English Poetry, XIX & XX Century. Facultad de Filología, Universidad de
Valencia
Professor: Dr. Vicente Forés
Student: Marcos A. Palao Contreras
ROMANTIC NATURE
An essay on “Hymn to intellectual
beauty” and “Mont Blanc” by P. B. Shelley
Romantic poets came right after the
great "Enlightenment" in the western countries and they talked of
"natural law" as the source of truth, but such law was manifest in
human society and related principally to civic behaviour. Therefore, their
poems reflect this change in thought, but in the refusal of it (Paul Brians,
wsu.edu, 1998). The poets wrote a great deal about nature and earth
(Coleridge’s Frost at midnight, Keat’s To Autumn, Wordsworth’s Resolution
and Independence or these two poems on analysis by Shelley are just some
examples), and this was a new spirituality they were experiencing, although
this time it was not the severe religious thinking of the past, and yet it
still includes God through its new and particular view of nature. Back then, there
was also a strong rising interest in nationalism which helped shaping poetry.
The poets were interested in expressing individualism, imagination and life
experience, and especially through natural phenomena..
In the eighteenth-century vocabulary,
Nature is a word with many meanings which, rightly understood in its historical
context, provides the key to most metaphysical, religious, ethical, and
aesthetic thought of the time (Scott Foll, aliscot.com, 2000). Below are the
chief ideas represented by "nature". All of them but the last one
have the characteristics of eternality, universality, uniformity, immutability,
simplicity, and immediate and total clarity when examined by the pure reason
(that is, the uncorrupted). They are those of physical science (the order and
laws of the universe), theology (the spirit of the universe), moral philosophy
(the underlying laws of human thought and conduct), esthetics (the landscape
and external creation, both animate and inanimate) (Scott Foll, aliscot.com,
2000) and also on the concept of the sublime, which is considered as the
“aesthetics of greatness” (wikipedia.org,
2006).
In these two works by P.B. Shelley we
shall deal with the way he approaches and portrays Nature as the source of
strength and wisdom pervading human thought of the time.
On the one hand, and in regards to
nature itself, in Mont Blanc, Shelley describes the icy glacial capped
peaks of the Swiss Alps and he seems to hold a great appreciation and respect
for nature and the things that they are surrounded by. For him the natural world exists
without us and independently of us, but it is something we may never have
knowledge of as it exists in itself. Only in this way the opening lines in Mont
Blanc can make logical sense, "the everlasting universe of things
flows through the mind…, the source of human thought" (msu.edu, 2006);
something that can also be seen still in this poem when he writes “…Power
dwells apart in its tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible…” as well as
in the opening sentences to Hymn to intellectual beauty when he writes
“The awful shadow of some unseen Power floats though unseen amongst us…”, as if
it is also what “unseen and inaccessible” means, that we are not conscious of
its existence and that it is not within reach for us.
But while we may not understand the
‘power’ which drives this process of how things begin, the examples in nature
however let us observe that it is actually taking place, which allows an
insight for us to guess about the nature behind it. This way, human thought
does not act alone to discover its origins, something that may be known about
by referring to the example of first causes in general as they occur in nature. I think Shelley believes that a profound clue
to the origins of human thought in Mont Blanc rests, again, in the
processes of the “mighty” mountain, which are not only an example of the cause
and effect law but rather a demonstration of precisely how thoughts come. It
seems that Power is the mysterious force behind the first cause and the thing
from which thoughts come to life, "in the likeness of the Arve comes down
from the ice-gulphs that gird his secret throne…" (msu.edu, 2006), again
where it lives. Thus, the facts of nature which has the ability to influence
mankind and their thoughts and feelings can be regarded as a legitimate source
of knowledge rather than incomprehensible mysticism, something Shelley also
proves by writing on Hymn to intellectual beauty “…spirit of beauty,
that doth consecrate…of human thought or form…” or “…thou, that to human
thought art nourishment…” and that can also be seen in Mont Blanc when
he writes on the influence that nature has in himself by writing “…my own, my
human mind, which passively now renders and receives fast influencings…”
On the other hand, I shall mention
the concept of the sublime (or the aesthetic of "greatness") which was perhaps the single most
important concern of eighteenth-century because as Samuel Holt Monk put it “No
single definition of the term would serve in any single decade for all writers
. . .; but the word naturally expressed high admiration, and usually implied a
strong emotional effect, which, in the latter years of the century, frequently
turned on terror" (George P. Landow, victorianweb.org, 1988). And the
Sublime, which can be seen as an aesthetic of power, always seems intimately
related to questions of gender and power, something that is stated in Mont
Blanc by writing, again, “… in a trance sublime and strange, to muse on my
own separate fantasy…receives fast influencings” which is also portrayed in
Hymn to Intellectual… in a very plain way when talking about the influences
on the poets or the wise people by writing “No voice from the sublimer world
hath ever to sage or poet these responses given…”. That is, it is only given to
those who, according to Shelley, seem to be the only ones capable of receiving
such momentous “secrets” .
To sum up, to me both pieces by
Shelley are representative of the conceptions of the time, and one that
specially pays due respect to the mighty nature as a source of knowledge, of
true and inspiring knowledge that walks or tries to walk towards truth.
SOURCES:
(1) Paul Brians, 1998. “Romanticism”.
wsu.edu. 21 Feb. 2006. <http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/hum_303/romanticism.html>
(2) Scott Foll, 2000. aliscot.com.
“Nature”. 21 Feb. 2006. <http://aliscot.com/ensenanza/4033/prologue/nature.htm>
(3) 21 Feb 2006. <http://www.msu.edu/user/bradle45/shelley.htm>
(4) George P. Landow, 1988.
victorianweb.org. “Sublime”. 21 Feb. 2006 <http://www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/sublime/theories.html>
(5) 1 March 2006. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublime_(philosophy)>