ABSTRACT
Mary S. states (‘Note on Poems of 1816’ 1839 iii 35) that ‘Mont Blanc was inspired by a view of that mountain and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as [S.] lingered on the Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni’. The poem was almost certainly begun on 22 July 1816, although it is dated ‘June 23, 1816’ in 1817, 1824, and 1839. S., Mary and Claire made their visit to Chamonix, Mont Blanc and environs from Sunday 21 July to Saturday 27July 1816 (Mary Jnl i 112–21; L i 494–502). S.’s journal-letter to Peacock of 22 July-2 August 1816 includes for 22 July the following description which (as John Buxton, Byron and Shelley (1968) 33, notes) anticipates the poem in a number of ideas and phrases:
From Servox, three leagues remain to Chamounix. Mont Blanc was before us. The Alps with their innumerable glacie[r]s on high, all round; closing in the complicated windings of the single vale:-forests inexpressibly beautiful-but majestic in their beauty-interwoven beech & pine & oak overshadowed our road or receded whilst lawn of such verdure as I had never seen before, occupied these opening[s], & extending gradually becoming darker into their recesses.-Mont Blanc was before us but was covered with cloud, & its base furrowed with dreadful gaps was seen alone. Pinnacles of snow, intolerably bright, part of the chain connected with Mont Blanc shone thro the clouds at intervals on high. I never knew I never imagined what mountains were before. The immensity of these aerial summits excited, when they suddenly burst upon the sight, a sentiment of extatic wonder, not unallied to madness-And remember this was all one scene. It all pressed home to our regard & to our imagination.-Though it embraced a great number of miles the snowy pyramids which shot into the bright blue sky seemed to overhang our path-the ravine, clothed with gigantic pines and black with its depth below.-so deep that the very roaring of the untameable Arve which rolled through it could not be heard above-was close to our very footsteps. All was as much our own as if we had been the creators of such impressions in the minds of others, as now occupied our own.-Nature was the poet whose harmony held our spirits more breathless than that of the divinest. (L i 496–7)
