Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” Essay

The Prelude is an auto-biographical, epic poem by William Wordsworth, Mont Blanc by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a much shorter poem, however it correlates closely to a loss from Wordsworths epic where he find outs a walking trip he took to Mont Blanc. at that place argon some startling similarities between the two pieces, exclusively at the same time in that location are sharp contrasts in the musical mode that the scene is costed and the poets maintain conflicting views on what this beautiful landscape painting means to them. A key theme in romantic rime is a connection with the rude(a) instauration, if we look at the ways that Shelley and Wordsworth represent personality in their work then some interesting contrasts usher out be seen.The Prelude, subtitled Growth of a Poets Mind, is a narration poem, showing us the upshots in Wordsworths life that learn mold his way of thinking and his views on constitution and existence. The poem was written in blank verse, this be was reserved for epics and lofty poems. Right away this rhymeless form, and the iambic pentameter which it follows, lend the poem a grand and sweeping get hold, creating a ace of importance and gravitas.This passage is split into three sections a extensive description of the bundle and the vale below it, a strictly story passage where Wordsworth tells of how he and his friend were lost upon the batch and crossed the the Alps without realising, and last(a)ly a lyric interruption or hymn (Romantic books p123 ) to visual modality (The Prelude, Book sixsometh l525). First the speaker describes the setting, the indispensable world around him and how it effects his emotions, then he returns to the narrative, telling us of the event that has caused him to relay us this tale and finally he conveys to us the virtuous implications of the event and how it has shaped his poets mind.In the first section the landscape is described as wondrous (TP l456) the glacier as a motionless boast of mighty waves (l459) but the speaker is grieved (l453) by what he sees, the souless image (l454) of the mountain is not as beautiful or as wondrous as the living thought(l455) in the minds eye. The imagery used to personify the mountain and its natural beauty is epic and grand. Winter is like a tamed lion (l466), ferocious,dangerous, but sedate and controlled, creeping down the mountain with a direful pace.The pace of the poem quickens as the stretch of narrative beginsDescending by the beaten road that ledRight to a rivulets advance, and there broke off. (l503-4)The shorter words, repetition of plosive and hard level-headeds, internal partial rhymes (led edge) and the lack of imagery increase the tempo of this section. The tripping and jumpy sound of the ducts, contrasts quite sharply with the earlier flowing sentences and sweeping descriptive passages.The thou helps to create the feeling of ascending the mountain, it also lends the setting a esthesis of desolation a nd emptiness there are rocks and streams and tracks but little else. This creates a sharp comparison with the beauty of the valley below. Finally this change in style also helps to create a build-up of anticipation before the anti-climax of realising that they apply crossd the Alps (l524) unknowingly. As they are told that all their remain course was downwards, with the current of the stream (l519) the young mens invigorate flow downwards with it, as spirit mirrors the emotions of the individuals viewing it.Imagination(l525) I recognise thy glory (l532). Underwhelmed by what the real world has to offer, the narrator brook look back and see that imagination contribute usurp such(prenominal) disappointments. The invisible world, doth magnificence make abode (l536), imagination can restrict an individual in hope that can neer die (l540), and these lines front to be saying that this transcends nature, that the human mind can imagine nature in all its perfection which can over come the disappointments of the real world, and Greatness capitalised along with thy glory and the hymn-like nature of this passage suggest imagination endue by a higher world power. This point is where Shelley and Wordsworths treatments of Mont Blanc differ greatly.Mont Blanc by Shelley is also written in Iambic Pentameter, lending it the same grand and terrific air as The Prelude. There is some rhyme passim the poem although it is irregular, this helps to draw attention to certain lines, and phrases. Lines 25 28 form a rhyming couplet. Previous to this, the poem has spoken of an old and solemn harmony (Mont Blanc l24), thiscouplet is that harmony. The rhyme and prosaic language lends this passage a lilting quality, emphasising the beauty and majesty of the nature it describes, earthly rainbows (l25) and aethereal weeweefall (l26). When the rhyme breaks on the next line a pause is created, changing the atmosphere.Wraps all in its own deep eternity (l29). Shelley has created a dichotomy to describe nature, the savage, awful power against the serene, calm and solitude. Shelley said that the poem rests its title of respect to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible gravity (Oxford Worlds Classics edition (2003), the Preface to register of a Six Weeks Tour by Mary and P. B. Shelley). The speaker finds the landscape beautiful, like Wordsworth, but also sees a much darker savagery in the mountain. Regal metaphors are littered throughout the poem the spring of the river is a secret deal (l17), the mountains around Mont Blanc are its subjects (l62) and the river is majestic (l123). The imagery used here emphasises the power of the mountain and its splendour.In the third stanza where the speaker ponders on the creation of the mountain an unusual rhyming scheme is used. From lines 72 to 83 the scheme is ABCCADBDEFFE. period there is no distinct pattern the rhymes seem to gradually slot together, creating a feeling of change magnitude urge, this places great emphasis on the final quatrain which directly addresses the mountain itself Thou hast a voice, great Mountain(l80). This random and unconnected rhyme mirrors the unpredictability of the natural forces it describes, emphasising Shelleys point that the wilderness (l76) has no pre determined pattern or plan, asking the reader, like the mountain, to refute the ample codes of fraud (l81) that credit a greater design with its creation.The beginning of the twenty-five percent stanza from lines 84 to 95 are concerned not with Mont Blanc itself but the cyclical nature of life and death. This whole section is one long sentence, fill with lists the fields, the lakes, the forests and the streams (l84), uses of the words and that, and an ever increasing intensity caused by the language. We move from forests to rain then fiery flood and hurricane (l87). Strings of alliteration keep increasing the pace of this passage future leaf and flower (l90), that detested conquer (l91), works and ways (l92) as finally it builds to a crescendo argon born and die (l95). Now the punctuation forces a pause and the followers hard sounds and spondees of revolve, subside put huge emphasis on this line as an ending point. Like the cycles of life and nature that this passage describes the momentum keeps building with great fury and passion until eventually it stops and subsides. correspondent imagery can be found to relate the two poems, both, for example, point eagles in a setting of isolation, A desert peopled by the storms alone, save when the eagle (MBl67-8), The eagle soareth in the element (TPl463), this shows that both poets have taken things from the natural world to create a certain atmosphere. Shelley and Wordsworth have used a variety of metaphoric imagery to relay the esthetical wonder of the mountain, interestingly both have used other images from nature to define it, Winter like a tamed lion (TPl466), underwrite of pines around the e clinging, children of elder time (MBl20-1), glaciers creep like snakes that watch their fair game (MBl100-1). While both seem to keep the scene completely natural, there is a much darker edge to the descriptions in Mont Blanc.The writing in The Prelude, opus in the same form as Mont Blanc is more stately and controlled Shelley has well-tried to infuse his verse with more passion, to reflect his feelings on the wildness of the natural world. The tempo in Mont Blanc seems to ebb and flow with the subjects that are touched upon, whereas in The Prelude, except for the narrative passage of the mountain climb, the progress is constant and measured. disposition is clearly awe-inspiring to the narrators in both poems but the way they feel about natures relationship with human thought seems to be intrinsically different. Two sections that stand out when comparing the poems are the ones which describe the infinite scope of the mountain when compared to the human mind.Some say that gleams of a remoter world visit the soul in sleep (MBl48-9)when the light of sense goes out in flashes that have shewn to us the invisible world (TPl535-6)Shelley believes that a remoter world is therealm of imagination, that only those who are wise, and great (MBl82) can carry through while in a state of trance sublime (MBl34). That nature has the power to help you understand the perceiving mind, you realise that the process of thought, like the water cycle of the mountain, or the circle of life, though invisible, is very real, and that this understanding can help us realise that any other power dwells apart, inaccessible (MBl96-7).Wordsworth gleans quite a different feeling from his experiences in the mountain. Imagination can transcend nature the natural world can never match the infinitude (TPl539) of the human mind.BibliographyAsbee, Sue (2001) Approaching Poetry, The Open UniversityMont Blanc, P B Shelley (referred to as MB)The Prelude, W Wordsworth (referred to as TP)Bygrave, S ( 1996) Romantic Writings, RoutledgeOwens , W, R and Johnson, H (1998) Romantic Writings An Anthology, The Open UniversityShelley, P, B and Mary (1817) History of a Six Weeks Tour, Oxford Worlds Classics 2003 edition