ABSTRACT
Coleridge's poem is superficially one of awed reverence; observing Mont Blanc, the poet is compelled to offer praise to God for elements of the natural world, whilst concurrently entreating those same elements to join him in thanking heavens for their very existence. This chapter seeks to reinterpret 'Mont Blanc' as solely a response to Coleridge's own religious apostrophe to mountain. It seems highly possible, given the repeated references to Alpine landscape in his letters and in Mary's journal, that Shelley would have addressed Mont Blanc in verse with or without knowledge of Coleridge's poem. The reciprocity observable in ravine reminds Shelley of his own thought processes which hold 'an unremitting interchange/ With the clear universe of things around'. Yet despite his attempts to differentiate this process from its metaphoric incarnation in ravine through use of 'separate' and the emphatic repetition of 'My own, my human mind', the landscape which has prompted these musings is also inextricably involved in their nature.
