the single, major force that established Shelley's reputation during a period when he almost certainly would have faded from public view". [11]

Shelley's contemporary Lord Byron also wrote a poem titled Mont Blanc, incorporated in his Manfred .

Poem

Mont Blanc viewed from Chamonix Mont blanc 2007.jpg
Mont Blanc viewed from Chamonix

"Mont Blanc" is a 144-line natural ode divided into five stanzas and written in irregular rhyme. [12] It serves as Shelley's response to William Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey and as a "defiant reaction" against the "religious certainties" of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouni", [13] which "credits God for the sublime wonders of the landscape". [1]

When the narrator of the poem looks upon Mont Blanc, he is unable to agree with Wordsworth that nature is benevolent and gentle. Instead, the narrator contends that nature is a powerful force: [12]

The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom—
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters... (Lines 1–5) [14]

However, this force only seems to have power in relation to the human mind. [15]

In the second stanza, the narrator turns to the Arve River as a representation of consciousness in nature. The Arve River and the ravine surrounding the river increase the beauty of the other: [16]

...awful scene,
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down
From the ice gulphs that gird his secret throne,
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
Of lightning through the tempest... (Lines 15–19) [17]

When the narrator witnesses the power of the Arve River, he claims: [16]

I seem as in a trance sublime and strange
To muse on my own separate phantasy,
My own, my human mind, which passively
Now renders and receives fast influencing,
Holding an unremitting interchange
With the clear universe of things around; (Lines 35–40) [18]

He realises that knowledge is a combination of sensory perceptions and the ideas of the mind. [19] The river can then serve as a symbol of a conscious power and a source for imaginative thought when he finishes the stanza, "thou art there!" [20]

The third stanza introduces the connections between Mont Blanc and a higher power:

Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,
Mont Blanc appears,—still, snowy, and serene—
Its subject mountains their unearthly forms
Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between
Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread
And wind among the accumulated steeps; (Lines 60–66) [21]

Although the power may seem removed from mankind, it can still serve as a teacher. By listening to the mountain, one can learn that nature can be both benevolent and malevolent; good and evil emerge from conscious choice and one's relationship to nature: [20]

The wilderness has a mysterious tongue
Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,
So solemn, so serene, that man may be
But for such faith with nature reconciled;
Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood
By all, but which the wise, and great, and good
Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.(Lines 76–83) [22]

The fourth stanza discusses the greater power behind the mountain:

Power dwells apart in its tranquility
Remote, serene, and inaccessible:
And this, the naked countenance of earth,
On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains
Teach the adverting mind.... (Lines 96–100) [23]

The power of the mountain, which encompasses both creation and destruction, parallels the power of the imagination. [24]

Although nature can teach one about the imagination and offer truths about the universe, the poem denies the existence of natural religion. The power of the universe is symbolised by Mont Blanc, but for that power to have any meaning, one must exercise the imagination: [25]

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there,
The still and solemn power of many sights,
And many sounds, and much of life and death....
...The secret strength of things
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!
And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind's imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy?(Lines 127–129, 139–144) [26]

Variations

In both language and philosophy, the first published edition of the poem varies from the copy found in the Scrope Davies Notebook and the original manuscript draft. [27] An important distinction between the published text and the manuscript versions is the line "But for such faith", which reads "In such a faith" in both the Scrope Davies notebook and the original manuscript. Critic Michael O'Neill argues that the Scrope Davies's version "makes the more evident sense, though it possibly sacrifices some of the tension" of the published version; he contends that the published version "is cryptic and tortuous, and yet the fact remains that Shelley chose to print the poem with this reading in his lifetime." [28]

Themes

"Mont Blanc" concerns the human mind and its ability to comprehend truth. [29]

Carol Rumen in 2013 in The Guardian : While sometimes described as an ode, the poem is more intellectually rigorous than the title implies. A superb, sometimes personified portrait of the Alpine landscape, "Mont Blanc" also traces a journey through philosophical and scientific concepts that had yet to find a modern vocabulary. The mountains, falls and glaciers are not only geological entities as an explorer would see them or spiritual embodiments as they might be for Wordsworth: they inspire radical questions about meaning and perception." [30]

Its main theme examines the relationship between the human mind and the universe; [13] the poem discusses the influence of perception on the mind, and how the world can become a reflection of the operation of the mind. [31] Although Shelley believed that the human mind should be free of restraints, he also recognised that nothing in the universe is truly free; [32] he believed that there is a force in the universe to which the human mind is connected and by which it is influenced. [20] Unlike Coleridge, Shelley believed that poets are the source of authority in the world, [33] and unlike Wordsworth, believed that there was a darker side of nature that is an inherent part of a cyclical process of the universe, a notion similar to the theory put forth by the French naturalist George Cuvier. [34]

The poem's relationship with the mountain becomes a symbol for the poet's relationship with history. The poet is privileged because he can understand the truth found in nature, and the poet is then able to use this truth to guide humanity. [35] The poet interprets the mountain's "voice" and relays nature's truth through his poetry. The poet, in putting faith in the truth that he has received, has earned a place among nature and been given the right to speak on this truth. Nature's role does not matter as much as the poet's mediation between nature and man. Shelley, and the poet in "Mont Blanc", opposes organised religion and instead offers an egalitarian replacement. However, only a select few can truly understand the secrets of the universe. [36]

Reception

History of a Six Weeks' Tour received three reviews at the time of its publication, all generally favourable. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine quoted extensive excerpts from the third stanza, which contains similar themes and symbols as the "Letters from Geneva" in the Tour. The reviewer wrote that that poem was "too ambitious, and at times too close an imitation of Coleridge's sublime hymn on the vale of Chamouni". [37] As critic Benjamin Colbert explains in his analysis of the reviews, "what points Shelley seems to score with this reviewer are not based on his originality or the provocative implications of his descriptions, but on his approximation of a success already mapped out by other travel writers". [38]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Reiman and Fraistat 2002 p. 96
  2. ↑ "Preface", History of a Six Weeks' Tour, p. vi.
  3. ↑ "Letter IV", History of a Six Weeks' Tour, pp. 151–152.
  4. ↑ Moskal, "Introductory note", p. 2.
  5. ↑ Moskal, "Travel writing", 243.
  6. ↑ Moskal, "Travel writing", 244.
  7. ↑ Colbert, 23.
  8. ↑ Colbert, 22.
  9. ↑ Wolfson, pp. 193, 209; Bennett, An Introduction, pp. 111–12
  10. ↑ Qtd. in Wolfson, 193.
  11. ↑ Bennett, "Finding Mary Shelley", pp. 300–301
  12. 1 2 Bloom 1993 p. 293
  13. 1 2 Wu 1998 p. 845, note 1.
  14. ↑ "Mont Blanc", History of a Six Weeks' Tour, p. 175.
  15. ↑ Kapstein 1947 p. 1049
  16. 1 2 Bloom 1993 p. 294
  17. ↑ "Mont Blanc", History of a Six Weeks' Tour, p. 176
  18. ↑ "Mont Blanc", History of a Six Weeks' Tour, p. 177
  19. ↑ Kapstein 1947 p. 1050
  20. 1 2 3 Bloom 1993 p. 295
  21. ↑ "Mont Blanc", History of a Six Weeks' Tour, p. 178
  22. ↑ "Mont Blanc", History of a Six Weeks' Tour, p. 179
  23. ↑ "Mont Blanc", History of a Six Weeks' Tour, p. 180
  24. ↑ Bloom 1993 pp. 295–296
  25. ↑ Bloom 1993 p. 296
  26. ↑ "Mont Blanc", History of a Six Weeks' Tour, pp. 182–83
  27. ↑ O'Neill 2002 p. 618
  28. ↑ O'Neill 2002 p. 619
  29. ↑ Reider 1981 p. 790
  30. ↑ Mont Blanc by Percy Bysshe Shelley – The snowy peak and riven Alpine landscape turn the Romantic poet to thoughts of meaning, perception and eternity
  31. ↑ Pite 2004 p. 51
  32. ↑ Kapstein 1947 p. 1046
  33. ↑ Reider 1981 p. 778
  34. ↑ Jeffrey 1978 p. 151
  35. ↑ Reider 1981 pp. 780–781
  36. ↑ Reider 1981 pp. 786–787
  37. ↑ Qtd. in Colbert, p. 28
  38. ↑ Colbert, p. 28

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ode to the West Wind</span> 1820 ode by Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Ode to the West Wind" is an ode, written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1819 in Cascine wood near Florence, Italy. It was originally published in 1820 by Charles Ollier in London as part of the collection Prometheus Unbound, A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems. Perhaps more than anything else, Shelley wanted his message of reform and revolution spread, and the wind becomes the trope for spreading the word of change through the poet-prophet figure. Some also believe that the poem was written in response to the loss of his son, William in 1819. The ensuing pain influenced Shelley. The poem allegorises the role of the poet as the voice of change and revolution. At the time of composing this poem, Shelley without doubt had the Peterloo Massacre of August 1819 in mind. His other poems written at the same time—"The Masque of Anarchy", Prometheus Unbound, and "England in 1819"—take up these same themes of political change, revolution, and role of the poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Love's Philosophy</span>

"Love's Philosophy" is a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley published in 1819.

<i>Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude</i> Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude is a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written from 10 September to 14 December in 1815 in Bishopsgate, near Windsor Great Park and first published in 1816. The poem was without a title when Shelley passed it along to his contemporary and friend Thomas Love Peacock. The poem is 720 lines long. It is considered to be one of the first of Shelley's major poems.

<i>Adonais</i> 1821 poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc. is a pastoral elegy written by Percy Bysshe Shelley for John Keats in 1821, and widely regarded as one of Shelley's best and best-known works. The poem, which is in 495 lines in 55 Spenserian stanzas, was composed in the spring of 1821 immediately after 11 April, when Shelley heard of Keats's death. It is a pastoral elegy, in the English tradition of John Milton's Lycidas. Shelley had studied and translated classical elegies. The title of the poem is modelled on ancient works, such as Achilleis, an epic poem by the 1st-century AD Roman poet Statius, and refers to the untimely death of the Greek Adonis, a god of fertility. Some critics suggest that Shelley used Virgil's tenth Eclogue, in praise of Cornelius Gallus, as a model.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hymn to Intellectual Beauty</span>

"Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" is a poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816 and published in 1817.

<i>Queen Mab</i> (poem) Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Queen Mab; A Philosophical Poem; With Notes, published in 1813 in nine cantos with seventeen notes, is the first large poetic work written by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), the English Romantic poet.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

<i>Mounseer Nongtongpaw</i> Poem by Mary Shelley

Mounseer Nongtongpaw is an 1807 poem thought to have been written by the Romantic writer Mary Shelley as a child. The poem is an expansion of the entertainer Charles Dibdin's song of the same name and was published as part of eighteenth-century philosopher William Godwin's Juvenile Library. A series of comic stanzas on French and English stereotypes, Mounseer Nongtongpaw pillories John Bull for his inability to understand French. It was illustrated by Godwin's friend William Mulready.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Shelley bibliography</span>

This is a bibliography of works by Mary Shelley, the British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Until the 1970s, Mary Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish Percy Shelley's works and for Frankenstein. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Mary Shelley’s achievements, however. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels Valperga (1823) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826), and her final two novels, Lodore (1835) and Falkner (1837). Studies of her lesser-known works such as the travel book Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) and the biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–46) support the growing view that Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Mary Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practised by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and Enlightenment political theories.

<i>History of a Six Weeks Tour</i> 1817 book by Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley

History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni is a travel narrative by the English Romantic authors Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Published anonymously in 1817, it describes two trips taken by Mary, Percy, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont: one across Europe in 1814, and one to Lake Geneva in 1816. Divided into three sections, the text consists of a journal, four letters, and Percy Shelley's poem "Mont Blanc". Apart from the poem, preface, and two letters, the text was primarily written and organised by Mary Shelley. In 1840 she revised the journal and the letters, republishing them in a collection of Percy Shelley's writings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Percy Bysshe Shelley</span> English Romantic poet (1792–1822)

Percy Bysshe Shelley was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death, and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets, including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem."

<i>Rambles in Germany and Italy</i> 1844 travel narrative book by Mary Shelley

Rambles in Germany and Italy, in 1840, 1842, and 1843 is a travel narrative by the British Romantic author Mary Shelley. Issued in 1844, it is her last published work. Published in two volumes, the text describes two European trips that Mary Shelley took with her son, Percy Florence Shelley, and several of his university friends. Mary Shelley had lived in Italy with her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, between 1818 and 1823. For her, Italy was associated with both joy and grief: she had written much while there but she had also lost her husband and two of her children. Thus, although she was anxious to return, the trip was tinged with sorrow. Shelley describes her journey as a pilgrimage, which will help cure her depression.

<i>The Witch of Atlas</i>

The Witch of Atlas is a major poetic work of the English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley written in 1820 and published posthumously in 1824 in the Posthumous Poems collection. The poem was written in 78 ottava rima stanzas during the period when Prometheus Unbound and The Cloud were written and reflects similar themes. The theme of the poem is a quest for the perfect union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Shelley</span> English writer (1797–1851)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.

<i>Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire</i>

Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire was a poetry collection written by Percy Bysshe Shelley and his sister Elizabeth which was printed by Charles and William Phillips in Worthing and published by John Joseph Stockdale in September 1810. The work was Shelley's first published volume of poetry. Shelley wrote the poems in collaboration with his sister Elizabeth. The poems were written before Shelley entered the University of Oxford.

<i>Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson</i>

Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson was a collection of poetry published in November, 1810 by Percy Bysshe Shelley and his friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg while they were students at Oxford University. The pamphlet was subtitled: "Being Poems found amongst the Papers of that Noted Female who attempted the Life of the King in 1786. Edited by John Fitzvictor." The pamphlet was published by John Munday and Henry Slatter in Oxford and consisted of fictional fragments that were in the nature of a hoax and prank or burlesque.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Devil's Walk</span> Poem

"The Devil's Walk: A Ballad" was a major poetical work published as a broadside by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1812. The poem consisted of seven irregular ballad stanzas of 49 lines. The poem was a satirical attack and criticism of the British government. Satan is depicted meeting with key members of the British government. The poem was modelled on and meant as a continuation of "The Devil's Thoughts" of 1799 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. The work is important in Shelley's development and evolution of writings that castigate and criticise the British government to achieve political and economic reform.

<i>The Triumph of Life</i>

The Triumph of Life was the last major work by Percy Bysshe Shelley before his death in 1822. The work was left unfinished. Shelley wrote the poem at Casa Magni in Lerici, Italy in the early summer of 1822. He modelled the poem, written in terza rima, on Petrarch's Trionfi and Dante's Divine Comedy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Cloud (poem)</span> Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

"The Cloud" is a major 1820 poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. "The Cloud" was written during late 1819 or early 1820, and submitted for publication on 12 July 1820. The work was published in the 1820 collection Prometheus Unbound, A Lyrical Drama, in Four Acts, With Other Poems by Charles and James Ollier in London in August 1820. The work was proof-read by John Gisborne. There were multiple drafts of the poem. The poem consists of six stanzas in anapestic or antidactylus meter, a foot with two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable.

On <i>Frankenstein</i>

"On Frankenstein" is a review of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus that was written by her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, in 1817 but not published until 1832.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.