Who Is Mont Blanc?

Percy Bysshe Shelley was a poet focused on conveying his thoughts through metaphors. "Mont Blanc" is Shelley's metaphor for the imagination. The poem's setting is also part of Shelley's metaphor. Mont Blanc is the highest peak in the Alps, which symbolizes imagination coming from a high place. Shelley's main image for imagination itself is the Arve River. Shelley's metaphor seen throughout the poem is the freedom of imagination. He also compares many literal and figurative images to give the reader a better understanding of what he believes imagination is. Shelley’s use of blank verse further emphasizes his point that the imagination is free flowing. I think “Mont Blanc” is saying imagination is like an untamed river that start from a higher
Shelley describes where he believes imagination starts in an, “everlasting universe of things,” ( 1). He paints the image of a dark body of water flowing, “through the mind”, ( 2), and the mind seems to be a spectacular and unearthly void. The critic, Kapstein, believes “The everlasting universe of things,” (Shelley, 1) is, “the substantial existence of the universe independent of mind.” (1047). Kapstein continues by analyzing what he thinks Shelley means by “things” (1) by referring to “Locke’s theory of knowledge” (1047). In the end, Kapstein concludes, “that the “universe of thing” is the creation of mind and exists only as the mind perceives it, its qualities inhering not in the fiction called “matter,” but supplied wholly by the free and creative mind” (1049). I concur with Kapstein that Shelley’s “universe of things” (1) is not a literal place, but a place in the mind for its creativeness and for the
This adjective is “secret” (4, 17). Shelley uses this adjective to describe the nouns “springs” (4) and “throne” (17). Both nouns relate to the central image, the Arve River, and both are places where the imagination starts. Shelley attaches “secret” (4, 17) to these words because he seems to believe imagination spawns from a place beyond human comprehension. Kapstein looks into this phrasing, but relates it to “Locke’s theory of knowledge” (1047), and is unclear about what he/she thinks of the phrasing. I believe Shelley uses the word “secret” (4, 17) in order to convey to his audience that the origins of imagination are