Final Post-- Where is the Power?

One does not know what one is until one examines the “other”. Just as something or someone does not have power simply by existing, but is given power through others who create fear. Such are the ideas that Percy Shelly present in his poem “Mont Blanc.” The relationship between nature and the human mind is daunting and drives the literary content of this poem while Shelly works through his observations. The question of whether power exist in the mind or in nature drives Shelly’s poem as it also exist as a response to William Wordsworth and his views on nature.

While Wordsworth, in his poem “Tintem Abbey”, emphasizes the flow of life from nature to the human mind, Shelly does the opposite. Shelly makes an argument for the power that eternally exists already in the mind. Shelly writes, “My own, my human mind, which passively/Now renders and receives fast influencing, / Holding an unremitting interchange/ With the clear universe of things around” (37-40). While Shelly definitely does not deny the power of nature, he supports the idea that our minds give power to things.

Throughout the poem Shelly makes it clear that the power of nature has a hold over him, the power that he gives to nature. In the second part of the poem Shelly begins addressing the Arve River. Shelly describes a majestic yet dark world “Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down/ From the gulfs that gird his secret through /Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame” (16-18). As seen in the last quoted lines, Shelly takes on a particular technique that persists throughout the poem. By capitalizing the word “power” Shelly emphasizes the word and meaning even more. This technique is seen often in poetry and was especially made famous by Emily Dickinson.

The peak of the poem seems to come with the appearance of Mont Blanc. Shelly paints in words the process of the mind trying to encompass what the eyes see. Mont Blanc seems to include all of what the word “power” means. Shelly describes a powerful nature and mountain with “a mysterious tongue/ Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, / So solemn, so serene, that man may be/ But for such faith with nature reconciled” (75-78). Shelly’s description of nature seems to be open and transparent, like it has the ability to be molded to the curves of the individual mind.

Shelly’s views on the human mind seem to have the power to be linked to nature, be killed by nature and triumph over nature. However, it is clear that Shelly thinks man is superior to nature because nature would be nothings without man thinking about it. In the last stanza Shelly reflects on a hidden strength that rules over things. Shelly’s power seemed to end up residing in the art that the mind creates. Where nature and man seem to create ambiguities, for Shelly and others alike art holds a deeper truth.