

第二部門

Genealogies of Romanticism: Subjectivity, History, Genre
司会

東京大学客員教授



講師

同志社大学教授



講師

上智大学准教授

小川公代

講師

お が わ き み よおおいしかずよし

名古屋大学准教授
大石和欣



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
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




1 James Chandler, ‘Introduction’, The Cambridge History of English Literature (Cambridge: CUP
2009) 1‐18 (7‐8, 12).
2 ‘Chronology’, The Cambridge History of English Literature 665‐77 (665‐67).
3 Joseph Addison, The Spectator Sat 3 March 3 1711; The Spectator 412 Monday June 23 1712
in The Spectator ed Donald F Bond (Oxford: OUP, 1965) 5 vols: I 14‐16; III 546‐47.
4 John Baillie, An Essay on the Sublime (1747); Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into theOrigin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1759), both quoted from The Sublime: aReader in British eighteenth‐century aesthetic theory, ed Andrew Ashfield and Peter de Bolla(Cambrdige: CUP 1996) 93, 131, 139.
5 Northrop Frye, ‘Towards Defining an Age of Sensibility’ (1956), in Collected Works ofNorthrop Frye, ed Alvin A. Lee 30 vols (Toronto: Toronto UP, 1993 ‐ ) , vol 17, 7‐15 (15).
6 John Brewer, ‘Sentiment and Sensibiility’, The Cambridge History of English Literature 21‐44(21)
7 John Sitter, ‘Political, Satirical, Didactic and Lyric Poetry II: after Pope’, in John Richetti (ed.)
The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1660‐1780 (Cambridge: CUP 2005) 287‐315 (289).
8 Clifford Siskin, ‘Literary Change in the Mid and Late Eighteenth Century’ in The Cambridge
History of English Literature, 1660‐1780 795‐823 (811); diagram 1 (from James Raven Judging
new Wealth), diagram 2 (820‐821).

David Chandler: “Romanticism In and Out of British Musical Theatre”
Main Works Discussed (In chronological order, composer’s name first):
1691

Henry Purcell / John Dryden, King Arthur

1728

J. C. Pepusch (arranger) / John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera

1738

Thomas Arne / John Milton (adapted John Dalton), Comus

1813

E. T. A. Hoffmann / F. von Holbein, Aurora

1821

Carl Maria von Weber / J. F. Kind, Der Freischütz

1822

Henry Bishop / J. R. Planché, Maid Marian

Quotations:
1. London Magazine review of Carl Maria von Weber, Der Freischütz (1824):
There is a depth, a wildness, which frights the mind while it charms the ear; andwe will confidently say that no music, not even Mozart’s, was ever heard with suchbreathless attention and earnestness as this extraordinary production of Weber. It isa great work!
2. Thomas Talfourd, New Monthly Magazine review of Henry Bishop Maid Marian(1822):
Its subject seems the fittest for an Opera, which could possibly be chosen. It is themost purely romantic of English stories …
3. Coleridge on The Beggar’s Opera:… the horror and disgust with which it impressed me, so grossly did it outrage all
the best feelings of my nature.
4. Prologue to Thomas Arne, Comus (1738):
Attend the Strains, and, should some meaner Phrase
Hang on the Stile, and clog the nobler Lays,
Excuse what we with trembling Hand supply,
To give his [Milton’s] Beauties to the publick Eye;His the pure Essence, ours the grosser MeanThro’ which his Spirit is in Action seen.
Observe the Force, observe the Flame divine,That glows, breathes, acts, in each harmonious Line.
Great Objects only strike the gen’rous Heart;
Praise the sublime, o’erlook the mortal Part …

シンポジウム第二部門：Genealogies of Romanticism: Subjectivity, History, Genre
5 月 29 日（土）The Politics of Gender in Early Romantic Sensibility
Kimiyo Ogawa (Sophia University)(1) As we can see in the journals themselves, Dorothy accepts the role William gives
her, allowing his text to appropriate hers. Dorothy’s apparently accidental
addition first of a single woman and then of a mixed group of children would
then be her text’s way of inserting femaleness into William’s own text,
femaleness as it has come to stand both for her own and for William’s belief in
her and other females’ ability to resist the symbolic absenting of the object by
the word. (Homans 64-5)(2)
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,With rocks, and stones, and tress.
(“A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal”)
Dorothy, by writing from the position of this object, questions the limitations of
the speaker’s perspective. Because her reading and reversing of the poem takeplace in a scene about desire, she questions the functioning both of William’s
textual and of his biographical desire. In the poem, “she” is the object of the
speaker’s desire, and yet desire constituted as the speaker’s idealization
obliterates her otherness…. Leaving the realm of language, “she” joins the“diurnal course” of the original of all referents, Mother Earth, whose
objectification constitutes the origin of language. (Homans 66)
I.
Compassionate Women(3) A heroine, [. . .] who quits her home with a man of gallantry, lives at a lodging,
and receives his visits; who, under circumstances of great pecuniary distress,
goes to a masquerade with a libertine avowedly endeavouring to seduce her; and,after she has given her hand to one man, her heart to another, debates seriously
whether she shall bestow her person upon a third" is a dangerous moral
example (British Critic quoted in Setzer 328).
(4) Julia had considerably improved under the auspices of a woman of fashion. She
now rouged highly, talked boldly, gazed steadfastly, laughed sarcastically, andsighed significantly. (Robinson 124)
(5) “Ah!” replied Mrs. Sedgley, “how strangely are we prone to love, where we feel1conscious that the affections of our hearts are hopeless! The deserter of me andmy sorrows was, to all other beings, the most amiable of mortals. The noblest
philanthropy, the tenderest feelings, seemed to characterize his nature. So pure,so amiable was he in the opinion of all mankind, that even had I accused him ofdishonor, the story would not have been believed; and I loved him too tenderly tobe the destroyer of that reputation, the loss of which I felt but too acutely.
(Robinson 174)(6) Conscious that fortune was her foe, and laboring under a stigma, of which she
knew herself undeserving, she resolved to lose no time in exciting an interest in
Mrs. Morley’s bosom, by that candour which is the sure basis of friendship andaffection. (Robinson 160)
II.
Barbauld-Wollstonecraft Controversy(7) On this sensual error, for I must call it so, has the false system of female
manners been reared, which robs the whole sex of its dignity, and classes thebrown and fair with the smiling flowers that only adorn the land. This has everbeen the language of men, and the fear of departing from a supposed sexual
character, has made even women of superior sense adopt the same sentiments.
(Wollstonecraft Vindication 144)(8) It has also been asserted, by some naturalists, that men do not attain their fullgrowth and strength till thirty; but that women arrive at maturity by twenty. I
apprehend that they reason on false ground, led astray by the male prejudice,which deems beauty the perfection of woman….In youth, till twenty, the bodyshoots out, till thirty, the solids are attaining a degree of density; and theflexible muscles, growing daily more rigid, give character to the countenance;that is, they trace the operations of the mind with the iron pen of fate, and tell
us not only what powers are within, but how they have been employed.
(Wollstonecraft Vindication 164-5)(9) …vain is the possession of political liberty, if there exists a tyrant of our own
creation; who, without law, or reason, or even external force, exercises over us
the most despotic authority; whose jurisdiction is extended over every part ofprivate and domestic life; controls our pleasures, fashions our garb, cramps our
motions, fills our lives with vain cares and restless anxiety. The worst slavery isthat which we voluntarily impose upon ourselves; and no chains are socumbrous and galling, as those which we are pleased to wear by way of graceand ornament.(Barbauld 283)
(10)
I saw your beautiful hair tied in artificial tresses, and its bright gloss
stained with coloured dust—I even fancied I beheld produced the dreadful
instruments of torture—my emotions increased—I cried out, “Oh, spare her!

2

Spare my Flora!” with so much vehemence, that I awaked. (Barbauld 289)
III.
Dacre’s Revision of Burkean Sublime(11)…[t]here is a voluptuousness of language and allusion, pervading thesevolumes, which we should have hoped, that the delicacy of a female pen would
have refused to trace; and there is an exhibition of wantonness of harlotry,
which we would have hoped, that the delicacy of the female mind, would havebeen shocked to imagine. (The Annual Review 5, 1806, 542)
(12)
The narrator’s absolute conviction that Victoria’s sudden choice ofHenriquez as the object she has never found in her husband reflects the realityof the human heart, is encumbered by that narrator’s gropings to understandhow and why this is. (Kim Michasiw xviii)(13)
Like Wollstonecraft, Dacre highlights the gender-specific nature of Burke’s
sublime, but does so in a way Burke could scarcely have imagined: by exploring
the sublime dimensions of the violent female body and subject. (Craciun 138)
(14)
You know that as a female I am particularly attached to her—I feel morethan a mother’s fondness and anxiety, when I reflect on the dependent andoppressed state of her sex. I dread lest she should be forced to sacrifice her heart
to her principles, or principles to her heart. With trembling hand I shallcultivate sensibility, and cherish delicacy of sentiment, lest, whilst I lend freshblushes to the rose, I sharpen the thorns that will wound the breast I would fain
guard—I dread to unfold her mind lest it should render her unfit for the world
she is to inhabit—Hapless woman! What a fate is thine! (Wollstoncraft Short
Residence 97).
IV.
The Language of Cleopatra in The Female Quixote(15)
Upon my Soul, Madam, interrupted Glanville, I have no Patience with the
rigorous Gipsy, whose Example you follow so exactly, to my Sorrow: Speak inyour own Language, I beseech you.” (Lennox 116)
(16)
Cleopatra was a Whore, was she not, Madam? said he.
Hold thy Peace, unworthy Man, said Arabella; and profane not the Memory ofthat fair and glorious Queen, by such injurious Language: That Queen, I say,whose Courage was equal to her Beauty; and her Virtue surpassed by neither.
(Lennox 105)(17)
I know not, Miss, said Arabella, why you call her Intercourse with that
perjured Man by so unjust an Epithet. If Miss Grove be unchaste, so was therenowned Cleopatra, whose Marriage with Julius Caesar is controverted to this
Day…it is hardly possible to suppose, a young Lady of Miss Groves’s Quality

3

would stain the Lustre of her Descent by so shameful an Intrigue;…perfectly
innocent, as was that great Queen I have mentioned.(Lennox 140-141)

Bibliography
Primary Sources
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Selected Poetry and Prose. Eds. William McCarthy andElizabeth Kraft. (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2002).
Dacre, Charlotte. Zofloya or The Moor. 1806. Ed. Kim Ian Michasiw. (Oxford: Oxford
UP, 2000).
Edeworth, Maria. Belinda. 1801. Ed. Kathryn Kirkpatrick. (Oxford: Oxford UP,
2009).
Lennox, Charlotte. The Female Quixote or The Adventures of Arabella. 1752.
Ed. Margaret Dalziel. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998).
Robinson, Mary. A Letter to the Women of England and The Natural Daughter.
1799. Ed. Sharon M. Setzer. (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2003).
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 1792. Ed. Miriam
Brody. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1992).
----A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. 1796. Ed. Richard
Holmes. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987).
Secondary Sources
Castle, Terry. The Female Thermometer: 18th-Century Culture and the Invention of
the Uncanny. (New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995).
Chaplin, Sue. Law, Sensibility and the Sublime in Eighteenth-Century Women’s
Fiction: Speaking of Dread. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004).
Craciun, Adriana. Fatal Women of Romanticism. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003).
Homans, Margaret. Bearing the Word: Language and Female Experience in
Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing. (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1989).
McCarthy,William. Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment. (Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins UP, 2008).
Walker, Gina Luria. Mary Hays (1759-1843): The Growth of a Woman’s Mind.
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006).

4

The “Sublime” Revisited:
A Search for an Origin of Romanticism in Travel Writings.
Kazuyoshi Oishi (Nagoya University)
kaz@lit.nagoya-u.ac.jp
1) The sublime glacier on the Alps…. the Ascent being extremely steep; though, after two thirds of the Way, there is afine green Turf quite up to the Top, which ends in a Point, the Mountain being like a
Sugar-Loaf on one side, and quite perpendicular on that Part which lies farthest from
Geneva. From this Point there is a most delightful View, on one side, upon the Lake,
Geneva, and the adjacent Parts; on the other, upon high Mountains cover’d with Snow,
which rise around, in form of an Amphitheatre, and make a most Picturesque Prospect.
After having stay’d some time here, we returned back, and went on to Anney, where
we lay, from whence the next Day we got to Geneva.
…. It is to be observed, that the Glaciere is not level, and all the Ice has a Motion
from the higher Parts towards the lower; that is to say, that it slides continually towards
the outlets into the Valley, which has been remarked by many Circumstances. First, By
great stones, which shewed us one of a very large Size, which several old People
assured us, that they had seen upon the Ice. I have already said, that the Waves, for
so I call the Inequalities of the Ice, were some of them 40 Feet high. I will now add,
that the Hollows between them run all transversely to the Course of the Ice; so that inthe Valley they lay one way, and in the Outlets another always crossing the Directionof the Ice: the Cavities between the small Waves are all full of a very clear Water;
there are on the Ice n infinite number of Clests, of different Widths, some twenty Feetlong, and four or five wide, others less. These are almost all in the weak Parts of theIce, i.e. in the hollows of the Waves, and all directed like the Waves in a transverse, or
oblique Manner. … The Reflection of the Llight in these Clefts produces the Effect of a
Prism; and ’tis very beautiful, even from the Mountain, to see the Mixtures of blue andgreen arising from these Clefts, and the Reservoirs of water, especially when the Sun
shines on this vast Valley of Ice.
William Windham, An Account of the Glacieres or Ice Alps in Savoy (1744), pp.11,
21.
2) Joseph Addison on the Alps on his grand tour.
… the fatigue of our crossing the Appenines, and of our whole journey from Loretto toRome, was very agreeably relieved by the variety of scenes we passed through. For
not to mention the rude prospect of rocks rising one above another, of the gutters deepworn in the sides of them by torrents of rain and snow-water, or the long channels ofsand winding about their bottoms, that are sometimes filled with so many rivers: wesaw, in six days travelling, the several seasons of the year in their beauty andperfection. We were sometimes shivering on the top of bleak mountain, and a little
while after basking in a warm valley, covered with violets and almond-trees in blossom,
the Bees already swarming over them, though but in the month of February.
Joseph Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (1705) in The Miscellaneous
Works of Joseph Addison, 3 vols. London: Bell, 1914. 3: 86, originally publishedin 1705.

13) ‘icy mountains high on mountains piled’, ‘huge and horrid’,
Thence winding eastward to the Tartar’s coast,
She sweeps the howling margin of the main;
Where, undissolving from the first of time,Snows swell on snows amazing to the sky;
And icy mountains high no mountains piled
Seem to the shivering sailor from afar,
Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of clouds.
Projected huge and horrid o’er the surge,
Alps frown on Alps; or, rushing hideous down,
As if old Chaos was again returned,
Wide-rend the deep and shake the solid pole.
James Thompson, The Seasons [‘Winter’ (the 1746 edition), ll.902-12.]

4)

Thomas Burnet, impressed with the confusion of ‘indigested Nature’ at the Alps.
But suppose a Man was carried asleep out of a plain Country amongst the Alps, andleft there upon the Top of one of the highest Mountains, when he wak’d and look’dabout him, he wou’d think himself in an inchanted Country, or carried into another
World; every Thing wou’d appear to him so different to what he had ever seen or
imagin’d before. To see on every Hand of him a Multitude of vast Bodies thrown
together in Confusion, as those Mountains are; Rocks standing naked round about
him; and the hollow Valleys gaping under him; and at his Feet, it may be, an Heap ofFrozen Snow in the midst of summer. He would hear the Thunder come from below,
and see the black Clouds hanging beneath him; upon such a Prospect it would not beeasy to him to persuade himself that he was still upon the same Earth; but if he did, hewould be convinnc’d, at least, that there are some Regions of it strangely rude, andruin-like, and very different from what he had ever though of before.
Thomas Burnet, The Theory of the Earth: Containing an Account of the Original of the
Earth, 2 vols. (London: J. Hooke, 1726), 1: 191-92.
The greatest Objects of Nature are, methinks, the most pleasing to behold; and next to
the Great Concave of the Heavens, and those boundless Regions where the Stars
inhabit, there is nothing that I look upon with more Pleasure than the wide Sea and theMountains of the Earth. There is something august and stately in the Air of these things,
that inspires the Mind with great Thoughts and Passions; we do naturally, upon such
Occasions, think of God and his Greatness: and whatsoever hath but the shadow andAppearance of Infinite, as all Things have that are too big for our Comprehension, they
fill and overbear the Mind with their Excess, and cast it into a pleasing kind of Stupor
and Administration.
Thomas Burnet, The Theory of the Earth: Containing an Account of the Original of the
Earth, 2 vols. (London: J. Hooke, 1726), 1: 188-89

5) Shaftesbury on the sublime
See! with what trembling steps poor mankind tread the narrow brink of the deep
precipices, from whence with giddy horror they look down, mistrusting even the groundwhich bears them, whilst they hear the hollow sound of torrents underneath, and see
the ruin of the impending rock, with falling trees which hang with their roots upwards
and seem to draw more ruin after them. Here thoughtless men, seized with thenewness of such objects, become thoughtful, and willingly contemplate the incessantchanges of this earth’s surface. They see, as in one instant, the revolutions of past2

ages, the fleeting forms of things, and the decay even of this our globe, whose youth
and first formation they consider, whilst the apparent spoil and irreparable breaches of
the wasted mountain show them the world itself only as noble ruin, and make themthink of its approaching period.
Anthony Ashley Cooper (3rd Early of Shaftesbury), The Moralists (1709) in
Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times.

6) ‘The Prospect’ in Gentleman’s Magazine, XIII (1743), 608‘See what romantic views surprise around;
Where’er I tread seems visionary ground.
….
Hills pil’d on hills, and rocks together hurl’d;Sure, Burnet, these the ruins of thy world.

7) Aphra Behn, a ‘Romantick’ narrative which produces ‘Wonders’.
If there be any thing that seems Romantick, I beseech your Lordship to consider, theseCountries do, in all things, so far differ from ours, that they produce unconceivable
Wonders; at least, they appear so to us, because New and Strange. What I
havemention’ I have taken care shou’d be Truth.’Aphra Behn, Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave. A True Story (1688), in The Works of
Aphra Behn, ed. Janet Tood, 6 volumes (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1995), 3: 56.

8) William Dampier’s description of mountains in his New Voyage Round the WorldThe 24th day we ran over to the island Tabago. Tabago is in the bay and about six
leagues south of Panama. It is about 3 mile long and 2 broad, a high mountainous island.
On the north side it declines with a gentle descent to the sea. The land by the sea is of a
black mould and deep; but towards the top of the mountain it is strong and dry. The
north side of this island makes a very pleasant show, it seems to be a garden of fruit
enclosed with many high trees; the chiefest fruits are plantains and bananas. They
thrive very well from the foot to the middle of it; but those near the top are but small, as
wanting moisture. Close by the sea there are many coconut-trees, which make a very
pleasant sight. [24 February 1684]
William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World (London: James Knapton, 1697).
9) Lord Aston’s on the prospect of Staten-land on the departure from the Bay of St. Julian
And on occasion of the prospect of Staten-land, I cannot but remark, that though Terradel Fuego had an aspect extremely barren and desolate, yet this island of Staten-land
far surpasses it in the wildness and horror of its appearance, it seeming to be entirelycomposed of inaccessible rocks, without the least mixture of earth or mold between
them. These rocks terminate in a vast number of ragged points, which spire up to a
prodigious height, and are all of them covered with everlasting snow; the points
themselves are on every side surrounded with frightful precipices, and often overhang ina most astonishing manner, and the hills which bear them are generally separated fromeach other frequently rent by earthquakes; for these chasms are nearly perpendicular,
and extend through the substance of the main rocks, almost to their very bottoms: sothat nothing can be imagined more savage and gloomy than the whole aspect of thiscoast.
Lord Anson, A Voyage round the World in the Years 1740-4, (1748; London: J. M. dent,
1923), pp. 76-77.
310) James Cooke encountering sublime icebergs.
Great as these dangers are, they are now become so very familiar to us that theapprehensions they cause are never of so long duration and are in some measurecompencated by the very curious and romantick Views many of these Islands exhibit
and which are greatly heightned by the foaming and dashing of the waves againstthem and into the several holes and caverns which are formed in the most of them, inshort the whole exhibits a View which can only be described by the pencle of an able
painter and at once fills the mind with admiration and horror, the first is occasioned by
the beautifullniss of the Picture and the latter by the danger attending it, for was a ship
to fall aboard one of these large pieces of ice she would be dashed to pieces in a
moment. [24 February 1773]
James Cook, The Journals, ed. Philip Edwards (London: Penguin, 2003), p.257.

Being a fine afternoon I took Mr Hodges to a large Cascade which falls down a highmountain on the South side of the Bay about a League higher up than the Cove where
we are anchrd. He took a drawing of it on Paper and afterwards painted it in oyle
Colours which exhibits at once view a better description of it than I can give, huge
heaps of stones lies at the foot of this Cascade which have been brought by the forceof the Stream from adjacent mountains, the stones were of different sorts, none
however appeared to contain either Minerals or Mitals, nevertheless I brought away
specimens of every sort as the whole country, that is the rocky part of it, seems to bemade up of these sort of stones and no other. . . . [12 April 1773]
James Cook, The Journals, ed. Philip Edwards (London: Penguin, 2003), p.266.

11) Hester Piozzi, crossing the Alps
Going down the Italian side of the Alps is, after all, an astonishing journey; and affords
the most magnificent scenery in nature, which varying at every step, gives new
impression to the mind each moment of one’s passage; while the portion of terror
excited either by real or fancied dangers on the way, is just sufficient to mingle with thepleasure, and make one feel the full effect of sublimity. To the chairmen who carry one
though, nothing can be new; it is observable that the glories of these objects havenever faded.
Hester Lynch Piozzi, Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey
through France, Italy, and Germany (1789), 2 vols. in Annie Richardson and Catherine
Dille, Women’s Travel Writings in Italy (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2009), 1: p.
41-42.

12) Ann Radcliffe on the sublime
About half-way to Andernach, the western rocks suddenly recede from the river, and,rising to greater height, form a grand sweep round a plain cultivated with orchards,
garden-fields, corn and vine-yards. The valley here spreads to a breadth of nearly amile and a half, and exhibits grandeur, beauty and barren sublimity, united in a singularmanner. The abrupt steeps, that rise over this plane, are entirely covered with wood,
except that here and there the ravage of a winter torrent appeared, which could
sometimes be traced from the very summit of the acclivity to the base.
Ann Radcliffe, A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794, through Holland and theWestern Frontier of Germany (1795), (Hildesheim: Olms, 1975). pp.154-55.
413) Mary Wollstonecraft in Scandinavia
The rocks which tossed their fantastic heads so high were often covered with pines andfirs, varied in the most picturesque manner. Little woods filled up the recesses, when
forests did not darken the scene; and vallies and glens, cleared of the trees, displayed adazzling verdure which contrasted with the gloom of the shading pines. The eye stole
into many a covert where tranquillity seemed to have taken up her abode, and thenumber of little lakes that continually presented themselves added to the peacefulcomposure of the scenery. (Letter 5)
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796), in
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and William
Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of ‘The Rights of Woman’, ed. Richard Holmes(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987), p.89`.

I have often mentioned the grandeur, but I feel myself unequal to the task of conveying
an idea of the beauty and elegance of the scene when the spiral tops of the pines areloaded with ripening seed, and the sun gives a glow to their light green tinge, which ischanging into purple, one tree more or less advanced, contrasting with another. …
Reaching the cascade, or rather cataract, the roaring of which had a long timeannounced its vicinity, my soul was hurried by the falls into a new train of reflections.
The impetuous dashing of the rebounding torrent from the dark cavities which mocked
the exploring eye, produced an equal activity in my mind: my thoughts darted from earth
to heaven, and I asked myself why I was chained to life and its misery? Still thetumultuous emotions this sublime object excited, were pleasurable; and, viewing it, mysoul rose, with renewed dignity, above its cares — grasping at immortality — it seemed
as impossible to stop the current of my thoughts, as of the always varying, still the same,
torrent before me—I stretched out my hand to eternity, bounding over the dark speck oflife to come. (Letter 15)
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796), in
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and William
Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of ‘The Rights of Woman’, ed. Richard Holmes(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987), pp. 152-53.

14) Mary Shelley describing the Glaciers of Chamonix during her sex weeks’ tour
The prospect around, however, was sufficiently sublime to command ourattention—never was scene more awfully desolate. The trees in these regions are
incredibly large, and stand in scattered clumps over the white wilderness; the vast
expanse of snow was chequered only by these gigantic pines, and the poles thatmarked out road: no river or rock-encircled lawn relieved the eye, by adding thepicturesque to the sublime. The natural silence of that uninhabited desert contrasted
strangely with the voices of the men who conducted us, who, with animated tones andgestures, called to one another in a patois composed of French and Italian, creating
disturbance, where but for them, there was none.
Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, History of A Six Weeks’ Tour through a Part ofFrance, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland: With Letters Descriptive of a Sail Roundthe Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni. (London: T. Hookham and C. and
J. Ollier, 1817) reprinted in Mary Shelley, The Novels and Selected Works of Mary
Shelley: Volume 8 Travel Wrtiing, ed. Jeanne Moskal (London: Pickering, 1996), p.43.
515)

Percy Bysshe Shelley on the glaciers in ‘Mont Blanc’
The works and ways of man, their death and birth
And that of him, and all that his may be,
All things that move and breathe with toil and sound
Are born and die, revolve, subside and swell—
Power dwells apart in deep tranquillity,
Remote, sublime, and inaccessible,
and this, the naked countenance of Earth
On which I gaze—even these primeval mountains
Teach the adverting mind.—the Glaciers creep
Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains
Slow rolling on:--there, many a precipice
Frost and the Sun in scorn of human power
Have piled—dome, pyramid and pinnacle
A city of death, distinct with many a tower
And wall impregnable of shining ice . . . . (ll. 93-107)

William Hodges, ‘The Resolution passinga Tabular Iceberg’, 1773-74

William Hodges, ‘[Cascade Cove] Dusky
Bay,’ (1775)
6