Cover of Views of Nature
Views of Nature
by Alexander von Humboldt, edited by Stephen T. Jackson and Laura Dassow Walls, translated by Mark W. Person
University of Chicago Press, 2014
Cloth: 978-0-226-92318-5 | Paper: 978-0-226-42247-3 | Electronic: 978-0-226-92319-2
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226923192.001.0001

AVAILABLE FROM

University of Chicago Press (cloth, paper, ebook)
Brytewave (CafeScribe-Follett Higher Ed)
Chegg Inc
ebrary
EBSCO eBooks (formerly NetLibrary)
Kno
ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

While the influence of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) looms large over the natural sciences, his legacy reaches far beyond the field notebooks of naturalists. Humboldt’s 1799–1804 research expedition to Central and South America with botanist Aimé Bonpland not only set the course for the great scientific surveys of the nineteenth century, but also served as the raw material for his many volumes—works of both scientific rigor and aesthetic beauty that inspired such essayists and artists as Emerson, Goethe, Thoreau, Poe, and Frederic Edwin Church.

Views of Nature, or Ansichten der Natur, was Humboldt’s best-known and most influential work—and his personal favorite. While the essays that comprise it are themselves remarkable as innovative, early pieces of nature writing—they were cited by Thoreau as a model for his own work—the book’s extensive endnotes incorporate some of Humboldt’s most beautiful prose and mature thinking on vegetation structure, its origins in climate patterns, and its implications for the arts. Written for both a literary and a scientific audience, Views of Nature was translated into English (twice), Spanish, and French in the nineteenth century, and it was read widely in Europe and the Americas. But in contrast to many of Humboldt’s more technical works, Views of Nature has been unavailable in English for more than one hundred years. Largely neglected in the United States during the twentieth century, Humboldt’s contributions to the humanities and the sciences are now undergoing a revival to which this new translation will be a critical contribution.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Stephen T. Jackson is professor emeritus of botany and ecology at the University of Wyoming and the editor of von Humboldt’s Essay on the Geography of Plants. He lives in Tucson, AZ. Laura Dassow Walls is the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame and the author of several books, including The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America. She lives in Granger, IN. Mark W. Person is associate academic professional lecturer in German in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and director of the language lab at the University of Wyoming. He lives in Laramie, WY.

REVIEWS

“Long awaited by Humboldtians, this illuminating new edition of Views of Nature—offering not just vivid natural scenes (‘views’ in the most obvious sense) but also von Humboldt’s still-fresh views on the significance of nature and its study—is a gift that transcends disciplines and even history. A book that was deeply relevant and constructively challenging in the age of empire has become even more necessary in the age of climate change. Today, thanks in part to the acutely sensitive translator and editors, von Humboldt’s finest one-volume work comes across as a perfect blend of art and science, a paean to interconnection that is both humbling and heartening.”
— Aaron Sachs, Cornell University, author of "The Humboldt Current"

“Alexander von Humboldt’s wide-ranging Views of Nature is a masterpiece of nineteenth-century natural history, at once science and art. Mark W. Person’s stunning new translation makes the wonders of this classic accessible to the English-language world of the present.”
— Daniel Walker Howe, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "What Hath God Wrought"

“Ever since his celebrated journey of exploration of the Americas, Alexander von Humboldt has been a defining figure of Western scientific culture. Today, his international reputation is enjoying a revival, especially in North America. Now the University of Chicago Press is adding to its list of Humboldtiana a new edition of von Humboldt’s most readable book, Views of Nature, skillfully translated from the original German and expertly introduced. It opens up to a twenty-first-century readership the magnificent panorama of tropical American landscapes, the aesthetic pleasure of which connoted—in von Humboldt’s view—the underlying harmony of lawlike unity that pervades the cosmos.”
— Nicolaas Rupke, Washington and Lee University, author of "Alexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography"

“From the plains of Venezuela to volcanoes and waterfalls, von Humboldt combines observations with travel narratives and philosophical musings. Annotations really help provide a context to the essays; this work also includes an index, conversions for von Humboldt’s various measurement units, an introduction, and preface. This excellent translation of one of von Humboldt’s most important works should introduce this great naturalist to an entirely new audience.”
— Edward J. Valauskas, Curator of Rare Books, Library, Chicago Botanic Garden, Current Books on Gardening and Botany

“Despite von Humboldt’s tremendous influence on many of the world’s greatest writers and naturalists, including Goethe, Darwin, Emerson, and Thoreau, outside of specialist circles, this new translation has not received the attention it richly deserves. This is something I intend to do my part in helping to rectify at the earliest opportunity.”
— John E. Riutta, Well-read Naturalist

“It is easy to overlook the work of the translator in reviewing a translation—a fate keenly felt by some of the learned women who slogged away at turning Humboldt’s French and German prose into English in the nineteenth century. Person is to be warmly congratulated on a highly readable translation that loses nothing of the complexity of the original. I consider his “Translator’s Note” a fundamental part of the translation itself, not only because it reminds us of his essential mediating role in the production of a truly modern rendering of Humboldt’s work. The issues that he addresses—sensibility to Humboldt’s style and sentence structure, idiosyncrasies and outdated terms in the original—confront us in a very immediate way with the business of transforming one series of ideas and images into a different language, culture, and, in this case, time. As scholars working in Humboldt studies gear up for commemorations in honor of the 250th anniversary of Humboldt’s birth in 2019, this new edition of the Ansichten der Natur will prove an invaluable basis for further discussion and research.”
— Isis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editors’ Preface

Introduction: Reclaiming Consilience

Translator’s Note

Humboldt’s Ansichten der Natur Measurement Units

Views of Nature

Preface to the First Edition

Preface to the Second and Third Editions


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226923192.003.0001
[Steppe, desert, flatland, plains, Llanos, geography, America, Sahara, Asia, aridity]
This chapter deals with the natural phenomenon of broad expanses of flatland on the planet’s surface, at various elevations, some extending for many hundreds of miles across the lines of latitude and longitude. The essay includes a dramatic description of the Llanos of Venezuela, and suggests why some of the planet’s flatlands (such as the Llanos and Pampas of South America) are fertile grasslands, some (such as the steppes of Asia, the European heathlands, and the high plains of North America) are abundant with various flora, and some, such as the Sahara, are barren and sandy desert. The annotations discuss at length the meteorological, geological, botanical, zoological, and cultural characteristics of these regions, in the present and over the course of the planet’s history. (pages 29 - 41)

Annotations and Additions


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226923192.003.0002
[Orinoco, river, Venezuela, Colombia, waterfall, people, juvia, Atures, parrot]
This chapter concerns the Orinoco River of Venezuela and Colombia. The essay describes the river’s landscape, flora, and fauna, considers possible causes of its winding course, analyses the nature of the rocks that create its roaring narrows and spectacular waterfalls, and describes the lives of the nearby native peoples and their connections to the river. The annotations offer in-depth discussions of the exploration of the river and its sources, of immense juvia trees, of giant grasses, and the legend of a parrot speaking in the lost language of the Atures, a recently extinct native tribe. (pages 117 - 129)

Annotations and Additions


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226923192.003.0003
[Nocturnal, wildlife, language, Apure, animal, jaguar, sound, insects, primeval, hypsometric]
The essay portion of this chapter begins with a discussion of the rich capacity of language to create words that sharply delineate the subtle variations of natural phenomena, from plant forms and cloud patterns to land surface features and mountain groups. This leads to a discussion of what constitutes a truly “primeval” forest, which in turn leads to the forest around the Rio Apure, culminating in a discussion of the wide variety of wild animal life in this area. The appearance and habits of capybara, river dolphins, jaguars, monkeys, parrots, and other animals are discussed, including the sometimes thunderous nocturnal chorus of the animals. The essay concludes by observing that life forms are ever-present to the receptive ear, even in the still heat of noonday sun, when one can hear the muffled murmur of insects. The annotations expand upon the topic of fine distinctions in nature-vocabulary among a variety of languages, and offer more information on monkeys and dolphins. Appended to this section is a collection of “hypsometric measurements” collected in the mountains of North and South America. (pages 141 - 147)

Annotations and Additions

4. Hypsometric Addenda


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226923192.003.0005
[Plant, plant communities, species, vegetation, climate, physiognomy, distribution, landscape, artist, form]
This chapter begins with a discussion of the fact that life forms are present virtually everywhere on Earth—on the surface, in the atmosphere, in the water, underground, even in microscopic form within the bodies of other creatures. The focus narrows to plant life, and Humboldt asserts that the impression made on the viewer by each climatic zone depends mostly upon the forms, or “physiognomy,” of its plant life. The essay details various manifestations of some twenty plant morphologies and the proportions of their distribution over the entire planet, and in relation to one another. The essay concludes with a discussion of the importance of the study of plant form to the landscape painter and the assertion that the scientist and the artist can work together to bring knowledge and appreciation of the variety of the entire planet’s plant life to people of every climate. The extensive scientific annotations to this essay explore in great detail the form and distribution not only of the plant morphologies listed in the essay, but of many specific species within the subcategories of these primary groups. (pages 155 - 168)

Annotations and Additions


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226923192.003.0006
[Volcano, Mediterranean, geology, geognosy, earthquakes, Quito, Lisbon, Vesuvius, theory of measurement]
This chapter discusses the degree to which exploration of the globe has improved the understanding of volcanoes, an understanding limited by narrow or even inaccurate notions created through familiarity with the Mediterranean region alone. The term “volcanic” is expanded to include all modes and areas of communication between the Earth’s molten inner layer and the surface. Historical instances of volcanic activity, the widely variable structure of volcanoes in many parts of the earth, and their extraordinarily far-reaching effects upon people, landscapes, and the geological makeup of an area are examined. Data gathered up to the point of publication are also presented. (pages 243 - 256)

Annotations and Additions


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226923192.003.0007
[Rhodian, genius, life force, animate, death, biochemistry]
This section presents not a scientific essay but a piece of creative fiction that explores, in an allegory of two paintings, the nature of the mysterious force that holds the inanimate components of organic forms in such a configuration that, contrary to their nature, they can become animate and conscious. Death comes when this force releases the inanimate components, so they may return to the original inanimate combinations which they seek naturally. In an addendum to the story, Humboldt asserts that he has, over the years since he first composed it, become skeptical of the existence of such a discrete life force, and suggests that the true nature of the difference between animate and inanimate combinations remains to be explored. (pages 261 - 263)

Commentary and Addendum


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226923192.003.0008
[Cajamarca, Inca, ruins, Amazon, Atahualpa, Conquest, gold, South America, Pacific, mythology]
This essay discusses the travellers’ descent from the high Andes of Quito down to the the Upper Amazon, back over the Andes, and down to the Pacific. Interesting aspects of the trip include Cinchona forests and the process for deriving quinine to fight malaria, strange and forbidding meteorological phenomena in the high Andes, and evidence of the great civilization of the Incas. The discussion of ruins introduces the brutal history of the Spanish Conquistadores and the humble life of the descendants of the vanquished Incas, as Humboldt is guided through the ruins by the son of the Inca leader Astorpilca. The geology of the Andes is discussed, including the mining of gold and silver, as well as the landscape and geology of the Upper Amazon and the plants, animals, and people along its often rocky banks. The essay ends with a description of their joy on first seeing the Pacific, but also Humboldt’s disappointment upon learning that he would not be joining a voyage of circumnavigation at Lima, for the expedition had chosen the route around the Cape of Good Hope instead of Cape Horn. The annotations expand upon the history and mythology of the region. (pages 267 - 284)

Annotations and Additions

Index

Book published by University of Chicago Press, 2014. Page maintained by BiblioVault.