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Landscape and the Sublime

Discovering Literature Romantics andVictorians

Article by Philip ShawTheme Romanticism

Professor Philip Shaw considers how Romantic writers thought about thegrandest and most terrifying aspects of nature and the ways in which theirwriting responded to and influenced theories of the sublime

I live not in myself but I become Portion of that around me and to me High mountains are a feeling but the hum Of human cities torture I can see Nothing to loathe in nature save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain Classrsquod among creatures when the soul can flee And with the sky the peak the heaving plainOf ocean or the stars mingle and not in vain (Lord Byron Childe Haroldrsquos Pilgrimage Canto 3 stanza 72)

In addition to Mary Shelleyrsquos gothic novel Frankenstein two major poems wereconceived in the Geneva Canton in Switzerland in the summer of 1816 thethird canto of Lord Byronrsquos romance poem Childe Haroldrsquos Pilgrimage andPercy Bysshe Shelleyrsquos lsquoMont Blanc Lines Written in the Vale of ChamounirsquoBoth poems reflect their authorsrsquo keen interest in the aesthetics of the sublimeWhen Byron writes of his wish to lsquominglersquo his lsquosoulrsquo with the mountains theocean and the stars he echoes over a centuryrsquos worth of thought about therelationship between human beings and the grand or terrifying aspects ofnatureIn the 1690s John Dennis Lord Shaftesbury and Joseph Addison made separate journeys acrossthe French and Swiss Alps which led to the publication of a series of influential accounts of wildand lsquowastedrsquo landscapes In The Moralists (1709) for example Shaftesbury blends delight withrepulsion in describing a mountain as a lsquonoble ruinrsquo and in 1712 Addison describes lsquothe heavingsrsquoof the ocean as the source of lsquoa very pleasing astonishmentrsquo[1] The sense of lsquoagreeable horrorrsquothat the vast and the irregular in nature instils in Addison is sustained in Edmund Burkersquosdescription of that lsquodelightful horror which is the most genuine effect and truest test of the

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sublimersquo Written in 1757 Burkersquos A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of theSublime and the Beautiful includes among its repertoire of sublime objects and events the lsquonoiseof vast cataracts raging stormsrsquo and lsquothunderrsquo Byronrsquos poem with its focus on the dizzyingsights and sounds of the alpine landscape culminates in an account of a thunderstorm thatshows the influence of Burkersquos Enquiry Arrested by the raging noise of the thunder and by thecontrasting sight of lightning in the lsquoglorious nightrsquo the poet wishes to become a lsquosharerrsquo in thestormrsquos lsquofierce and far delight ndash A portion of the tempest and of theersquo (93)

An Avalanche in the Alps a sublime landscape paintingby Philip James De Loutherbourg

The aesthetics of the sublime revolved around the relationship between human beings and thegrand or terrifying aspects of nature

Copyright copy Tate

Mind and mountainsThe desire to become lsquoa partrsquo of the lsquomountains waves and skiesrsquo (75) is animportant aspect of romanticshyperiod writing In Shelleyrsquos lsquoMont Blancrsquo theboundaries between mind and nature are deliberately blurred Gazing on theRavine of Arve lsquoin a trance sublimersquo the poet reflects on the stream ofsensations passing through his mind

which passivelyNow renders and receives fast influencingsHolding an unremitting interchangeWith the clear universe of things around [hellip]

Shelleyrsquos identification with the vast and overpowering aspects of the alpine landscape may beread in several ways Unlike Coleridge [httpwwwblukpeoplesamuelshytaylorshycoleridge] whose1802 lsquoHymn Before Sunshyrise In the Vale of Chamounirsquo depicts the lsquoskyshypointing peaksrsquo asemblems of God and differing also from Wordsworth [httpwwwblukpeoplewilliamshywordsworth] whose 1805 Prelude makes related claims for mountains as symbols of the

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connection between the human and the divine Shelleyrsquos Mont Blanc is defiantly remote andlsquoinaccessiblersquo Like J M W Turnerrsquos watercolour sketches of the area around Mont Blanc whichdepict human figures dwarfed by vast overshyhanging precipices and barren swathes of iceShelleyrsquos visionary landscape is forbidding and austere In the absence of God the poem seemsto suggest mountains have meaning solely as a result of the animating power of the humanimagination

Manuscript of Mont Blanc and other poems by P BShelley

The manuscript of Shelleyrsquos lsquoMont Blancrsquo In the absence of God the poem seems to suggestmountains have meaning solely as a result of the animating power of the human imagination

Some rights reservedCopyright copy Estate of Percy Bysshe Shelley amp Harriet Shelley

Copyright copy Barclays Group Archives

Mere de Glace in the Valley of Chamouni

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J M W Turnerrsquos watercolour sketch of the area around Mont Blanc which depicts human figuresdwarfed by vast overshyhanging precipices and barren swathes of ice

Land and freedomImportantly for Shelley Mont Blanc is also a symbol of political freedom strongenough in its immensity lsquoto repeal Large codes of fraud and woersquo The linksbetween sublime landscapes and ideas of liberty were forged in the 18thcentury Where enclosed gardens symbolised notions of aristocraticconfinement and control the wild untamed landscapes beyond the countryhouse represented freedom and release But while earlier topographical poetssuch as James Thomson sought to accommodate the potency of the sublimewithin manageable picturesque settings (see for example the description ofthe snowstorm in lsquoWinterrsquo from Thomsonrsquos The Seasons 1730) later romanticwriters seem more willing to explore the radical implications of extreme naturalphenomena Wordsworthrsquos Descriptive Sketches (1792) departs from theconventions of landscape poetry in its apocalyptic account of lsquomountainsglowing hot like coals of firersquo Combining elements of Virgilrsquos fourth eclogue of2 Peter 310shy13 and of the Book of Revelation the burning landscape givesbirth to lsquoanother earthrsquo Like Joseph Wright of Derbyrsquos terrifying image of theeruption of Vesuvius Wordsworth seems here to be fascinated by the pleasinghorror of sublime violence But Wordsworthrsquos apocalyptic vision is informed alsoby recent memories of the failure of the French Revolution Writing as a politicalradical seeking to rescue the Revolution from its collapse into despotism andterror Wordsworth appeals lsquoto Freedomrsquos waves to ride Sublime orsquoerConquest Avarice and Pridersquo The poetrsquos later rejection of revolutionary politicswas denounced by Shelley and Byron yet in many respects both lsquoMont Blancrsquoand canto 3 of Childe Haroldrsquos Pilgrimage may be read as a continuation of theaesthetics of landscape and liberty explored by Wordsworth in his youngerincarnationVesuvius in Eruption

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Written by Philip ShawPhilip Shaw is Professor of Romantic Studies at the University of Leicester He maintainsresearch interests in British Romantic writing and the visual arts His publications includeSuffering and Sentiment in Romantic Military Art (2013) The Sublime (2006) Waterloo and theRomantic Imagination (2002) and as editor Romantic Wars Studies in Culture and Conflict1789shy1822 (2000) He is currently working on studies of literature war and aesthetics in the 18thand 19th centuriesThe text in this article is available under the Creative Commons License[httpcreativecommonsorglicensesby40]

Romantics and VictoriansAuthorsWorksThemesArticlesVideosCollection itemsTeaching resourcesAbout the projectSupported by

Joseph Wright of Derbyrsquos terrifying image of the eruption of Vesuvius reflects the pleasing horrorof sublime violence

Copyright copy Tate

Footnotes[1] Spectator issue 489 20 September 1712

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