During the first weeks of August 1902, Samuel Taylor Coleridge visited the hills of England near Scafell on foot. Ironically, the verses that in a "Hymn" they did not end up describing Coleridge's ascent of Scafell, but rather a hypothetical scene in the Vale of Chamouni. The work, entitled "Hymn Before Sun-Rise, In the Vale of Chamouni", appeared on the Morning Post in September of the same year. In the "Hymn", the poet faces Mont Blanc during a dark day and is overwhelmed by the "secret joy" of Nature, asking the natural environment to join him in celestial song to praise God. (20) Wordsworth denigrated the poem: Keith Thomas, a critic of the Romantics, indicates that “Wordsworth positively detested the poem,” going so far as to label “Hymn” an exercise in the “Mock Sublime” (Thomas, 100). that “Hymn” embittered Wordsworth to the point that he “might have feared that Coleridge had published a poem dealing with a subject he knew intimately much better than he had hitherto treated it” (Thomas, 102). Not only did Coleridge's work appear analogous to such sublime work as Wordsworth's in the genre, but according to Thomas, Wordsworth found Coleridge's "overly self-confident voice...undeserved and inauthentic", not only because Coleridge's lyrics Coleridge inappropriately reflected his poetic style, but also because Coleridge had never even been to Mont Blanc (Thomas, 100). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Three years later, Wordsworth published the first book of the thirteen-book edition of The Prelude. Parts of the work (particularly the sixth book) recount Wordsworth's 1790 excursions through France and the Alps with his friend Robert Jones. Of particular importance to historicist (as well as formalist) critics is what has become known as the "Simplon Pass" episode, in which Wordsworth and Jones, anticipating a dramatic scene at the top of the pass, are informed by a peasant who are missing the exact point at which they had crossed the Alps. Wordsworth, despite having passed the point of anticipated transcendence, continues his descent on the other side and finds sublimity in the Valley of Gondo. In contrast to this highly intellectual experience, Wordsworth characterizes his experience of Mont Blanc as staring at a "soulless image" (6.527). When the episodes of the sixth book of the Prelude are read in the historical context of Coleridge's "Hymn", glimpses of Wordsworth's ego become evident; Thomas theorizes that "['Hymn'] becomes a negative precursive paradigm that Wordsworth strives to counter at all costs, even by appropriating its strategies" (Thomas, 83). Since his friend has usurped the genre that Wordsworth helped create, the Sublime, he must reclaim it by doing proper justice to the subject. Despite the view of historicists such as Thomas that "Hymn" had a "profound impact" on the sixth book of the Prelude, other critics, such as David Miall, make little mention of Coleridge's poem in interpreting the episode of the Pass of the Simplon. In “The Alps Deferred: Wordsworth at the Simplon Pass,” Miall states, “The structure of the pass as a whole…shows Wordsworth rejecting the picturesque for an ecological, participatory account of Nature”; reveal that Wordsworth finding transcendence in the Gondo Valley is a departure from Wordsworth's tendency to find the sublime in highly dramatic landscapes such as Mont Blanc (Miall, 87). This reading states that the Valley of Gondo became the source of transcendental thought for Wordsworth whilehe wrote the verses 14 years later; that is, that Wordsworth preferred his experience during his descent with trees and cliffs over traditionally picturesque views of high mountains and sharp skylines. Combined with the historicist view (particularly the view that Wordsworth was rewriting "Hymn" due to Coleridge's relative incompetence in the Sublime genre) reveals that Wordsworth's denial of the picturesque may actually be a product of his contempt for Coleridge's poetry. Essentially, both criticisms use the same kind of textual evidence to justify similar points: Thomas cites the picturesqueness in Coleridge's Hymn and the subtle sublimity of Wordsworth's descent into the Vale of Gondo to explain Wordsworth's reaction to Coleridge; Miall cites the same evidence to show Wordsworth's denial of the picturesque to venerate the subtle and more "participatory visions" that Wordsworth experiences in the Vale. While not without merit, these accounts fail to address a hybrid version, according to which parts of the sixth book simultaneously rewrite the "Hymn" and deny the picturesque. In Coleridge's Hymn, the penultimate stanza consists of six one-line apostrophes naming the picturesque inhabitants of the Vale of Chamouni. Coleridge mentions "flowers," "wild goats," and "eagles," images commonly associated with the Alps (64-66). Since Coleridge did not explicitly visit Mont Blanc, he may list its stereotypical inhabitants to better match the poem's content with its topic. As for the sixth book, Wordsworth satisfies both the historicist and formalist views if he neglects to mention the stereotypical images surrounding Mont Blanc. Indeed, Wordsworth denies the typical picturesque; he finds no transcendence, like Coleridge, but only "mute cataracts" and "motionless waves" that reduce him to experiencing only a more concrete reality in "little birds" and "leafy trees" (531-2, 535). The difference between Coleridge and Wordsworth here is that while Coleridge's speaker sees Mont Blanc and is immediately overwhelmed by the picturesque, Wordsworth continually strives to look beyond reality, and only when his eye encounters dull scenes does he feel limited to banal images . The proof that the picturesqueness of Nature immediately surpasses Coleridge's orator is found in the first twenty lines of the Hymn. In the opening lines, the speaker questions Mont Blanc directly, asking, “Have you the charm to hold the morning star / In its steep course?” indicating a direct engagement with its subject (1-2). His question quickly turns into a colloquial form of praise for the mountain; Mont Blanc, the speaker states, has a "horrific bald head" (3). Not only does Coleridge personify Mont Blanc as having a head, but he also calls the morning star a "he", suggesting that Coleridge's interaction with nature at this point is like an interaction between two human beings (2) . To address the immediacy with which Nature overcomes the speaker, Coleridge's personification of the mountain quickly transforms into the recognition of the mountain as a great, silent, divine form. As the mountain rises "silently" from the pines and pierces the stormy sky, Coleridge's point of view has changed and "when [he] looks again" the mountain that once displayed human qualities becomes a "home" and a " crystal sanctuary". " (7; 10-11). In the opening stanza of the poem, the speaker's perspective on Nature changes from a friendly view of Nature to the sense that Nature is not a friend, but a "terrible and silent" power that induces “entry [ment],” wonder, and worship (13; 15-16). This change suggests that the speaker receives an answer to his initial question, which themountain does not have a "charm" to keep the morning star in its course, but it is more powerful, with direct access to the sky. Wordsworth's first account of Mont Blanc is almost the opposite of Coleridge's in "Hymn": he records that he and Robert Jones "saw the summit of Mont Blanc, and grieved/ To have in their eyes an image without soul, which he had usurped on a living thought that can never exist again" (6.526-529). The difficulty with these lines is in attributing them to Thomas's view that they represent a "direct contrast" to the lines of "Hymn" or, to use Miall's terminology, imply a denial of the picturesque. Wordsworth's feelings are not of wonder or ecstasy, but of "mourning", as if Wordsworth is mourning the loss of something. Inherent in these lines is the question of whether or not the soullessness of Mont Blanc has a negative connotation in Wordsworth's mind. The image usurps a “living thought,” much like Coleridge's bodily senses fading from his thoughts, but the power of Mont Blanc to Wordsworth grants the “wonderful Vale” the ability to “make rich amends” to Wordsworth (6.528; 530; 533) . If for Wordsworth looking at the Valley is more significant than the shape of Mont Blanc, then the soulless image is the cause of this good vision, but if he denigrates the sight of Mont Blanc because of Coleridge's poetry, Wordsworth is deliberately suffering for the loss of what could have been transcendence. Just before Wordsworth glimpses Mont Blanc, his "heart leaps" when he sees the Vale for the first time (6.510). Either Wordsworth's heart leaps because he longs to encounter the dense spirituality of the "green recesses," to participate in Nature (as Miall describes), or his heart leaps to prefigure his later downplaying of Mont Blanc as a countermove. to "Hymn" (6.520). Perhaps the strongest evidence in favor of the historicist view that the Simplon Pass is a response to the "Hymn" is found in lines 542 to 558 of Book Six. In this stanza, Wordsworth repeatedly uses the words "we" and "our," and never once mentions the personal "I." Taken literally as an account of their pilgrimage across the Alps, Wordsworth may be referring to himself and Robert Jones. Read in the context of the "Hymn" and Wordsworth's friendship with Coleridge, however, it provides insight into the context of the Simplon Pass. Wordsworth's first lines might describe his and Jones's state of mind, or they might comment directly on his and Coleridge's state of mind in writing about Mont Blanc: Whatever in this broad circuit we saw, or heard, was fit to our immature state of intellect. and heart. From the simple tensions of feeling, from the pure breath of real life, we are not left untouched. (6.542-546) Here, both Book Six and the "Hymn" may be the product of an "immature" mind and heart. Wordsworth may reflect on his commentary on Coleridge's poem as "Mock Sublime" and attack the poem as critically as it is immature. At the same time, however, this immature "intellect and heart" may refer to Coleridge's actual publication of the poem, suggesting that Wordsworth is saying something to the effect of: "Sam, it was unwise of you to write this poem about a place you've never been, and a little immature, it was also my fault for criticizing you too harshly." Thus, "Whatever in this broad circuit we have seen" becomes representative of Coleridge's experience of Scafell and Wordsworth's actual experience of Mont Blanc; when they composed their respective verses, Wordsworth suggests, it bore no relation to their real feelings for each other, for both were touched by the simplest tensions and?".