Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni

Percy wrote “Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni” while he traveled through the area with his wife, Mary Shelley, and her stepsister Jane “Clair” Clairmont during July and/or August of 1816. They had all traveled to Geneva to meet with Lord Byron. By this point, Shelley had experienced much turmoil in his personal life. He had left his first wife, Harriet Westbook to elope with Mary Godwin. Mary became estranged from her father as a result, and the two lovers lost their first child, a baby girl. Until he inherited wealth from his grandfather, Shelley remained in financial distress, running from lenders. These life experiences of loss, death, and suffering inform this particular poem as the speaker muses on the passage from life to death. The pessimistic visions of the wasteland located atop Mont Blanc and the destruction of human civilization by the oncoming glaciers may reflect the hopelessness and despair Shelley at times felt. The grandeur of Mont Blanc the speaker expresses and the interconnection between all things may likewise be Shelley’s attempt to feel as though he is a part of something bigger given the rejection he and Mary experienced from most of their family and friends.