For more information
Call 1-800-351-0222
Call 1-800-351-0222
"MONT BLANC: LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI."
Term Paper ID:28587
Get This Paper Free! or
Essay Subject:
Analysis of Shelley's poem on reflection of nature.... More...
4 Pages / 900 Words
1 sources, 19 Citations,
MLA Format
$16.00
More Papers on This Topic
Paper Abstract:
Analysis of Shelley's poem on reflection of nature.
Paper Introduction:
Shelley's 1817 poem "Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni" features the reaction of a man who sees the famous mountain for the first time. In the course of viewing the mountain and the rugged landscape around it the speaker is moved, however, not only to do justice to the scene by describing it but to do justice to his own feelings as well. The fact that he has such an overwhelming reaction to the sight moves him to describe it in a manner that will persuade readers that they can share in the experience. But the sight does not just act on his intellect's ability to take in what there is to see and then describe it, it also provokes a variety of other responses: emotional reactions that are driven by the facts before him (because they interact with something within him) and imaginative responses in which his mind constructs, for example, sights and
Text of the Paper:
The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper.
In the ensuing section the ravine is described, with itstorrential river and its "loud lone sound no other sound can tame"--whichis like the same overwhelming sound that comes from the cumulative force ofthe flow of thoughts. Yet, following this demonstration of the vastdestructive/creative power of glacier and imagination what is left is MontBlanc. The poethas thus blended the flow of mental objects, or "things," with the flow ofthe Arve and the river, in turn, has set off his musings on the very topicwith which the poem opened. The fourth section lists nature's phenomena--from mild to violent and from inanimate to human--but it is then noted that"Power dwells apart in its tranquillity" (96). Here the poet has developedan equivalence between the generalized "Power" of the human mind (perhapsthe collective human mind) and the awe-inspiring peak in much the same waythe flow of mental objects was equated with the flow of the Arve. Looking up, the reader is thenconfronted by Mont Blanc, "still, snowy, and serene" and this is followedby a fairly straightforward description (62-66) in which signs of awe arekept to a minimum, e.g., "unearthly" (62) and "unfathomable" (64). Thus thespeaker deals with the sights and their effects on his imagination. This description proceeds with accumulating power like that of theglacier itself and here an equivalence like those that preceded it isestablished between the imaginative faculty of the human mind (and itsexpression here) and the glacier that drove everything before it. But the sight does not just act on hisintellect's ability to take in what there is to see and then describe it,it also provokes a variety of other responses: emotional reactions that aredriven by the facts before him (because they interact with something withinhim) and imaginative responses in which his mind constructs, for example,sights and sounds from the long-dead past, actions that he cannot see butcan imagine, and fanciful metaphoric descriptions of the sights. Thus, standing by the ravine, the speaker begins "Tomuse on my own separate fantasy" (36) as his own mind "passively / Nowrenders and receives fast influencings, / Holding an unremittinginterchange / with the clear universe of things around" (37-4 ). Shelley's 1817 poem "Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale ofChamouni" features the reaction of a man who sees the famous mountain forthe first time. The speaker shifts hereinto his emotional reaction to the absence of humanity and the sight ofpowerful nature going on without it. It is there in its loneliness and continues its lonely existenceunwitnessed, as the fifth section reiterates, for the most part byhumanity. Thesection ends with nothing but "swift vapours" that are breathed "to thecircling air" (126). He wonders whether they are the resultof the "gleams of a remoter world" (49) that is said to come in dreams orfrom the lifting of the curtain dividing the living from the dead andgranting access to wider knowledge and understanding. M. For this explanation earthquakes and fire are set aside and theremainder of section IV is devoted to the imagined description of theglacier that once shaped the mountain before him. Since there isno possibility of a reply the imagination must develop an explanation ofits own. The brief catalogue of frighteningsights then begins, but they are all sights that are imagined and whosethreats are incidental to their existence. This leads to further reflection on the nature of the mind and theimagination. University of Toronto Press, 1997. Lancashire. The coy picture of the jumble of rock as the toys of thepersonified Earthquake's children then brings up the desire to imagine thepast and the formation of the scene. The fact that he has such an overwhelming reaction to the sightmoves him to describe it in a manner that will persuade readers that theycan share in the experience. Wilson and I. Available http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/ shelley4.html The eagle, however, brings"some hunter's bone" (68) and the wolf follows her there. Subtly directing the reader to look upwardfrom the interiority of these musings the poet then describes the spirit asa cloud that moves between mountain peaks. The nature of the description changes, however, at line 67 where,significantly, he brings in the word "peopled." The word flashes at thereader but turns out to mean unpeopled instead. The stream begins small but buildsto a torrent. With the mentionof the human bone the whole landscape suddenly looks threatening "rude,bare, and high, / Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven" (7 -71). He might even, hesuggests, be in a permanent dream since "the very spirit fails" (57) whenfaced with such challenges. In Shelley's human-centered universe all the powerful sights in naturewould be nothing if their "silence and solitude" (144) were incapable ofrousing the human imagination to the reactive, imaginative processes thatthe poem has just described and performed. Thispower, because it includes the imaginative and speculative faculties,enables the scene to "Teach the adverting mind" (1 ) and the speaker goeson to imagine the formative violence of the past, a process that wasinterrupted by his realization that "None can reply" (75). "Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni." Representative Poetry Online. Ed. In the third section the speaker continues this speculationon the nature of human imaginings. But what he isreacting to is the indifference of the scene to his own, or any, humanpresence. But rather than being stuck in a loop hecontinues by noting that when he tries to put this experience into words,i.e., "In the still cave of the witch Poesy" (44) he finds that the ravine,the sights that he beholds, are there to be recalled at will. Inother words, there are different modes of response that the human mind canhave to the sight before the speaker and he engages in all three of them.The teaching power of nature resides, however, not in nature itself but inthe mind that apprehends it. Work CitedShelley, Percy Bysshe. Butthey also provide him with the material for his reflection on the nature ofperception which is a very complex phenomenon judging from the manyvarieties that occur to him as a result of the sight of this mountainlandscape. But whatever the violence of this imagined past or the imaginedpresent the speaker concludes that nature "has a mysterious tongue" (76)which the wise can "Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel" (83). T. The opening section thus establishes a relationship betweenthe observing mind and the great Ravine of Arve that leads from themountain. The poem begins, therefore, with the speaker's reflections on the"universe of things" (1), the objects that present themselves to the mindin the manner of an unceasing stream. It is inhabited by that "secret Strength of things" (139), ideathe power of mental objects to exert an influence on the human observer.But, the poem concludes, what is this power if there is no one to observeit? In the course of viewing the mountain and the ruggedlandscape around it the speaker is moved, however, not only to do justiceto the scene by describing it but to do justice to his own feelings aswell.
If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again:
or
We can write a Custom Essay just for you.
Browse Essays by Subject