Who Measures the World? Alexander von Humboldt's Chimborazo Climb in the Literary Imagination
Identifieur interne : 000194 ( Main/Exploration ); précédent : 000193; suivant : 000195Who Measures the World? Alexander von Humboldt's Chimborazo Climb in the Literary Imagination
Auteurs : Caroline SchaumannSource :
- The German Quarterly [ 0016-8831 ] ; 2009-09.
Abstract
Looking at three imagined depictions of Humboldt's Chimborazo climb—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's drawing “Höhen der alten und neuen Welt bildlich verglichen” (1807), Rainer Simon's DEFA film Die Besteigung des Chimborazo (1989), and Daniel Kehlmann's bestseller Die Vermessung der Welt (2005)—my essay compares these fictional representations with Humboldt's own narratives to examine the imaginative and ideological bent of each interpretation. While Goethe depicts Humboldt reconnoitering a new world that is a mirror image of the old, Simon portrays him as a passionate educator and revolutionary. This image clashes with Kehlmann's representation of an emotionless Prussian who merely measures the world with tedious determination. Kehlmann's novel formulates, structures, and gives closure to an event that Humboldt intentionally left open to the imagination. While Humboldt gave only cryptic descriptions of the climb, it is Kehlmann who “measures the world” in the sense that his text provides an accessible narrative of the Chimborazo climb.
Url:
DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-1183.2009.00061.x
Affiliations:
Links toward previous steps (curation, corpus...)
Le document en format XML
<record><TEI wicri:istexFullTextTei="biblStruct"><teiHeader><fileDesc><titleStmt><title xml:lang="en">Who Measures the World? Alexander von Humboldt's Chimborazo Climb in the Literary Imagination</title><author><name sortKey="Schaumann, Caroline" sort="Schaumann, Caroline" uniqKey="Schaumann C" first="Caroline" last="Schaumann">Caroline Schaumann</name></author></titleStmt><publicationStmt><idno type="wicri:source">ISTEX</idno><idno type="RBID">ISTEX:72587033D5EA90E9926F3C441DFAEB2207AB460B</idno><date when="2009" year="2009">2009</date><idno type="doi">10.1111/j.1756-1183.2009.00061.x</idno><idno type="url">https://api.istex.fr/document/72587033D5EA90E9926F3C441DFAEB2207AB460B/fulltext/pdf</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Main/Corpus">001119</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Main/Curation">001074</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Main/Exploration">000194</idno><idno type="wicri:explorRef" wicri:stream="Main" wicri:step="Exploration">000194</idno></publicationStmt><sourceDesc><biblStruct><analytic><title level="a" type="main" xml:lang="en">Who Measures the World? Alexander von Humboldt's Chimborazo Climb in the Literary Imagination</title><author><name sortKey="Schaumann, Caroline" sort="Schaumann, Caroline" uniqKey="Schaumann C" first="Caroline" last="Schaumann">Caroline Schaumann</name><affiliation><wicri:noCountry code="no comma">Emory University</wicri:noCountry></affiliation></author></analytic><monogr></monogr><series><title level="j">The German Quarterly</title><idno type="ISSN">0016-8831</idno><idno type="eISSN">1756-1183</idno><imprint><publisher>Blackwell Publishing Ltd</publisher><pubPlace>Oxford, UK</pubPlace><date type="published" when="2009-09">2009-09</date><biblScope unit="volume">82</biblScope><biblScope unit="issue">4</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" from="447">447</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" to="468">468</biblScope></imprint><idno type="ISSN">0016-8831</idno></series><idno type="istex">72587033D5EA90E9926F3C441DFAEB2207AB460B</idno><idno type="DOI">10.1111/j.1756-1183.2009.00061.x</idno><idno type="ArticleID">GEQU61</idno></biblStruct></sourceDesc><seriesStmt><idno type="ISSN">0016-8831</idno></seriesStmt></fileDesc><profileDesc><textClass></textClass><langUsage><language ident="en">en</language></langUsage></profileDesc></teiHeader><front><div type="abstract" xml:lang="en">Looking at three imagined depictions of Humboldt's Chimborazo climb—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's drawing “Höhen der alten und neuen Welt bildlich verglichen” (1807), Rainer Simon's DEFA film Die Besteigung des Chimborazo (1989), and Daniel Kehlmann's bestseller Die Vermessung der Welt (2005)—my essay compares these fictional representations with Humboldt's own narratives to examine the imaginative and ideological bent of each interpretation. While Goethe depicts Humboldt reconnoitering a new world that is a mirror image of the old, Simon portrays him as a passionate educator and revolutionary. This image clashes with Kehlmann's representation of an emotionless Prussian who merely measures the world with tedious determination. Kehlmann's novel formulates, structures, and gives closure to an event that Humboldt intentionally left open to the imagination. While Humboldt gave only cryptic descriptions of the climb, it is Kehlmann who “measures the world” in the sense that his text provides an accessible narrative of the Chimborazo climb.</div></front></TEI><affiliations><list></list><tree><noCountry><name sortKey="Schaumann, Caroline" sort="Schaumann, Caroline" uniqKey="Schaumann C" first="Caroline" last="Schaumann">Caroline Schaumann</name></noCountry></tree></affiliations></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
EXPLOR_STEP=$WICRI_ROOT/Wicri/Musique/explor/SchutzV1/Data/Main/Exploration
HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_STEP/biblio.hfd -nk 000194 | SxmlIndent | more
Ou
HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_AREA/Data/Main/Exploration/biblio.hfd -nk 000194 | SxmlIndent | more
Pour mettre un lien sur cette page dans le réseau Wicri
{{Explor lien
|wiki= Wicri/Musique
|area= SchutzV1
|flux= Main
|étape= Exploration
|type= RBID
|clé= ISTEX:72587033D5EA90E9926F3C441DFAEB2207AB460B
|texte= Who Measures the World? Alexander von Humboldt's Chimborazo Climb in the Literary Imagination
}}
| This area was generated with Dilib version V0.6.38. |  |