The Mind--Powers & Limitations

"In vain we schooled ourselves into the belief, that there was nothing out
of the common order of nature in the strife we witnessed . . ." (371).
M. Shelley's The Last Man (1826)

Points for Reflection

P. B. Shelley's "Mont Blanc" (1816;1817), PDF

1. does the human mind, cast as a passive receiver of Nature’s stimuli in line 37, remain in such a subservient role throughout the poem?
2. section three of this poem poses a series of questions concerning the mind’s possible movement after death (ll.50-53), the possibility of a creator God (ll.53-54), and the uncertain relationship between Nature and humankind (ll.76-79). Does the poem provide solutions for any of the issues it raises?
3. what earlier poem by P. B. Shelley is echoed in lines 94-95 of this poem?
4. P. B. Shelley suggests that the mountain before him teaches those human minds receptive to its lessons (ll.98-100). What instructions does the mountain provide the attentive reader in lines 100-26? Do any of these lessons intersect with what we have encountered in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man?
5. compare the poem’s first six lines with its final six. What kind of connection between Nature and the human mind is P. B. Shelley suggesting?

Mary Shelley's The Last Man, chps 24-27

1. what additional insights into the human mind does today's reading offer? [sec 01: Riley B]
2. how does the plague shape attitudes towards the disabled, diseased, mentally ill, elderly, and infirm? How do the survivors respond to these types of easily marginalized individuals? [sec 02: Keith C]
3. does some supernatural power make itself known in the workings of Nature in today's reading, or can every weird event be explained away as the result of characters' over-active imaginations?
4. have we finally seen the end of humankind's belligerent, war-making, polarizing impulses?
5. what does this novel suggest about the relationship between fear and religious faith? [sec 02: Ben D]
6. does Lionel disparage all religion as destructive? [sec 02: Alexis GH]
7. at what point does Mary Shelley directly reinsert her father's notion of necessity?
8. are the human mind's powers of reason, so glorified by Mary Shelley's Lionel (412) and P. B. Shelley himself in his poems, ultimately proven too limited to be of much use in the face of an apocalypse?
9. what socially constructed ideas appear to have finally died on pages 415-16?
10. why might Mary Shelley choose to reintroduce the powers of both Nature and music at this late point in the novel (418-20), as humanity appears on the brink of extinction?
11. is the notion of an afterlife reified or questioned in chps 24-27?

Alpine Scene (1802)
J. M. W. Turner

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu