Mountain Dialogues from Antiquity to Modernity

Description

Throughout the longue dureé of Western culture, how have people represented mountains as landscapes of the imagination and as places of real experience? In what ways has human understanding of mountains changed – or stayed the same? Mountain Dialogues from Antiquity to Modernity opens up a new conversation between ancient and modern engagements with mountains. It highlights the ongoing relevance of ancient understandings of mountain environments to the postclassical and present-day world, while also suggesting ways in which modern approaches to landscape can generate new questions about premodern responses. It brings together experts from across many different disciplines and periods, offering case studies on topics ranging from classical Greek drama to Renaissance art, and from early modern natural philosophy to nineteenth-century travel writing. Throughout, essays engage with key themes of temporality, knowledge, identity, and experience in the mountain landscape. As a whole, the volume suggests that modern responses to mountains participate in rhetorical and experiential patterns that stretch right back to the ancient Mediterranean. It also makes the case for collaborative, cross-period research as a route both for understanding human relations with the natural world in the past, and informing them in the present. Throughout the longue dureé of Western culture, how have people represented mountains as landscapes of the imagination and as places of real experience? In what ways has human understanding of mountains changed – or stayed the same? Mountain Dialogues from Antiquity to Modernity opens up a new conversation between ancient and modern engagements with mountains. It highlights the ongoing relevance of ancient understandings of mountain environments to the postclassical and present-day world, while also suggesting ways in which modern approaches to landscape can generate new questions about premodern responses. It brings together experts from across many different disciplines and periods, offering case studies on topics ranging from classical Greek drama to Renaissance art, and from early modern natural philosophy to nineteenth-century travel writing. Throughout, essays engage with key themes of temporality, knowledge, identity, and experience in the mountain landscape. As a whole, the volume suggests that modern responses to mountains participate in rhetorical and experiential patterns that stretch right back to the ancient Mediterranean. It also makes the case for collaborative, cross-period research as a route both for understanding human relations with the natural world in the past, and informing them in the present. Cover page Halftitle page Title page Copyright page CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS CONTRIBUTORS SERIES PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS AND ORDER OF CHAPTERS INTRODUCTION The current contours of mountain studies Mountain pathways Temporality Knowledge Identity Experience The increasing prospect Notes CHAPTER 1 GESSNER’S MOUNTAIN SUBLIME Gessner’s mountains Adumbrating the sublime Notes CHAPTER 2 ‘FAMOUS FROM ALL ANTIQUITY’: ETNA IN CLASSICAL MYTH AND ROMANTIC POETRY ‘Pour forth a blazing stream’: classical accounts of Etna ‘This amazing mountain’: eighteenth-century visitors to Etna ‘All the pomp that mighty ETNA boasts’: from classical to Romantic Notes CHAPTER 3 THE ‘AUTHORITY OF THE ANCIENTS’? SEVENTEENT-CENTURY NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETIC RESPONSES TO MOUNTAINS 1 The Burnet debate, mountains, and the ‘ancients’ and the ‘moderns’ The formulation of the Chaos Paradise and the ancient aesthetics of mountains Conclusion Notes CHAPTER 4 TOWARD A CONTINUITY OF ALPINISM IN ANTIQUITY, PREMODERNITY AND MODERNITY: JOSIAS SIMLER’S DE ALPIBUS COMMENTARIUS (1574) AND W. A. B. COOLIDGE’S FRENCH TRANSLATION FROM 1904 Coolidge and Simler: biographical backgrounds Josias Simler et les origines de l’alpinisme jusqu’en 1600 Coolidge’s The Alps in Nature and History as parallel text Summit summation Notes CHAPTER 5 MOUNTAINS AND THE HOLY IN LATE ANTIQUITY Mountains and everyday life Reconciling literary tradition with a new faith Holy men, holy mountains Mountains and the classical inheritance Notes CHAPTER 6 ERUDITE RETREAT: JEROME AND FRANCIS IN THE MOUNTAINS The moral status of medieval landscape A fugitive from Rome: Jerome retreats to the oros The montane locus amoenus Giovanni Bellini’s Jerome: the oros as prison and paradise Bellini’s Francis: a gardener-saint in the mountains Conclusion Notes CHAPTER 7 SUBLIME VISIONS OF VIRGINIA: THOMAS JEFFERSON’S ROMANTIC MOUNTAINSCAPES Introduction Monticello as an Epicurean retreat The Natural Bridge and Jefferson’s mountain aesthetics Monticello real and imagined Notes CHAPTER 8 EDWARD DODWELL IN THE PELOPONNESE: MOUNTAINS AND THE CLASSICAL PAST IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY MEDITERRANEAN TRAVEL WRITING1 Introduction Mountains and the classical past in Ottoman Greece Edward Dodwell: bandits in the Peloponnese Edward Dodwell: the picturesque and the classical Notes CHAPTER 9 THE TOP STORY: TRUTH AND SUBLIMITY IN PATRICK BRYDONE’S ACCOUNT OF HIS 1770 ASCENT OF MOUNT ETNA Two storied ascents Brydone in the footsteps of Hamilton Brydone’s detractors Etna’s shadow over Brydone’s Tour Conclusion Notes CHAPTER 10 MOUNTAINS OF MEMORY: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO MOUNTAINS IN FIFTH-CENTURY bce GREEK TRAGEDY Euripides’ Bacchae and Mount Kithairon Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos and Mount Kithairon Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and the mountains of the ‘Beacon Scene’ Phenomenology, mountains, and tragedy Notes CHAPTER 11 MOUNTAINS, IDENTITY AND THE LEGEND OF KING BRENNUS IN THE EARLY MODERN ENGLISH IMAGINARY1 Mountains and national identity in Tudor and Stuart literature The composite identity of King Brennus Conclusions Notes CHAPTER 12 UPLAND ON MONT VENTOUX Modern Provençal pilgrimages Return to origins Base and summit Biospheres Notes BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX