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“Under the influence of an exotic nature...national remembrances are insensibly effaced” : Threats to the European Subject in Humboldt’s 'Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent'

  • My essay attends to a number of passages in Alexander von Humboldt’s "Personal Narrative" in which the Prussian explorer expresses anxiety about the apparent dangers posed by the overwhelmingly productive tropical landscapes he observes. In these passages, the excesses of an “exotic nature” threaten European identity and modes of civilization—and they trouble the accuracy of Humboldt’s own observational project. I also explore Humboldt’s related worry that South American vegetable (and visual) overload will exert a destabilizing effect on his aesthetic sensibility, disrupting his ability to represent the “New Continent” accurately in writing. Finally, I sketch the influence of Humboldt’s representations of tropical excess on nineteenth-century British cultural thought and literary practice. Studying the instabilities experienced by "Personal Narrative’s" expatriates and colonists promises to draw out important tensions latent in Humboldt’s treatment of tropical landscape and to illuminate broader epistemological and aesthetic shifts being worked out during the period.

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Metadaten
Author:Jason H. Lindquist
URN:urn:nbn:de:kobv:b4360-100275
URL:http://edoc.bbaw.de/oa/articles/reFmVhsYbNW86/PDF/21KZoA9r2Rd6E.pdf
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2006/09/05
Publishing Institution:Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Release Date:2006/09/05
Tag:Alexander von Humboldt; Humboldts Reiseerfahrungen; Neuer Kontinent
Humboldt's personal narrative of travels; New Continent
Page Number:17
Source:Humboldt im Netz ; V, 9 (2004))
Institutes:BBAW / Akademienvorhaben Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschung
Dewey Decimal Classification:000 Wissenschaft, Allgemeines / 07 Publizistische Medien, Journalismus, Verlagswesen / 070 Publizistische Medien, Journalismus, Verlagswesen
Schriftenreihen in Einzelbeiträgen:BBAW / Humboldt im Netz (HiN) / HiN V, 9 (2004)
        
            
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