“Mont Blanc” by Percy Shelley Essay

Updated: May 7th, 2019

“Mont Blanc”, written by Percy Shelley, is a poem on the subject of the stunning mountain. The author admires this mountain, Mont Blanc, and employs his imagination which prevailed upon its inspiration, essence in informing and shaping nature as well as adding value to human life to express his information. He utilizes nature’s symbols to explore the societal social predicaments.

This poem illustrates that objects have a more multifaceted meaning than how they appear on their surface (Muldoon 43). The mountain was truly sublime, and the kind of feelings that were aroused from its view were quite overwhelming. As a result of this scenario, the poem was coined.

The poem not only depicts the scenery and the natural world in the border of the mountain but also describes the river that flows from its summit. The lyric digs abit deeper into the real meaning of the emotions and feelings. This not only makes one to acknowledge the happiness from viewing such a splendid beauty but also to reflect on the source of this glory. Furthermore, it brings insights into the reasons for its existence.

As brought out in the poem, “Looking up at the glacier covered pinnacles of Mont Blanc from the Arve river valley”, the author senses that it represented “the still and solemn power of many sights” (Leighton 78). This was an exclusive view where, due to its great and striking stature, the prominent influence of nature stood out in greatness.

In view of the fact that this specific sight influenced his mind in a manner that not many others could, Shelley trusts that its meaning necessitates attention to each of the diverse components that come together to complete it. This is what holds immense significance for him.

What is the main thing that makes the mountain so dear and wonderful for Shelley? The explanation for this is the reality that he regards it as the grand and uncommon spring of knowledge for the society. This is because he considers that very many individuals are quite busy and worried by their daily businesses and hustle. Therefore, they can’t discontinue these activities in order to approve the beauty of the world surrounding them.

However, in rear occasions, some individuals may state that, “…gleams of a remoter world visit the soul in sleep,–that death is slumber, and that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber of those who wake and live.” As a consequence, during sleeping, most individuals escape from their simple insight of life. In turn, these individuals may have the opportunity of realizing life facts which are unseen or are impossible to be acknowledged as a result of our fascination with our daily life petite things.

On the other hand, the author trusts that he personally has the chance to experience and observe all these undisclosed events while he is awake though in a sleep-like status. He supposes that this entails the mountain that hypnotizes him leading to him feeling like he is dreaming.

May be this feeling arises from his poetical nature. This is founded on the idea that as a poet he is capable of seeing exceptional things. This is a unique ideal that is not endowed to every individual. The author believes that he possesses this unique ability that empowers him to imagine and thus comprehend things from a different perspective.

The mountain enables Shelley to comprehend that everything that happens in the world he lives has its origin as well as particular consequences. From this point of view, he looks at the powerful river of Arve flourishing gently from the summit of Mont Blanc.

In this scenario, the repeated nature of each and every procedure is illustrated with the case of the river, which originates from the glaciers, and it being a stream, flourishes steadily and gently to the foot of the mountain where it eventually becomes a powerful river. In addition, it might be so powerful that sometimes its flow may destroy life. In such a case, it leads to the animation of things around it as it ahs been witnessed for centuries.

The river Arve flows into the ocean and looks as if it disappears once it joins the ocean. Nevertheless, it is merely a vision as the ocean water returns to the snowy peaks of Mont Blanc in the form of evaporation. Through this, the entire process commences again making it a full cycle. The two key concerns can be acknowledged from this poem by the author, Shelley.

To begin with, it is revealed that the cycle of the actions of nature takes place in an unstoppable way and every portion of its cycle possesses its own origin as well as its cause. In the same way, all procedures in our lives have their specified reasons and roots. With regard to Shelley, this entails the law of human existence. Thus, if any one desires to comprehend the heart of it, he or she ought to have a deep interest in it.

He further asserts that despite not knowing the precise substantiation or subsequence of the acts, one could still understand his or her environment. This can only happen as a result of the existence of various unseen connections between the nature and mind. Such a link may be referred to as imagination.

However, this will be based on the existence of such a connection in reality. Therefore, a person’s view of reality is supposed to be shrewd and emotional as well as founded on intuition. Through this, one is able to recognize the core of the universe around him or her (Finamore 135).

Shelley presents to the reader the liberty to think when he asks, “And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, / If to the human mind’s imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy?” The main idea of this statement was to find out what “Mont Blanc” was devoid of “…the human mind’s imaginings” (Shelley 67).

Consequently, the author acknowledges that personality and not an individual’s mind constitutes the “everlasting universe of things”. The “Mont Blanc” poem takes into consideration both the direct entity of nature professed by the poet as well the superior authority of nature. The author in turn focuses on the matter of how the mind could associate with something that has such enormous and silent influence. Shelley’s poetry intends to confront this predicament.

This is constantly seen when hope and calmness are integrated into human understanding. The author has managed to bring out the issues affecting the society through this narration. Based on “Mont Blanc”, Shelley has successfully related the societal issues to this mountain and the manner in which they can be handled in order to make the society a better place to live.

Works Cited

Finamore, Frank: Half Hours with the Best Poets. New York, NY: Gramercy, 1999. Print

Leighton, Angela. Shelley and the Sublime: An Interpretation of the Major Poems. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Muldoon, Paul. The End of the Poem: Oxford Lectures. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.

Shelley, Percy. Mont Blanc. New York, NY: McGraw Press, 2012. Print

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