Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Acknowledgments ix
4. Introduction: The Meaning of Mountains: Geology, History, Culture 1
5. Prelude: Classical Mountain Landscapes and the Language of Ascent 20
6. Part I: First Forays: Mountain Exploration and Celebration from the Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century
7. Terra Incognita? Mountains in Medieval and Early Modern German Literature 33
8. From Meadows to Mountaintops: Albrecht von Haller’s “Die Alpen” 57
9. Interlude: Geo-Poetics: The Alpine Sublime in Art and Literature, 1779–1860 77
10. Time and Narrative in the Mountain Sublime around 1800 98
11. Faust’s Mountains: An Ecocritical Reading of Goethe’s Tragedy and Science 116
12. Spectacular Scenery and Slippery Descents: Narrating the Mountains of Tropical Polynesia 134
13. Part II: Beckoning Heights: Summits Near and Far in the Nineteenth Century
14. Fascinating Voids: Alexander von Humboldt and the Myth of Chimborazo 151
15. From Eros to Thanatos: Hiking and Spelunking in Ludwig Tieck’s Der Runenberg 176
16. Geology, Mountaineering, and Self-Formation in Adalbert Stifter’s Der Nachsommer 193
17. “An Apparition from Another World”: The Mountains of the Moon and Kilimanjaro from the Perspective of Nineteenth-Century Germany 210
18. Part III: Modern Expeditions and Evocations: Climbing from the Twentieth into the Twenty-First Century
19. Leaving the Summit Behind: Tracking Biographical and Philosophical Pathways in Richard Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie 229
20. Elevation and Insight: Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg 248
21. “The Essence of the Alpine World Is Struggle”: Strategies of Gesundung in Arnold Fanck’s Early Mountain Films 267
22. “Mountain of Destiny”: The Filmic Legacy of Nanga Parbat 285
23. Spatial Orientation and Embodied Transcendence in Werner Herzog’s Mountain Climbing Films 302
24. W. G. Sebald’s Magic Mountains 320
25. Conflicting Ascents: Inscriptions, Cartographies, and Disappearance in Christoph Ransmayr’s Der fliegende Berg 334
26. Works Cited 349
27. Notes on the Contributors 379
28. Index 385