Mont Blanc

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Romanticism, which occurred during the 18th century, influenced many poets and other romantic writers to consider nature as the centre of all their work. The exploration of the sublime was a key aspect in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Mont Blanc. The sublime can be defined as a meeting of the subjective-internal (emotional) and the objective-external (natural world). Shelley has captured the sublime in this poem through the predominant notion of the relationship between the human mind and nature through various literary techniques. This poem initially addresses the mountain in its sublime majesty and highlights the way the physical traits of the mountain reveal and represent the hidden spiritual world. The idea of transcendence also assists in…show more content…
“The everlasting universe of things/Flows through the mind” compares nature to humans. The lexicon of ‘everlasting universe’ gives nature dominance over humans as it ‘flows through the mind’. Through this quote Shelley is able to represent something intangible and imaginative into a physical world which is able to be perceived by the observer’s mind. Furthermore, “the source of human thought its tribute brings of water/Where waterfalls around it leap forever” indicates that the observer, through Shelly’s use of language of natural entities ‘waterfalls’, is able to visualise things that they may not have experienced. The visual imagery of the waterfall reinforces the supremacy that is retained by nature and suggests that the visuals observed by the persona create the very essence of the humans’ thoughts. This first stanza demonstrates nature’s power and the relationship between the human mind and nature is distinct, that the human mind is unable to comprehend the splendour of nature itself. Shelly, however, has provided a minor insight, through the physical description, of the…show more content…
“Do I lie in dream, and does the mightier world of sleep spread far around and inaccessibly/its circles?” the rhetorical question provides a means of contemplation for the observer. It assists them to think that the imagination is just the sleep and the true reality and the beauty of nature in front of them is a mere dream. “For the very spirits fails, driven like a homeless cloud…” provides an answer, through a simile, and suggests that the persona ‘fails’ to understand the splendour of nature and is ‘driven like a homeless cloud’. On the contrary to the might of nature, Shelly connotes that nature can also be a source of guidance for individuals on a spiritual level. “The wilderness has a mysterious tongue/so solemn, so serene, that man may be…” the enigmatic tone continues to obscure the observer’s perceptions of nature however, ‘the tongue so solemn’ is a guidance that can rectify the confusion that is initiated. This stanza displays that the human’s mind can transcend natures perplexity by using nature itself as a direction to solving any predicaments the individual may be caught in. Shelly has used this conception as a basis to portray the relationship between the human mind and
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