- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226871820
- eISBN:
- 9780226871844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226871844.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter discusses the following: Humboldt's visit to the United States in 1804; his scientific work and publications while in Paris; his move to Berlin in early 1827, where he became the king's ...
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This chapter discusses the following: Humboldt's visit to the United States in 1804; his scientific work and publications while in Paris; his move to Berlin in early 1827, where he became the king's own Voltaire; his efforts to help reorganize Germany's struggling scientific society, the German Association of Naturalists and Physicians; and the growth and splintering of Humboldtian science across the procession of voyages and explorations it inspired.Less
This chapter discusses the following: Humboldt's visit to the United States in 1804; his scientific work and publications while in Paris; his move to Berlin in early 1827, where he became the king's own Voltaire; his efforts to help reorganize Germany's struggling scientific society, the German Association of Naturalists and Physicians; and the growth and splintering of Humboldtian science across the procession of voyages and explorations it inspired.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226871820
- eISBN:
- 9780226871844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226871844.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter begins with a discussion of how Humboldt became a cultural hero to both Latin and North Americans, from the masses to the intelligentsia, by showing them how to imagine themselves as ...
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This chapter begins with a discussion of how Humboldt became a cultural hero to both Latin and North Americans, from the masses to the intelligentsia, by showing them how to imagine themselves as something more than offshoots of European ambition. He literally put America on the global map, positioning its history, nations, and resources in relation to the rest of the world, and drawing the detailed and extensive maps by which Americans could find, and know, themselves. This is followed by a brief biography of Humboldt. The chapter then reviews some of his writings.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of how Humboldt became a cultural hero to both Latin and North Americans, from the masses to the intelligentsia, by showing them how to imagine themselves as something more than offshoots of European ambition. He literally put America on the global map, positioning its history, nations, and resources in relation to the rest of the world, and drawing the detailed and extensive maps by which Americans could find, and know, themselves. This is followed by a brief biography of Humboldt. The chapter then reviews some of his writings.
Rupke Nicolaas
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226487335
- eISBN:
- 9780226487359
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226487359.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) is not commonly depicted as a revolutionary—at least not in the Anglo-American literature on him. Some of his biographers may consider his contributions to plant ...
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Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) is not commonly depicted as a revolutionary—at least not in the Anglo-American literature on him. Some of his biographers may consider his contributions to plant geography or to meteorology of revolutionary importance, but Humboldt is not seen as a political revolutionary in the way that, for example, his younger contemporary Karl Marx was. Yet precisely this view of Humboldt as a supporter—even an instigator—of political revolutions was taken in the former East Germany, where the account of his life and work was placed in the discursive space of Marxist historiography. There, a biographical narrative was constructed that highlighted Humboldt's friendships with revolutionaries, making him a revolutionary by association. One of these friendships had been with the “revolutionary democrat” Georg Forster, the “great champion of the idea of 1789” who had passionately supported the Jacobins in France, and one of those who, in 1793 in Mainz, had established “the first democratic republic on German soil.”Less
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) is not commonly depicted as a revolutionary—at least not in the Anglo-American literature on him. Some of his biographers may consider his contributions to plant geography or to meteorology of revolutionary importance, but Humboldt is not seen as a political revolutionary in the way that, for example, his younger contemporary Karl Marx was. Yet precisely this view of Humboldt as a supporter—even an instigator—of political revolutions was taken in the former East Germany, where the account of his life and work was placed in the discursive space of Marxist historiography. There, a biographical narrative was constructed that highlighted Humboldt's friendships with revolutionaries, making him a revolutionary by association. One of these friendships had been with the “revolutionary democrat” Georg Forster, the “great champion of the idea of 1789” who had passionately supported the Jacobins in France, and one of those who, in 1793 in Mainz, had established “the first democratic republic on German soil.”
Alison E. Martin
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474439329
- eISBN:
- 9781474453844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439329.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter is devoted to Humboldt’s last, great work Cosmos. This multi-volume ‘Sketch of a Physical Description of the World’ ranged encyclopaedically from the darkest corners of space to the ...
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This chapter is devoted to Humboldt’s last, great work Cosmos. This multi-volume ‘Sketch of a Physical Description of the World’ ranged encyclopaedically from the darkest corners of space to the smallest forms of terrestrial life, describing the larger systems at work in the natural world. But, as British reviewers were swift to query, where was God in Humboldt’s mapping of the universe? Appearing on the market in 1846, just a year after Robert Chambers’ controversial Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, Humboldt’s Cosmos unavoidably underwent close scrutiny. Hitherto overlooked correspondence between Humboldt and Edward Sabine shows how the Sabines deliberately reoriented the second volume of the English translation for Longman/Murray explicitly to include references to the ‘Creator’ and thus restore Humboldt’s reputation. The fourth volume of the Longman edition on terrestrial magnetism – Edward Sabine’s specialism – included additions endorsed by Humboldt which made Sabine appear as co-writer alongside the great Prussian scientist, and Cosmos a more obviously ‘English’ product. Otté, who produced the rival translation for Bohn, was initially under pressure herself to generate ‘original’ work that differed from its rival, producing a version of a work that would remain central to scientific thought well up to the end of the nineteenth century.Less
This chapter is devoted to Humboldt’s last, great work Cosmos. This multi-volume ‘Sketch of a Physical Description of the World’ ranged encyclopaedically from the darkest corners of space to the smallest forms of terrestrial life, describing the larger systems at work in the natural world. But, as British reviewers were swift to query, where was God in Humboldt’s mapping of the universe? Appearing on the market in 1846, just a year after Robert Chambers’ controversial Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, Humboldt’s Cosmos unavoidably underwent close scrutiny. Hitherto overlooked correspondence between Humboldt and Edward Sabine shows how the Sabines deliberately reoriented the second volume of the English translation for Longman/Murray explicitly to include references to the ‘Creator’ and thus restore Humboldt’s reputation. The fourth volume of the Longman edition on terrestrial magnetism – Edward Sabine’s specialism – included additions endorsed by Humboldt which made Sabine appear as co-writer alongside the great Prussian scientist, and Cosmos a more obviously ‘English’ product. Otté, who produced the rival translation for Bohn, was initially under pressure herself to generate ‘original’ work that differed from its rival, producing a version of a work that would remain central to scientific thought well up to the end of the nineteenth century.
Bernard Debarbieux, Gilles Rudaz, and Martin F. Price
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226031118
- eISBN:
- 9780226031255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226031255.003.0002
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cultural and Historical Geography
Chapter 1 introduces the scholarly modalities for constructing the category of the mountain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the paradigms that gradually became associated with it. It ...
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Chapter 1 introduces the scholarly modalities for constructing the category of the mountain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the paradigms that gradually became associated with it. It focuses on the various modalities of the objectification of mountains, and the forms of knowledge and argument associated with that operation. Eighteenth-century natural history, philosophy, and geography proposed a far-reaching alternative to the traditional and popular conceptions of mountains, considered like a topographical contrast. They engaged in what aspired to be a radical objectification: the mountain became a category of comparable and commensurable physical objects characterized by a set of attributes, all purportedly objective, hence independent of the particular points of view from which the inhabitants of one place or another might see and describe their surroundings. This led to the invalidation of popular ways of naming and conceiving mountains, and to the rise of a new human type: the mountaineer, mainly defined on a natural basis.Less
Chapter 1 introduces the scholarly modalities for constructing the category of the mountain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the paradigms that gradually became associated with it. It focuses on the various modalities of the objectification of mountains, and the forms of knowledge and argument associated with that operation. Eighteenth-century natural history, philosophy, and geography proposed a far-reaching alternative to the traditional and popular conceptions of mountains, considered like a topographical contrast. They engaged in what aspired to be a radical objectification: the mountain became a category of comparable and commensurable physical objects characterized by a set of attributes, all purportedly objective, hence independent of the particular points of view from which the inhabitants of one place or another might see and describe their surroundings. This led to the invalidation of popular ways of naming and conceiving mountains, and to the rise of a new human type: the mountaineer, mainly defined on a natural basis.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226871820
- eISBN:
- 9780226871844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226871844.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter considers Humboldt's views on race and slavery. Humboldt played a key role in American abolitionism or the trajectory of racial science. He was the only major scientist during the ...
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This chapter considers Humboldt's views on race and slavery. Humboldt played a key role in American abolitionism or the trajectory of racial science. He was the only major scientist during the nineteenth century to argue consistently, for six decades, that “race” was not a biological category and that, as he declared in Cosmos, “all are alike designed for freedom.” Stephen Jay Gould states in his classic study of racial science that Humboldt should be the hero of modern racial egalitarians, for “he, more than any other scientist of his time, argued forcefully and at length against ranking on mental or aesthetic grounds.” The Humboldt brothers together developed a historical anthropology that sought to appreciate every human group on its own terms, for none were in any meaningful sense “superior” or “inferior” to any other. Their arguments are important both for their own sake, and for the impact they had on modern conceptions of race.Less
This chapter considers Humboldt's views on race and slavery. Humboldt played a key role in American abolitionism or the trajectory of racial science. He was the only major scientist during the nineteenth century to argue consistently, for six decades, that “race” was not a biological category and that, as he declared in Cosmos, “all are alike designed for freedom.” Stephen Jay Gould states in his classic study of racial science that Humboldt should be the hero of modern racial egalitarians, for “he, more than any other scientist of his time, argued forcefully and at length against ranking on mental or aesthetic grounds.” The Humboldt brothers together developed a historical anthropology that sought to appreciate every human group on its own terms, for none were in any meaningful sense “superior” or “inferior” to any other. Their arguments are important both for their own sake, and for the impact they had on modern conceptions of race.
Stanley Finger and Marco Piccolino
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195366723
- eISBN:
- 9780199897087
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195366723.003.0001
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, History of Neuroscience
Alexander von Humboldt, a young German baron with training in the sciences, became an international celebrity in the opening decades of the 19th century as a result of his exciting and dangerous ...
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Alexander von Humboldt, a young German baron with training in the sciences, became an international celebrity in the opening decades of the 19th century as a result of his exciting and dangerous travels through the New World and his magnificent illustrated volumes about his scientific explorations. Of all his writings, the material that more than any other captured his readers' imaginations was his encounter with South American eels. Humboldt believed that the eels were releasing their shocks intentionally, a contention made by others before him. He reasoned that, if the discharges were intentional, they should cease upon severing the nerves from the brain to the electrical organs. A cut from his knife confirmed this prediction. He also found that shocks could be transmitted through most of the usual conductors of electricity, including metal rods and people holding hands, and not through the standard array of non-conductors. This set up his long-awaited experiments with substances that had revealed possible differences between animal, metallic, and true electricity.Less
Alexander von Humboldt, a young German baron with training in the sciences, became an international celebrity in the opening decades of the 19th century as a result of his exciting and dangerous travels through the New World and his magnificent illustrated volumes about his scientific explorations. Of all his writings, the material that more than any other captured his readers' imaginations was his encounter with South American eels. Humboldt believed that the eels were releasing their shocks intentionally, a contention made by others before him. He reasoned that, if the discharges were intentional, they should cease upon severing the nerves from the brain to the electrical organs. A cut from his knife confirmed this prediction. He also found that shocks could be transmitted through most of the usual conductors of electricity, including metal rods and people holding hands, and not through the standard array of non-conductors. This set up his long-awaited experiments with substances that had revealed possible differences between animal, metallic, and true electricity.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226871820
- eISBN:
- 9780226871844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226871844.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter details Humboldt's journey from Spain to America. Humboldt traveled not from country to country but through a planetary field of geological, historical, and environmental forces. His ...
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This chapter details Humboldt's journey from Spain to America. Humboldt traveled not from country to country but through a planetary field of geological, historical, and environmental forces. His coordinates were not political but bioregional: rivers, mountain passes, coastlines, trails, and roads. It is seldom clear exactly what “country” he is in, as he sifts and compares, moving up, down, and across both spatial and temporal scale levels, continents and eons, on the alert for harmonies and resonances he can test to see if they might justly be called laws.Less
This chapter details Humboldt's journey from Spain to America. Humboldt traveled not from country to country but through a planetary field of geological, historical, and environmental forces. His coordinates were not political but bioregional: rivers, mountain passes, coastlines, trails, and roads. It is seldom clear exactly what “country” he is in, as he sifts and compares, moving up, down, and across both spatial and temporal scale levels, continents and eons, on the alert for harmonies and resonances he can test to see if they might justly be called laws.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226871820
- eISBN:
- 9780226871844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226871844.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter begins with a description of the work of Franz Boas, the German anthropologist who brought Humboldt's ideas back to the United States and used them to remake American anthropology, ...
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This chapter begins with a description of the work of Franz Boas, the German anthropologist who brought Humboldt's ideas back to the United States and used them to remake American anthropology, becoming in the process “one of the most influential figures in the history of the social sciences.” It then discusses Humboldt's book, Cosmos, followed by an analysis of his message to its readers.Less
This chapter begins with a description of the work of Franz Boas, the German anthropologist who brought Humboldt's ideas back to the United States and used them to remake American anthropology, becoming in the process “one of the most influential figures in the history of the social sciences.” It then discusses Humboldt's book, Cosmos, followed by an analysis of his message to its readers.
Laura Dassow Walls
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226871820
- eISBN:
- 9780226871844
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226871844.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Explorer, scientist, writer, and humanist, Alexander von Humboldt was the most famous intellectual of the age that began with Napoleon and ended with Darwin. With Cosmos, the book that crowned his ...
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Explorer, scientist, writer, and humanist, Alexander von Humboldt was the most famous intellectual of the age that began with Napoleon and ended with Darwin. With Cosmos, the book that crowned his career, he offered to the world his vision of humans and nature as integrated halves of a single whole. Humboldt's science laid the foundations for ecology and inspired the theories of his most important scientific disciple, Charles Darwin. In the United States, his ideas shaped the work of Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, and Whitman, and helped spark the American environmental movement through followers such as John Muir and George Perkins Marsh. And they even bolstered efforts to free the slaves and honor the rights of Indians. This book traces Humboldt's ideas for Cosmos to his 1799 journey to the Americas, where he first experienced the diversity of nature and of the world's peoples—and envisioned a new cosmopolitanism that would link ideas, disciplines, and nations into a global web of knowledge and cultures. In reclaiming Humboldt's transcultural and transdisciplinary project, the author situates America in a lively and contested field of ideas, actions, and interests, and reaches beyond to a new worldview that integrates the natural and social sciences, the arts, and the humanities. To the end of his life, Humboldt called himself “half an American,” but ironically his legacy has largely faded in the United States. The book will reintroduce this seminal thinker to a new audience and return America to its rightful place in the story of his life, work, and enduring legacy.Less
Explorer, scientist, writer, and humanist, Alexander von Humboldt was the most famous intellectual of the age that began with Napoleon and ended with Darwin. With Cosmos, the book that crowned his career, he offered to the world his vision of humans and nature as integrated halves of a single whole. Humboldt's science laid the foundations for ecology and inspired the theories of his most important scientific disciple, Charles Darwin. In the United States, his ideas shaped the work of Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, and Whitman, and helped spark the American environmental movement through followers such as John Muir and George Perkins Marsh. And they even bolstered efforts to free the slaves and honor the rights of Indians. This book traces Humboldt's ideas for Cosmos to his 1799 journey to the Americas, where he first experienced the diversity of nature and of the world's peoples—and envisioned a new cosmopolitanism that would link ideas, disciplines, and nations into a global web of knowledge and cultures. In reclaiming Humboldt's transcultural and transdisciplinary project, the author situates America in a lively and contested field of ideas, actions, and interests, and reaches beyond to a new worldview that integrates the natural and social sciences, the arts, and the humanities. To the end of his life, Humboldt called himself “half an American,” but ironically his legacy has largely faded in the United States. The book will reintroduce this seminal thinker to a new audience and return America to its rightful place in the story of his life, work, and enduring legacy.
Alison E. Martin
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474439329
- eISBN:
- 9781474453844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439329.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter concentrates on Helen Maria Williams, Paris salonnière, radical author and poet. Her translation of Humboldt’s weighty account of his voyage through the Americas with the French Botanist ...
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This chapter concentrates on Helen Maria Williams, Paris salonnière, radical author and poet. Her translation of Humboldt’s weighty account of his voyage through the Americas with the French Botanist Aimé Bonpland, the Relation historique du voyage aux regions équinoxiales du nouveau continent (1814-25), appeared as the seven-volume Personal Narrative of the Equinoctial Regions (Longman, 1814-29). Her rather literal translation was as unpopular as Black’s was well liked by a British readership, but it enjoyed Humboldt’s approval. Previously overlooked archival material detailing the corrections he made to her translation illustrate the close collaborative nature of the undertaking, but also the stylistic freedoms Humboldt permitted her. Williams’s frequently creative (or downright ‘unfaithful’) translational choices favoured the idiom of the sublime in tropical descriptions, which, in their phrasing, also recalled lines from Milton, Thomson or Blake. Williams therefore allowed works from the British literary canon to echo through Humboldt’s prose, making it seem subtly familiar to Anglophone readers. This chapter concludes by focusing briefly on William MacGillivray’s Travels and Researches of Alexander von Humboldt (1832), a successfully revised version of William’s Personal Narrative.Less
This chapter concentrates on Helen Maria Williams, Paris salonnière, radical author and poet. Her translation of Humboldt’s weighty account of his voyage through the Americas with the French Botanist Aimé Bonpland, the Relation historique du voyage aux regions équinoxiales du nouveau continent (1814-25), appeared as the seven-volume Personal Narrative of the Equinoctial Regions (Longman, 1814-29). Her rather literal translation was as unpopular as Black’s was well liked by a British readership, but it enjoyed Humboldt’s approval. Previously overlooked archival material detailing the corrections he made to her translation illustrate the close collaborative nature of the undertaking, but also the stylistic freedoms Humboldt permitted her. Williams’s frequently creative (or downright ‘unfaithful’) translational choices favoured the idiom of the sublime in tropical descriptions, which, in their phrasing, also recalled lines from Milton, Thomson or Blake. Williams therefore allowed works from the British literary canon to echo through Humboldt’s prose, making it seem subtly familiar to Anglophone readers. This chapter concludes by focusing briefly on William MacGillivray’s Travels and Researches of Alexander von Humboldt (1832), a successfully revised version of William’s Personal Narrative.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226871820
- eISBN:
- 9780226871844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226871844.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Humboldt died peacefully at his Berlin home on 6 May 1859. The funeral was the largest and grandest Berlin had ever seen for a private citizen. Humboldt's family were followed by state and royal ...
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Humboldt died peacefully at his Berlin home on 6 May 1859. The funeral was the largest and grandest Berlin had ever seen for a private citizen. Humboldt's family were followed by state and royal officials, diplomats, and six hundred students. Yet hundreds more followed his hearse through the streets of Berlin, draped with black and crowded with mourners. A wave of memorial orations and obituaries flowed across America. Many of Humboldt's friends used the occasion to assess his work and importance, which at this close view were seen to be staggering, though there was some disagreement as to whether he should be claimed by all the world, or only the world of science.Less
Humboldt died peacefully at his Berlin home on 6 May 1859. The funeral was the largest and grandest Berlin had ever seen for a private citizen. Humboldt's family were followed by state and royal officials, diplomats, and six hundred students. Yet hundreds more followed his hearse through the streets of Berlin, draped with black and crowded with mourners. A wave of memorial orations and obituaries flowed across America. Many of Humboldt's friends used the occasion to assess his work and importance, which at this close view were seen to be staggering, though there was some disagreement as to whether he should be claimed by all the world, or only the world of science.
Alexander von Humboldt
Vera M. Kutzinski and Ottmar Ette (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226465678
- eISBN:
- 9780226465685
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226465685.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The research Alexander von Humboldt amassed during his five-year trek through the Americas in the early nineteenth century proved foundational to the fields of botany, geography, and geology. But his ...
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The research Alexander von Humboldt amassed during his five-year trek through the Americas in the early nineteenth century proved foundational to the fields of botany, geography, and geology. But his visit to Cuba during this time yielded observations that extended far beyond the natural world—this book is a physical and cultural study of the island nation. In it, Humboldt denounces colonial slavery on both moral and economic grounds and stresses the vital importance of improving intercultural relations throughout the Americas. This was Humboldt's most controversial book—it was banned, censored, and willfully mistranslated to suppress the author's strong antislavery sentiments. This edition is newly translated from the original two volume French edition. The critical introduction underlines Humboldt's ability to combine scientific rigor with a cosmopolitan consciousness and a philosophical humanism.Less
The research Alexander von Humboldt amassed during his five-year trek through the Americas in the early nineteenth century proved foundational to the fields of botany, geography, and geology. But his visit to Cuba during this time yielded observations that extended far beyond the natural world—this book is a physical and cultural study of the island nation. In it, Humboldt denounces colonial slavery on both moral and economic grounds and stresses the vital importance of improving intercultural relations throughout the Americas. This was Humboldt's most controversial book—it was banned, censored, and willfully mistranslated to suppress the author's strong antislavery sentiments. This edition is newly translated from the original two volume French edition. The critical introduction underlines Humboldt's ability to combine scientific rigor with a cosmopolitan consciousness and a philosophical humanism.
Alison E. Martin
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474439329
- eISBN:
- 9781474453844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439329.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the salient differences between the two different contemporaneous versions of Humboldt’s Ansichten der Natur: Elizabeth Sabine’s Aspects of Nature (Longman, 1849) and Otté and ...
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This chapter discusses the salient differences between the two different contemporaneous versions of Humboldt’s Ansichten der Natur: Elizabeth Sabine’s Aspects of Nature (Longman, 1849) and Otté and Henry Bohn’s Views of Nature (Bohn, 1850). Humboldt initially wrangled with Elizabeth Sabine and her husband Edward, President of the Royal Society, over the English title but did not interfere further in the translation of this hybrid essay collection that combined science and aesthetics. The descriptive landscape ‘tableaux’ posed various translational difficulties in the strong imaginative appeal they carried but also the philosophical concepts underpinning them, for which Humboldt had created his own terms. Bohn and Otté enhanced the visual interest of the landscape features in Humboldt’s narrative by appealing more directly to the categories of the sublime and picturesque playing up contrasts between fore- and background; Sabine was more explicit in strengthening the spiritual message conveyed through landscape description.Less
This chapter discusses the salient differences between the two different contemporaneous versions of Humboldt’s Ansichten der Natur: Elizabeth Sabine’s Aspects of Nature (Longman, 1849) and Otté and Henry Bohn’s Views of Nature (Bohn, 1850). Humboldt initially wrangled with Elizabeth Sabine and her husband Edward, President of the Royal Society, over the English title but did not interfere further in the translation of this hybrid essay collection that combined science and aesthetics. The descriptive landscape ‘tableaux’ posed various translational difficulties in the strong imaginative appeal they carried but also the philosophical concepts underpinning them, for which Humboldt had created his own terms. Bohn and Otté enhanced the visual interest of the landscape features in Humboldt’s narrative by appealing more directly to the categories of the sublime and picturesque playing up contrasts between fore- and background; Sabine was more explicit in strengthening the spiritual message conveyed through landscape description.
Alison E. Martin
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474439329
- eISBN:
- 9781474453844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439329.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines the first of Humboldt’s works to appear in English translation, John Black’s oft-maligned rendering of the Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne (1808-11) as the ...
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This chapter examines the first of Humboldt’s works to appear in English translation, John Black’s oft-maligned rendering of the Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne (1808-11) as the Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (Longman, 1811). Black resituated and rhetorically manipulated Humboldt’s text by appending a hefty footnote apparatus, which gave the narrative a second, highly audible, paratextual voice in constant dialogue with Humboldt’s own. Black therefore subverted the traditional power differential between author and translator to make the Political Essay critical of the very source text it apparently reproduced. His efforts at establishing his own authority and credibility through self-promotion backfired into intrusive pedantry. However, they did cause Humboldt to consider carefully the need for much closer collaboration with future translators, which offers a neat transition into the next chapter.Less
This chapter examines the first of Humboldt’s works to appear in English translation, John Black’s oft-maligned rendering of the Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne (1808-11) as the Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (Longman, 1811). Black resituated and rhetorically manipulated Humboldt’s text by appending a hefty footnote apparatus, which gave the narrative a second, highly audible, paratextual voice in constant dialogue with Humboldt’s own. Black therefore subverted the traditional power differential between author and translator to make the Political Essay critical of the very source text it apparently reproduced. His efforts at establishing his own authority and credibility through self-promotion backfired into intrusive pedantry. However, they did cause Humboldt to consider carefully the need for much closer collaboration with future translators, which offers a neat transition into the next chapter.
Annette G. Aubert
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199915323
- eISBN:
- 9780199345540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199915323.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
This chapter briefly addresses the influences of Scottish Common Sense Realism and Baconism on antebellum Protestant theology in the United States, and then proceeds to show links between the ...
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This chapter briefly addresses the influences of Scottish Common Sense Realism and Baconism on antebellum Protestant theology in the United States, and then proceeds to show links between the American theology of that period and ideas coming from European intellectuals such as Alexander von Humboldt, Arnold Guyot, Georg Hegel, Samuel Coleridge, and various German theologians. It explores the vital transatlantic connections between American and German scholars, especially through German-educated scholars who immigrated to America, Americans who studied at German universities, translations of German theological works into English, and German libraries imported to America. The chapter concludes with commentary on how American scholars responded positively to the dogmatic and biblical work of mediating theologians and how various German influences shaped American thinkers.Less
This chapter briefly addresses the influences of Scottish Common Sense Realism and Baconism on antebellum Protestant theology in the United States, and then proceeds to show links between the American theology of that period and ideas coming from European intellectuals such as Alexander von Humboldt, Arnold Guyot, Georg Hegel, Samuel Coleridge, and various German theologians. It explores the vital transatlantic connections between American and German scholars, especially through German-educated scholars who immigrated to America, Americans who studied at German universities, translations of German theological works into English, and German libraries imported to America. The chapter concludes with commentary on how American scholars responded positively to the dogmatic and biblical work of mediating theologians and how various German influences shaped American thinkers.
John G. T. Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780520273764
- eISBN:
- 9780520954458
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520273764.003.0011
- Subject:
- Biology, Natural History and Field Guides
In which we follow Alexander von Humboldt and his friend Bonpland in their travels in northern South America along the upper reaches of the Amazon, into the high Andes, and north to Mexico and the ...
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In which we follow Alexander von Humboldt and his friend Bonpland in their travels in northern South America along the upper reaches of the Amazon, into the high Andes, and north to Mexico and the United States. During this expedition Humboldt developed his initial ideas of biogeography, and he studied the peoples and politics of Latin America. Humboldt’s later travels through Czarist Russia are also discussed, as are his many and varied publications in natural history.Less
In which we follow Alexander von Humboldt and his friend Bonpland in their travels in northern South America along the upper reaches of the Amazon, into the high Andes, and north to Mexico and the United States. During this expedition Humboldt developed his initial ideas of biogeography, and he studied the peoples and politics of Latin America. Humboldt’s later travels through Czarist Russia are also discussed, as are his many and varied publications in natural history.
Paul C. Gutjahr
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199740420
- eISBN:
- 9780199894703
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199740420.003.0019
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
Chapter Nineteen traces Hodge’s final months in Europe, including the six months he spends in Berlin which he considers the highpoint of his trip. In Berlin he meets and befriends Ernst Hengstenberg ...
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Chapter Nineteen traces Hodge’s final months in Europe, including the six months he spends in Berlin which he considers the highpoint of his trip. In Berlin he meets and befriends Ernst Hengstenberg and Johann Neander, and attends the lectures of Alexander Von Humboldt. He partakes of many “Awakening” evening sessions with friends. He then travels home via France, England and Scotland.Less
Chapter Nineteen traces Hodge’s final months in Europe, including the six months he spends in Berlin which he considers the highpoint of his trip. In Berlin he meets and befriends Ernst Hengstenberg and Johann Neander, and attends the lectures of Alexander Von Humboldt. He partakes of many “Awakening” evening sessions with friends. He then travels home via France, England and Scotland.
Alison E. Martin
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474439329
- eISBN:
- 9781474453844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439329.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Straddling comparative literary and cultural studies and the history of science, this chapter insists on the importance of translation to the scientific culture of early- to mid-nineteenth-century ...
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Straddling comparative literary and cultural studies and the history of science, this chapter insists on the importance of translation to the scientific culture of early- to mid-nineteenth-century Britain. It emphasises the centrality of women to the translation of Humboldt’s work for a British readership and explores more generally the reception of his work by the British critical press.Less
Straddling comparative literary and cultural studies and the history of science, this chapter insists on the importance of translation to the scientific culture of early- to mid-nineteenth-century Britain. It emphasises the centrality of women to the translation of Humboldt’s work for a British readership and explores more generally the reception of his work by the British critical press.
John H. Zammito
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226520797
- eISBN:
- 9780226520827
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226520827.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
German life science developed in the last decades of the eighteenth century via a research program pursuing “life forces” [Lebenskräfte]. It drew on Haller’s irritability and sensibility and on ...
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German life science developed in the last decades of the eighteenth century via a research program pursuing “life forces” [Lebenskräfte]. It drew on Haller’s irritability and sensibility and on Blumenbach’s Bildungstrieb. It was also energized by the reception of French (Lavoisierian) “antiphlogistic” chemistry and by Galvani’s “animal electricity.” The key figure in these developments was Kielmeyer. His great Address of 1793, Über die Verhältniße der organischen Kräfte unter einander, enunciated the fusion of this physiology of organic forces with ideas of paleontology and the geological development of earth into a comparative and developmental historicization of life forms to establish a unified science of life. Thus Kielmeyer produced the first “system program of biology.” He had enormous impact, launching what Schelling called “an entirely new epoch of natural history.” Others associated with the University of Göttingen in the 1790s – Girtanner, Pfaff, Link, Humboldt and Brandis – made important contributions to this endeavor. Their crucial critic and rival was Reil, who proposed an alternative grounding of life science in organic chemistry.Less
German life science developed in the last decades of the eighteenth century via a research program pursuing “life forces” [Lebenskräfte]. It drew on Haller’s irritability and sensibility and on Blumenbach’s Bildungstrieb. It was also energized by the reception of French (Lavoisierian) “antiphlogistic” chemistry and by Galvani’s “animal electricity.” The key figure in these developments was Kielmeyer. His great Address of 1793, Über die Verhältniße der organischen Kräfte unter einander, enunciated the fusion of this physiology of organic forces with ideas of paleontology and the geological development of earth into a comparative and developmental historicization of life forms to establish a unified science of life. Thus Kielmeyer produced the first “system program of biology.” He had enormous impact, launching what Schelling called “an entirely new epoch of natural history.” Others associated with the University of Göttingen in the 1790s – Girtanner, Pfaff, Link, Humboldt and Brandis – made important contributions to this endeavor. Their crucial critic and rival was Reil, who proposed an alternative grounding of life science in organic chemistry.
