Perspective on Group Project for Mont Blanc Essay example -- group pro

The Genesis of Reading Mont BlancThe project entitled Reading Mont Blanc began as a faint wisp of an idea while my congregation and I were browsing the hypertext in search of other topics. Happening upon the wonderful maps and illustrations of Wordsworths travels through France and Switzerland, one member remarked that perhaps we could make use of these in several(prenominal) manner. Then, as the dissimilar 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, lif eless terms.Initially we considered shrewd 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 Shelleys Mont Blanc to rise to the top. Had any of one of us been particularly adept with scissors and coloured paper, our presentation might make 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 picture taking 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 befor... ...ce moments in which to charter 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 sub lime in nature. harmony 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 beholders own imaginative faculties that s/he vivifies nature or, rather, apprehends its vivifying power.