Quick update: I am not done with The Overstory, and even though I’m now significantly further in, I have nothing new to say from last time. (It’s still just “BUT THE TREEEEEES” on repeat.)

So I want to take a break from that and talk about one of my favorite poems, which is “Mont Blanc” by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Shelley isn’t my favorite Romantic poet (that’d be Keats), but I admire him—and I admire “Mont Blanc” most of all. This is probably pretentious of me, but I appreciate that it’s so inscrutable. I can really dig my teeth into it on a number of fronts, but there’s still a lot of things I find unclear about the poem, and I kind of enjoy that. It’s like there’s plenty more waiting for me upon further inspection, as I get older and see things in new lights.

The area of teeth-sinking for this post is going to be a pretty basic one, and you can probably find countless Sparknote-like analyses online about this connection, but whatever. I do what I want.

Source

And today, I want to talk about the ways “Mont Blanc” is a classic example of the Romantic era of arts and letters.

First Off, Some Elements of Romantic Era Works

I had an excellent teacher for my 400-level English course, and he said just about everything about Romanticism could be summed up in “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” by Caspar David Friedrich, pictured here:

Source

It’s a nature painting, sure. But it’s not a landscape. The focal point is man—a solo traveler made contemplative by the power he looks out upon.

Let’s not forget, though, that he’s on top of that mountain. Even as the Romantics respect, love, and are in awe of nature, they’re primarily in it for what it does to deepen their own experiences.

Romantics are anti-urban and anti-industrial. (You can primarily see this in Wordsworth’s works. He considered London to be a positive horror show.) They want to be in nature. But they’re not into descriptive pastoral pieces just for the sake of describing what they see. Everything is about the sublime: the power that comes from nature and its effect on the receptive spirit.

My aforementioned excellent literature teacher said we can blame the Romantics, primarily Wordsworth, for the trite “I went into my backyard, saw a tree, and had a thought” poetry that’s the hallmark of contemporary amateur poets everywhere. But the real Romantics, though at times a little self-absorbed, did it right. There’s a reason every aspiring poet unintentionally follows this formula. It really worked for the Romantics.

Oh, by the way—timewise, the Romantic era lasted most of the 1800s. The painting above was created in 1818. Shelley’s composed “Mont Blanc” in 1816.

What’s Mont Blanc?

It’s a nice pen to give your groomsmen! Just kidding. It’s the biggest mountain in the Alps—and in fact, the second biggest one in all of Europe. It’s on the border of Italy and France. While Shelley was writing this poem, he was on the French side, in the Arve Valley, looking up at the mountain.

Here it is, if it helps to picture it.

Source

The Sublime in “Mont Blanc”

First off, for reference, you can find the poem in full here.

If you come to “Mont Blanc” expecting a beautiful description of an elegant landscape with a majestic mountain as its focal point, you’re going to be disappointed. “Mont Blanc,” frankly, is a terrifying poem.

But now that you know a bit about Romanticism, this makes sense. The sublime isn’t a nice scene that’s pleasing to the eye. It’s an awesome, overwhelming, chaotic, strike-the-fear-of-god-into-you experience caused by nature, which leaves you no choice but to think very large thoughts about your own existence and your place in this world that’s so much bigger than you.

As Shelley describes the ravines and rivers and mountain itself, you can see him showcasing the sublime in “Mont Blanc.” It’s not a serene place, but it’s somehow holy. It’s big and terrifying and will strike fear and awe into your heart. And in the end, it holds the secret to life and death. (Emphasis mine in quotes here.)

• “a vast river
  Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.”
• “awful scene,
  Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down
  From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,
  Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
  Of lightning through the tempest;”
• “A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame;
  Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion,
  Thou art the path of that unresting sound—
  Dizzy Ravine!”
• “Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,
  Mont Blanc appears—still, snowy, and serene;
  Its subject mountains their unearthly forms
  Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between
  Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
  Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread
  And wind among the accumulated steeps;”
• “how hideously
  Its shapes are heap’d around! rude, bare, and high,
  Ghastly, and scarr’d, and riven.—Is this the scene
  Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young
  Ruin?”
• “there, many a precipice
  Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power
  Have pil’d: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,
  A city of death, distinct with many a tower
  And wall impregnable of beaming ice.
  Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin
• “Below, vast caves
  Shine in the rushing torrents’ restless gleam,
  Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling
  Meet in the vale, and one majestic River”
• “Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there,
  The still and solemn power of many sights,
  And many sounds, and much of life and death.”

These are all instances of how Shelley is experiencing the sublime through his experience standing in the valley of Mont Blanc.

But Let’s Not Forget Shelley’s Presence…

Don’t forget that a key part of nature, for Romantics, is their place in it. They want to discuss what it makes them think and feel. We first see Shelley himself show up in the poem in stanza II:

• “and when I gaze on thee
  I seem as in a trance sublime and strange
  To muse on my own separate fantasy,
  My own, my human mind, which passively
  Now renders and receives fast influencings,”

If you ask me, the transition to talking about himself seems a tad awkward—sort of a “but enough about you; let’s talk about me.” But without these deeper thoughts he begins to have about sleep and life and death…well, without them, we have “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” (the painting I shared above) but with no focal point. It’s just a landscape.

Landscapes are nice. But what makes a Romantic poem is the thoughts the poet has because of what he (and let’s face it, Romantic poets are almost always “he”s) sees. The interpretation Romantics give to their poetry adds depth.

Here are more reactions and insights Shelley has as the result of what he sees:

• “I look on high;
  Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl’d
  The veil of life and death? or do I lie
  In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep
  Spread far around and inaccessibly
  Its circles? For the very spirit fails,
  Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep
  That vanishes among the viewless gales!”

With this, you get the sense that Shelley is so overwhelmed by the vision before him, that it’s so powerful, that he must somehow be witnessing the connection between life and death in this place he’s found himself. He feels it’s so surreal he must be dreaming, but if he’s dreaming, could he possibly actually be dead?

Then we have this:

• “Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
  Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood
  By all, but which the wise, and great, and good
  Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.”

Lol. On one hand, this is just Shelley saying, “not everyone can appreciate this the way some people, like me, can” But if we take what he’s saying at face value, he feels that because of his capacity and the capacity of likeminded people, there are great gifts here for those who would receive it. That certain people could take pilgrimages here and find the secret to “repealing fraud and woe.” That’s the effect of the sublime on the individual, to Shelley.

Finally, let’s take a look at how the poem ends.

This is so quintessential Romantic. He’s zoomed all the way out of his experience at Mont Blanc and generalized to this question:

“What good is nature if we don’t learn to observe it in silence and solitude and take in the lessons that we can from it?”

(And what a man-centric, classic Romantic way of looking at these things that feel so powerful and so much bigger than yourself—you’re no good if we can’t take value from you.)

I’d love to hear what Shelley would have to say about the personality types that can’t sit still and observe nature for long swaths of time.

Final Thoughts on “Mont Blanc”

I’ve picked on the poem a bit at the end here, but let me reiterate—I love this poem, and I love Shelley. This work is so dense and impossible to truly untangle. And I adore that about it. I still read all of stanza IV and think, “Wut 🤔.”

However, even if you don’t really understand what’s going on, it’s a delicious poem to just take in. Crunch on those word choices. Let the descriptions wash over you. See what sinks into your subconscious. “Mont Blanc,” like it’s namesake, is waiting there, big and overpowering, for you to take away revelations and new experiences.

Next week, I expect to finish The Overstory and have some final thoughts, so look forward to that roast. (Just kidding. Maybe I won’t roast it. Maybe.)

Listen all ya’ll, this is sabotage…

because I believe I’m about to throw down some spoilers.

But honestly, if you dislike spoilers, you shouldn’t read Middlemarch because the author is throwing them down hard herself.

I’ve just begun reading George Eliot’s (AKA Mary Ann Evans’) Middlemarch again. It was about a decade ago that I consumed it on the recommendation of a delightful English teacher. My memory of the plot is pretty fuzzy, as I’m old AND I have goldfish-level info retention anyway.

So, What Are We Spoiling Today? What’s This Post About?

Quick catch up. Early in the book, teenage Dorothea has met two suitors. One is young and charming and one is self-important father time. She hates the lack of a humbuging, harumphing, anti-enjoyment grandfather figure in her life, so this is the suitor she chooses to marry. What could go wrong. <–Rhetorical.

But while it’s obvious from both the circumstance and the author that this is a disaster waiting to happen, what I find interesting is the very specific ways Casaubon has made it clear in his proposal letter that he’s an awful person. This match is going to be ugly, and he previews the ways how.

That’s what I’m going to talk about today, with quotes from the letter that illustrate exactly what’s wrong with this pompous Methusela:

• that he has no feelings of actual love,
• that his thoughts about Dorothea are simply about her potential as a helpmate,
• and that he’s willing to stoop to manipulation in his attempt to convince her this marriage will save her in various ways.

Quick note on accessibility: I post screenshots of the book that visually impaired won’t be able to read, but I write out all the quotes I find important, and I created an MP3 of the whole letter you can listen to here. 

First, a Quick Recap of Dorthea’s Return Letter for Context

That’s right. I’m so lazy I’m taking pictures of my Kindle.

Before we get to Casaubon’s letter, let’s jump ahead to Dorothea’s response.

While we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves, what Dorothea says in her letter will put into perspective the rest of what I’ll say in this post.

Dorothea says in the first sentence, “I am very grateful to you for loving me” (emphasis mine).

She believes Casaubon’s letter to be a profession of love—and that that love will be the cornerstone of their marriage.

We were all teenagers once…

She’s going to find something out the hard way, and it’s something we can already see in Casaubon’s proposal letter. We’ll see he never mentions love. What’s more, we should, in fact, question his capacity to love.

With that, here are some points I want to bring up with Casaubon’s letter.

1. What’s Up With the Dense, Inscrutable Line at the Beginning?

Please pardon the shadow of my wine glass.

Let’s begin with this doozy from Casaubon’s proposal letter.

This quote is the second sentence of this letter.

I mean, he’s opening with this.

Here’s the line I’m talking about:

I am not, I trust, mistaken in the recognition of some deeper correspondence than that of date in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had arisen contemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with you.

Okay.

I’m an English major whose main focus over the course of a lifetime of reading is 19th-century literature. Here is my reaction to reading this line.

Wat.

Now, I’m going to break the quote down for you as best as I can, but please know, this isn’t just the way people talked in the “olden days.” This is different: purposefully obtuse. His goal is to impress by being utterly opaque.

Check out the quote with interpretation in bold so you can see what he’s saying here.

I am not, I trust, mistaken in the recognition

“I’m quite sure you and I both recognize”

of some deeper correspondence than that of date

“that there’s been more serious talk lately”**

in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had arisen contemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with you.

“about the fact that I’ve discovered I have needs while, coincidentally, meeting you!”

** it’s unclear to me quite what he means here. I think he’s talking about asking her uncle for permission to marry and he’s assuming uncle and Dorothea have discussed it. But he might be talking about feeling like he (Casaubon) and Dorothea have been having deeper communication lately.

So, that long-winded sentence, nearly impossible to dissect, can be summed up as “MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.”

But even if you don’t dissect it, what’s the point of having a sentence that stiff and dense in a proposal letter, right off the bat? To establish intellectual dominance? To intimidate? To get this relationship off on the proper platonic foot? To hide the fact that the sentence just says “MEEEEEEEEE”?

Up to your judgment, friends.

2. Note That He Sees Her as an Object Fit for Purpose

“You’re my holy grail mascara”

Okay. The quote under inspection this time is this:

I had an impression of your eminent and perhaps exclusive fitness to supply that need***…each succeeding opportunity for observation has…convinc[ed] me more emphatically of that fitness.

*** The need he’s talking about is the unspecified one found in the last section’s quote.

To be fair, the ellipses in my quote skip through some parts that mention his affection. DON’T YOU WORRY. I’ll get to that because it makes me angry and I like to write when I’m angry.

But first, the quote I shared—he’s talking about her fitness, not her loveable qualities. He seems almost to be obsessed with this unique fitness he hasn’t found anywhere else.

This is dehumanizing.

Quick aside: I’m not ashamed to say I watch a lot of beauty YouTube content. There’s a concept among this community of a “holy grail” product—the product, after a long hunt, that’s absolutely perfect for you and causes you to never need to buy anything again.

Say you’ve been looking for years for a mascara that doesn’t smudge, makes your lashes look floofy, lengthens them, and generally makes everyone you see gasp and say, “Wow, what false lashes are those?”

Then, finally, you stumble upon it! You couldn’t be happier. But are you in love with it? If you couldn’t put that mascara on your eyelashes, would you love it for what it is?

No. It’s an inanimate product. And it’s an inanimate product that you want to buy because it’s fit for your purpose.

Dorothea is an inanimate product to Casaubon. She’s his holy grail mascara.

3. His Mention of Affection Is Twisted

Now, let’s talk about some parts I ellipsed out of the quote in the previous section. After all, he does mention affection!

Her “fitness” is

…connected, I may say, with such activity of the affections as even the preoccupations of a work too special to be abdicated could not uninterruptedly dissimulate.

First of all:

Can I share this and still keep my PG blog rating?

Casaubon’s self-importance about his “work” (a giant undertaking that no one asked for—namely writing a sprawling scholarly religious text uniting mythologies) is showing up in a proposal letter. This is no surprise, as he finds a way to center this work in every conversation he has.

But do you hear what he’s actually saying? “Even my work, which by the way is way too special for me to pause even for a moment, couldn’t distract me from my affection for you.”

That’s what affection means to him. It’s how affection shows up in a marriage proposal. This backhanded “Not even my work can prevent me from being interested in you.” Very flattering.

He also says that the source of the affection is her fitness for his work:

That fitness which I had preconceived…evok[ed] more decisively those affections

Remember, Dorothea thanked him for the “love” he expressed in this letter. Does this sound like love?

4. More of the Same: She’s Attractive Because of Her Capacity to Support Him in His First Love—His Work

Marry me and I promise you a lifetime of righteous suffering.

Here, Casaubon restates what we’ve already heard:

Our conversations have, I think, made sufficiently clear to you the tenor of my life and purposes: a tenor unsuited, I am aware, to the commoner order of minds.

Translation: “What I do is super smart. Most people don’t have the IQ required to spend much time with me.”

But then, behold! A concession!

I have discerned in you…a rare combination of elements****…adpated to supply aid in graver labors.

****If you read the whole quote, you’ll learn those elements are, according to him, are (1) it’s rare that a woman is smart and (2) it’s rare to find someone he’s so convinced will be devoted to him and his work.

So, let me paraphrase Casaubon here:

“I have decided you have the traits necessary for graver labors, so please marry me.”

This is, in fact, much more a job offer than a marriage proposal.

He is trying to flatter her. This is what he considers the kinds of compliments that will win her over. Sadly, he’s not wrong.

5. Providence, Not Two Equals Uniting in Love. Providence.

We’ve a number of quotes here indicating that Casaubon considers Dorothea his personal gift from God.

I trust you’re excited to hear these quotes so you can revel with me in hatred.

Here we go.

My introduction to you (which, let me say again, I trust not to be superficially coincident with foreshadowing needs but providentially related [emphasis mine] thereto as stages toward the completion of a life’s plan)…

And we have the equally romantic

To be accepted by you…I should regard as the highest of providential gifts.

Now, lest you think he considers this a gift from Dorothea, let’s see what Merriam Webster has to say about providence:

Yep. To Casaubon, her acceptance of a proposal is a gift from God, not from Dorothea.

6. And the Worst of It: The Manipulation

Look at this veiled threat near the end of Casaubon’s letter. Wow.

In return I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted, and the faithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, has no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find records such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame.

Let’s break that down with some more dictionary definitions (and my analysis in bold, for spice):

In return I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted

Collins Dictionary says “hitherto” means you’re indicating “that something was true up until the time you are talking”

So, my interpretation: “If you accept my proposal, do so in the knowledge that I like you. So far, anyway.”

and the faithful consecration of a life

Merriam Webster has “consecrating” as “dedicated to a sacred purpose.”

Here’s what Casaubon’s saying: “I’ll offer you a life that’s dedicated not to you but instead to a sacred purpose.”

which, however short in the sequel,

“I’m old and probably going to die soon.” (I think that’s what he means, anyway. He’s a hard dude to understand.)

has no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find records such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame

My interpretation: “If you chose not to marry me, I can’t promise your choices won’t lead to bitterness or shame.” Ew.

It’s that last one that gets me. The promise of a holy life to a pious, naive teenager—and the threat of potential debauchery upon refusal.

Let’s Close By Remembering Dorothea’s Letter

Recall what Dorothea said in her response to this letter. She is grateful to him for loving her.

But what has he actually said here?

• “This proposal is all about me and the benefits I’ve been thinking you’ll bestow on my life.”
• “You are a helpmate fit to assist me with my true love—my work—and that’s the only source my of attraction to you.”
• “God has given you as a gift to me—it’s providence.”
• “And if you say no, I can’t be responsible for your shameful spiral into crime and prostitution.”

After analyzing quotes from this letter, how can you come to any conclusion but that this marriage, despite what Dorothea responds with, will be a loveless one?

And that’s it for me today. I promise you an equally uplifting post on Middlemarch next week.