Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni

“Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni” has been categorized as an ode. An ode is defined as “[a] formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea” (“Ode.” Poetry Foundation, 2022.). Odes written specifically during the Romantic period of literature “vary in stanza form” and “often address an intense emotion at the onset of a personal crisis […] or celebrate an object or image that leads to revelation” (“Ode.”). Shelley’s poem is an ode celebrating the grandeur of Mont Blanc and developing a revelation about the interrelation of all things in the universe. The poem is a lyric in that it depicts the thoughts and feelings of the speaker. The poem consists of five individual stanzas labeled with their respective number. The first stanza has 11 lines, the second has 37 lines, the third has 35 lines, the fourth has 43 lines, and the fifth has 18 lines. While there is no consistent length for each stanza, they follow a pattern of continuously increasing in size until the fifth stanza, which decreases in size.