Heights of Reflection

Mountains have always fired the human imagination, not least in the Western world and in German-speaking lands. Inhospitable and not suited for cultivation, in the Middle Ages they were places where "wildeor" or wild beasts dwelled: hence the term "wilderness." The opposition of "wild" (dangerous, alien, evil) and "civilized" (cultivated, fertile, flat) terrain is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, beginning with the Garden of Eden and the threatening nature looming outside. This powerful bias largely precluded exploration of mountains up until the eighteenth century, when Enlightenment science and philosophy brought scientists and climbers - many of them also scholars and writers - into contact with the Alpine terrain, and then - Germans prominent among them - with the greater ranges of the world. This volume of essays by European and North American scholars examines the lure and role of mountains in German literature, philosophy, film, music, and culture since the Middle Ages. The contributors treat mountains not as mere tropes but as constituting a tangible reality that informs the experiences and ideas of writers, naturalists, philosophers, composers, and directors.BR> Contributors: Peter Arnds, Olaf Berwald, Albrecht Classen, Roger Cook, Scott Denham, Sean Franzel, Christof Hamann, Harald Hobusch, Dan Hooley, Peter Hoyng, Sean Ireton, Oliver Lubrich, Anthony Ozturk, Caroline Schaumann, Heather I. Sullivan, Johannes Turk, Sabine Wilke, Wilfried Wilms. Sean Ireton is Associate Professor of German at the University of Missouri. Caroline Schaumann is Assistant Professor of German at Emory University.