The project entitled "Reading Mont Blanc" began as a faint wisp of an idea while Scott, Kalyn and I were browsing the hypertext in search of other topics. Happening upon the wonderful maps and illustrations of Wordsworth's travels through France and Switzerland, Scott remarked that perhaps we could make use of these in some manner. Then, as the various images of Mont Blanc passed before our eyes -- some picturesque and others clearly sublime -- we wondered if these could not somehow frame an exploration of how nature was conceived and presented by the various travel writers, 'grand tourists', and (of course) poets of the Romantic era. Our decision to focus on a single natural phenomenon, namely Mont Blanc, allowed us a certain amount of 'experimental control' in assessing the potential disparities in perception between our three 'subject groups.' It is of course only in retrospect that one can reduce an epiphany to such rigid, lifeless terms.

Initially we considered designing a poster whereon the pyramidal contours of Mont Blanc could serve as a sort of hierarchical frame in which to organize the various impressions according to their sublime or transcendent qualities. I believe we expected Shelley's "Mont Blanc" to rise to the top. Had any of one of us been particularly adept with scissors and coloured paper, our presentation might have taken this rather more delimiting turn. As it was, we decided to acquaint ourselves with the literature and artistic renderings of Mont Blanc before determining the format of our project. A book of aerial photography of the Alps convinced us that in order to convey the colossal grandeur of Mont Blanc to a group of people who had likely never seen it before, one could not simply read to them from Moore or Martyn or even Shelley; nor could one simply pass pretty pictures from hand to hand. Thus we decided to climb into the skins of those who had beheld the "monarch of mountains" and to speak, as it were, with their tongues.

Given our oft conflicting schedules, it was determined that a collaborative writing process would be impracticable. Instead we decided to write separate monologues and simply forge connections between them. We each took home the shell of a character -- a tourist, a mountain climber, a poet -- and filled it with what we hoped would be elucidating expectations, impressions, and realizations. In creating the American tourist I wanted a character who, though naive, parochial, and a touch Xenophobia, was not unamenable to life's renovating moments. Thus, upon beholding the summits of Mont Blanc, he is unable to take a picture, unwilling perhaps to distill the impression into a 4" x 6" memory. All he can do is sit, and hold his knees, and dream. I have had a similar experience in my youth. It was the last day of summer camp and I was sitting on a large rubber ball in the middle of a clearing cut into the woods, waiting for my friends. Almost imperceptibly, drops of warm minty rain began to fall, tumbling from leaves and branches in purling whispers. I sat still in this void of time, feeling utterly unafraid, unhurried, untouched by the cares of existence. I cannot describe a laughing heart, but such was mine at that moment. I cannot explain how it should be so, but in an instant I knew that all is in mighty hands.

The inclusion of music in our presentation was intended not merely to convey emotional states which words alone can never fully capture, but to allow the audience moments in which to engage Mont Blanc (as text) on a personal level. I was pleased to read in the responses we received that students were indeed reminded by our presentation of their own experiences with the sublime in nature. Music has the potential I think, more so than literature, to raise that which lies buried in the mind and to forge imaginative connections between distant conceptual poles.

Ultimately I think we learned that Mont Blanc cannot mean one thing; its impact on the beholder cannot be distilled into generic emotive states. Although themes of wonder and awe recur in many of the descriptions of Mont Blanc, such fleeting reactions are but shadowy apprehensions of the potential evocative force of this vista. It is through the mediation of the beholder's own imaginative faculties that s/he vivifies nature or, rather, apprehends its vivifying power.

WORKS CONSULTED

Martyn, Thomas. Sketch of a Tour through Swisserland. London: printed for G. Kearsley, 1787.

Moore, John. A View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, and Germany: with Anecdotes Relating to Some Eminent Characters. 3rd ed. London: printed for W. Strahan & T. Cadell, 1780.

Starke, Mariana. Travels in Europe Between the Years 1824 and 1828; adapted to the Use of Travellers; and Comprising an Historical Account of Sicily, with a Guide for Strangers in that Island. London: John Murray, 1828.

Twain, Mark. A Tramp Abroad. New York: Harper, 1929.

Wu, Duncan, ed. Romanticism: An Anthology. Blackwell Ltd., 1995.

Researching Mont Blanc was an interesting task. I discovered many valuable tidbits and, as well, the process revealed a personal interest. While working on this project, I had fun participating and contributing, I found valuable information, and as is common to research, set after useless leads.

I found the topic of researching Mont Blanc stimulating, yet I must admit, I had little part in the creation of the topic. The credit goes to Markus and Scott, and, upon being presented the choice, I saw the idea as significant and agreed that it would be worthwhile to pursue. As for our method of presentation, the credit goes to both Markus and myself, for we had very similar ideas. Markus thought that we could go with three different characters: a poet, a tourist, and a mountaineer, in which we would all act out one part. My idea dealt with acting parts as well, except my characters were not actually different types of people, they simply represented different and contrasting representations of Mont Blanc. Markus's idea deals with different aspects of Mont Blanc too, and we thought that having one group member each represent a poet, tourist, or mountaineer would be more interesting to the class, so we settled on his spin of the idea. My decision to play the part of the mountaineer originated from the fact that I had found an informative book dealing with mountaineering entitled Mont Blanc and the Seven Valleys. I had read some of this book by this point and hence was ready and in the mood for such a part.

The most useful and insightful resource for my part of the presentation was a highly subjective book by Claire Elaine Engel called Mountaineering in the Alps. The best part is that she devotes an entire chapter to Mont Blanc, where she includes many historical facts, such as the type of equipment climbers used. She also includes information on modern climbing methods and equipment, but I did not include this information in the group presentation for I thought the historical climbing facts from in and around the Romantic Period were more relevant to our course. The author even includes a chapter called 'Mountains and Literature,' but in this chapter, except for the first page which includes an exaggeration by P.B. Shelley, I found the chapter useless. It was Scott's role to provide most of the details from literature; my role was to present Mont Blanc from strictly a mountaineer's point of view. In my presentation, the facts that I present which are from Engel's book are: de Saussure's reward to the first successful climber, superstitions of the locals, eighteenth and nineteenth century attitudes, climbing in the name of science, female climbers, equipment, and the ancient passage information. Engel's book was the perfect guidebook for me to research mountaineering and Mont Blanc; as well, Engel provides several subjective tidbits such as which climbers liked whom.

I incorporated information from the hypertext into my presentation as well. I included the fact of the first climbers and the year. My idea of almost dying from falling into a crevice originated from a passage that my group and I discovered on the hypertext. It was from de Saussure's reflections called "An Account of the Attempts that have been made to Attain the Summit of Mont Blanc."

Frison-Roche and Tairraz's Mont Blanc and The Seven Valleys contains valuable information, as stated above. Just as Engel does, these authors devote a small section solely to Mont Blanc. The writers are somewhat more objective and focus on travelling and climbing routes. They include many of the possible routes leading to the summit of Mont Blanc; one of which I include in my presentation. Within the descriptions of routes are bits of advice and even some short legendary stories.

As is common in research, I set off on a false lead. My lead came from Creditable Warriors by Michael Cotsell. On the seventeenth page is a wonderful passage connecting lord Byron and Mont Blanc: "Leslie Stephen (who had climbed it [Mont Blanc) reflected on the fascination that Mont Blanc had for Byron: 'Byron's misanthropy, real or affected, might identify love of nature with hatred of mankind, and a savage, shapeless and lifeless idol was a fitting centre for his enthusiasm' (The Playground of Europe, 1871, ch. 4)" (Cotsell 17). Upon reading this, I was elated and thought to myself: Great! Byron had a fascination for Mont Blanc. Consequently, I set myself on a Byron search. I plumped myself down on the fifth floor of Rutherford Library in the PR section in front of approximately six shelves full of books focusing on Byron. I continually searched indexes for Mont Blanc references. Do you know what I found? I found that Cotsell's information is inaccurate! After searching several books all containing letters and journals by Lord Byron, I discovered that throughout his life, Byron makes few references to Mont Blanc and one reference, in fact, records Byron's disapproval for the infamous Mont Blanc! In a letter Byron wrote to Thomas Moore, he exclaims: "I think the Jungfrau, and all that region of the Alps, which I traversed in September -- going to the very top of the Wengen, which is not the highest (the Jungfrau itself is inaccessible) but the best point of view -- much finer than Mont Blanc and Chamouni, or the Simplon" (Quennell 399). I was sadly disappointed by this information, but I did not let it set me back, and I continued searching for other sources, and hence I found my mountaineering books!

Upon presenting Mont Blanc, I believe that everything went over well. After speaking with classmates about our presentation, I received positive feedback and got the impression that everyone understood our work: that each character went through a transformation of sorts and became either enlightened or disillusioned. I also felt that everyone understood that the music was to reflect our moods, as well as portray the sense of the mountain. Honestly, I am very pleased with how well the presentation went, and how much fun I had presenting it.

Dr. Miall, I wish to thank you for the opportunity to study Mont Blanc in such a detailed manner. I discovered fascinating facts, had lots of fun, and, most importantly, awakened a desire and interest in myself to rock climb. Upon reading about mountaineering and how intriguing it is, and hoving been exposed to few mountaineering and rock climbing experiences and intersections before, I now have a new found interest in rock climbing, for it appears to be something that I would enjoy. My next step, however, is to find a way to increase my funds so that I can afford the rock-climbing course offered by the U of A!

Works Cited

Cotsell, Michael. Creditable Warriors. London: Ashfield Press, 1990, 17,

Engel, Claire Eliane. Mountaineering in the Alps: An Historical Survey. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. 1950. 42, 62.

Frison-Roche, Roger, and Pierre Tairraz. Mont Blanc and the Seven Valleys. Paris: Arthaud, 1961. 201, 202.

Quennell, Peter. Byron: A Self-Portrait. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990. 399.

My group elected to present on the manifold interpretations of Mont Blanc based on the reports and graphics of Mont Blanc which I found on the hypertext. Markus, Kalyn and I decided to focus on different approaches to interpreting the mountain-approaches which would, we hoped, bridge the cultural gap between the Romantic era and our own, twentieth-century perceptions.

Since my group felt I was probably the most technologically inclined member, it was my initial task to collect relevant quotations from the hypertext, transfer them onto disk, and print them out for the group to survey. Meanwhile, Markus and Kalyn explored the library for both images and reports concerning the mountain (or the Chamounix valley, or other related areas).

Once we had collected these data, we observed that the passages concerning Mont Blanc seemed to belong in three different categories: poetry, recorded by those who were inspired (or failed to be inspired) by the mountain; prosaic accounts of travelling in the area; and detailed descriptions of climbing attempts over the years. Naturally, these three categories overlapped in some cases; however, we felt these categories would supply an effective structure for our report, and so specialized our research based on the different forms of reportage.

We decided early on that we would not construct a poster or collage for the project; although we had collected many splendid images of Mont Blanc (partly thanks to your assistance), we agreed that an attempt to construct a single, composite portrait of Mont Blanc would be contrary to our intentions with the project. Consequently, we elected to compensate by employing as many different media as we could, to provide a series of impressions of the mountain from many different perspectives. This approach would, we felt, emphasize the subjectivity of the mountain's meaning, and the distinct ways in which different viewers perceived the mountain, based on their expectations and strategies of reading.

Each of us was reponsible for selecting overhead images, fitting quotations, and samples of music that suited our character's sentiments. Since we had decided that I would play the "poet" character, I began my research by re-reading Shelley's "Mont Blanc," and other relevant works we'd discussed in class. I also found some other, less celebrated readings of Mont Blanc in an anthology entitled An Englishman in the Alps, edited by Arnold Lunn (London: Oxford University Press, 1913). Most of these dealt more with the Alps in general than with Mont Blanc, and in any case, most of them seemed to cover the same poetic ground as Shelley, Byron and Coleridge did in theirs. I decided to use the excerpt from George Hookham not only for its comic value, but also to demonstrate that it was not exclusively "the greats" who wrote about Mont Blanc.

(My poet character, incidentally, was not modelled after any particular poet from history; his behaviour, and his approach to reading Mont Blanc, was meant to suggest that he is, in no way, a "great" poet, nor even a good one.)

My opening quotation, from Byron's letters, was Kalyn's discovery, not mine. I used it to delineate the contrast between ordinary "tourists" and full-fledged poetic spirits which, I believe, Byron and other Romantics believed existed, though not perhaps to the extreme that my character took it. Since our findings did suggest a disparity between the tourist's mode of reading Mont Blanc, and the poet's somewhat self- righteous approach, I chose to exaggerate that in a way which would isolate my character, while setting him up for a greater fall.

The overhead image I selected to accompany my first speech was meant to seem inflated, like the poet's self-image, and a good deal more "picturesque" than anything he would be destined to find. The music which supplements my second speech was a piece called "Hercab" by a contemporary Italian jazz band called the Gianluigi Trovesi Octet. Its free, random style of experimental jazz was meant to convey the multifarious image which the poet brought away with him. The entire piece, over nine minutes in length, would probably have been even more effective in conveying Mont Blanc's complex magnitude, but for obvious reasons, a two-minute sample was more expedient.

The poet's ultimate reading of Mont Blanc as a free-floating signifier was, for the most part, my own thesis, based upon the readings that the group had done. My connecting it to passages in Shelley's "Mont Blanc" owes a critical debt to Anthony John Harding's The Reception of Myth in English Romanticism (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995). Although Harding does not assert that Shelley viewed the mountain so disassociatively, he states that Shelley de-mythologizes the mountain in a way which leaves it open to broader personal interpretation. This was the sense that our group most wanted to convey: that Mont Blanc does possess a transformational power, but that it does not affect people in any objectively measureable fashion.

My other, minor contributions to the presentation included: supplying the large, blue book of Alpine photos for the class to see (we decided that we would have it passed around after the presentation, so as not to distract); supplying the tape player; and obtaining a metal "beaner" hook from a rock-climbing friend, to use as part of Kalyn's mountain-climbing costume.

Document created April 2, 1997