Percey Shelley's "Mont Blanc"

Kevin Yee
Discussion 1B

Percey Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” is found under the “Nature” theme section. While the narrator writes about Mont Blanc’s majesty at first, he tempers the poem with the conclusion that nature is nothing without the human to perceive it. Shelley claims that nature is empowered by the human perception, and likewise it can be dethroned just as quickly. The narrator claims:

“And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind’s imaginings
Silence and solicitude were vacancy?” (lines 142-144; Norton 766)

In this passage, “thou” refers to “Mont Blanc”, as indicated by the Norton’s footnote. Shelley casts Mont Blanc as subject to the interpretive powers of man. This is a radically different conception about nature, and in turn, man’s relationship not only to his surroundings but also to himself. It is perhaps notable that under the title on page 762, it says in italics, “Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni”, for this gives context to the perspective from which the narrator writes about Mont Blanc. The narrator correlates human thought with water surrounding the Mountain, and throughout the poem oscillates in his judgment of Mont Blanc. The narrator even switches perspective, from use of the second person to the third person starting in the third stanza. While he beholds Mont Blanc as something to be revered, the narrator discovers the influence of self-perception upon his evaluation of Mont Blanc. Is it a natural wonder to be revered, or is it just a rock? Perspective is the judge. Since Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” is found in the Romantic (later) period, it is apparent that his conception of “Nature” was shaped by the intellectual currents of the time, which focused more on the individual self. This shift is made apparent when compared to conjectures of Nature seen in the earlier period. As Professor Makdisi explained in the final lecture, conceptions of nature shifted from something exclusive to fine minds to become a subject meditated upon by the individual. Nature in the later period, as demonstrated by Shelley’s “Mont Blanc”, was largely concerned with a person’s relationship to the surrounding world, with the theme of nature as a means to come to self-discovery.