Just like Shelley’s “Mont Blanc,” there are five segmented parts that make up its whole: the introduction, Part I, Part II, Part III, and finally the coda. Like the introduction of the piece, the first part of “Mont Blanc” seems to represent an inquisitorial first glance at the mountaintop. The first two notes that the right hand plays (E# and G#) seem almost to pose a question that is asking for a resolution. Similarly, the narrator seems to question if this setting is the “source of human thought” and if the “waterfalls around it (Mont Blanc) [will] leap for ever” (5, 9). The next part of the poem seems to seek for the resolution to the questions that are raised. The narrator describes “seeking among the shadows that pass by / Ghosts of all things that are” (45-6). This section of the piece seems to represent a nonchalant exploration of the mountaintop, as this section is predominantly played in a piano volume and has a relaxed feel. The next section of the piece is where it reaches its climax, and the same can be said for “Mont Blanc.” The narrator seems quite angry at the mountaintop in this section, saying “how hideously / Its shapes are heap’d around!” and “Is this the scene / Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young / Ruin?” (69-70, 71-3). The narrator seems appalled by the mountaintop in this section, as it seems to be such a deathly, hideous place. In Part III of the Mendelssohn piece, we encounter a resolution, as the theme echoes what has already been played in Parts I and II. This section of the poem also makes callbacks to earlier parts, as the narrator notes once again the “Roll [of] its perpetual stream” and marvels at the “everlasting” nature of “Mont Blanc” (1, 109). The coda of the piece draws similarities to Part V of the poem, as they both represent the narrator’s final tussling with the nature of their respective muses. Both seem to leave the reader/listener with an undecided tone, as the narrator concludes with a summarizing question: “And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, / If to the human mind’s imaginings / Silence and solitude were vacancy?” (142-4).
Works Cited
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni,” Wonders and Sublimity 2024, Stanford Online High School, University of Stanford, April 2024, https://spcs.instructure.com/courses/7897/files/1338651?module_item_id=177635. Accessed 9 April 2024.