Mountain Dialogues from Antiquity to Modernity

Dawn Hollis, Jason König, Dawn Hollis, Jason König

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781350194106
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350162839
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Halftitle page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• CONTENTS
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• CONTRIBUTORS
• SERIES PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS AND ORDER OF CHAPTERS
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 1 GESSNER’S MOUNTAIN SUBLIME
• CHAPTER 2 ‘FAMOUS FROM ALL ANTIQUITY’: ETNA IN CLASSICAL MYTH AND ROMANTIC POETRY
• CHAPTER 3 THE ‘AUTHORITY OF THE ANCIENTS’? SEVENTEENT-CENTURY NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETIC RESPONSES TO MOUNTAINS 1
• 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
• CHAPTER 5 MOUNTAINS AND THE HOLY IN LATE ANTIQUITY
• CHAPTER 6 ERUDITE RETREAT: JEROME AND FRANCIS IN THE MOUNTAINS
• CHAPTER 7 SUBLIME VISIONS OF VIRGINIA: THOMAS JEFFERSON’S ROMANTIC MOUNTAINSCAPES
• CHAPTER 8 EDWARD DODWELL IN THE PELOPONNESE: MOUNTAINS AND THE CLASSICAL PAST IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY MEDITERRANEAN TRAVEL WRITING1
• CHAPTER 9 THE TOP STORY: TRUTH AND SUBLIMITY IN PATRICK BRYDONE’S ACCOUNT OF HIS 1770 ASCENT OF MOUNT ETNA
• CHAPTER 10 MOUNTAINS OF MEMORY: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO MOUNTAINS IN FIFTH-CENTURY bce GREEK TRAGEDY
• CHAPTER 11 MOUNTAINS, IDENTITY AND THE LEGEND OF KING BRENNUS IN THE EARLY MODERN ENGLISH IMAGINARY1
• CHAPTER 12 UPLAND ON MONT VENTOUX
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX