Tag: Romanticism

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Bainbridge — Mountaineering and British Romanticism (2020)

Bainbridge, Simon. Mountaineering and British Romanticism: The Literary Cultures of Climbing, 1770–1836. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Abstract: “This book examines the relationship between Romantic-period writing and the activity that Samuel Taylor Coleridge christened ‘mountaineering’ in 1802. It argues that mountaineering developed as a pursuit in Britain during the Romantic era, earlier than is generally recognised, and shows how writers including William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Ann Radcliffe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, and Walter Scott were central to the activity’s evolution. It explores how the desire for physical ascent shaped Romantic-period literary culture and investigates how the figure of the mountaineer became crucial to creative identities and literary outputs. Illustrated with 25 images from the period, the book shows how mountaineering in Britain had its origins in scientific research, antiquarian travel, and the search for the picturesque and the sublime. It considers how writers engaged with mountaineering’s power dynamics and investigates issues including the politics of the summit view (what Wordsworth terms ‘visual sovereignty’), the relationships between different types of ‘mountaineers’, and the role of women in the developing cultures of ascent. ¶ Placing the work of canonical writers alongside a wide range of other types of mountaineering literature, this book reassesses key Romantic-period terms and ideas, such as vision, insight, elevation, revelation, transcendence, and the sublime. It opens up new ways of understanding the relationship between Romantic-period writers and the world that they experienced through their feet and hands, as well as their eyes, as they moved through the challenging landscapes of the British mountains.”

Contents: Introduction — 1. ‘The traveller of taste . . . the naturalist, and the antiquary’: The Evolution of Romantic-period Mountaineering in Britain — 2. ‘Curiosity’, ‘Dangerous Adventure’, and ‘the Perilous Point of Honour’: Three Case Studies in the Invention of Mountaineering — 3. From ‘Vast Extended Prospect’ to ‘The Spectacle of Nature’: Wordsworth, Keats, and the Aesthetics of Elevated Viewing — 4. ‘Master[s] of the Prospect’?: Wordsworth, Keats, and the Revelations of Elevation — 5. Romanticism on the Rocks: Feeling and Fear in the Mountains — 6. ‘Fearless I rove, exploring, free’: The Mountaineer and the Romantic Imagination — 7. ‘Active Climber[s] of the Hills’: Women and Mountaineering — 8. ‘I was a bauld craigsman’: Walter Scott’s Rock-Climbing Heroes — Conclusion: John Keats on Everest.

Reviews: Kerri Andrews, The Wordsworth Journal 52.4 (Fall, 2021); John Bugg, Studies in Romanticism 62.1 (Spring, 2023): 159–61.

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Wilson — Dorothy Wordsworth and Her Female Contemporaries’ Legacy (2019)

Wilson, Louise Ann. “Dorothy Wordsworth and her Female Contemporaries’ Legacy.” Performance Research 24.2 (2119): 109–19.

Abstract: “In this article I argue that a feminine ‘material’ sublime approach to mountains exists and has for generations but remains under-recognized and on the fringes of mainstream dialogues, which – historically and in the present – are dominated by masculine ‘transcendent’ sublime accounts, encounters and endeavours. The article enables me to explore how in Early Romanticism the concept of the masculine ‘transcendent’ sublime – an intellectual and spiritual experience that transcends physical matter – came to dominate discourses on landscape. I then propose how, in contrast, the feminine ‘material’ sublime is located in and present to the physical landscape, not as a place from which to ‘escape’ or ‘disappear’ but as a place in which to ‘reappear’ – a process I suggest is transformative and therapeutic. To do this, I show how the landscape writing of Dorothy Wordsworth and her female contemporaries represents a feminine ‘material’ sublime ‘mode’ of engaging with landscape that enabled them to see afresh ‘everyday’ objects, people and experiences that were ordinarily overlooked or on the edges of mainstream social and cultural discourses.I explore the way in which the work of these women and their ‘mode’ of engagement are closely allied with my own practice and have informed a model I have developed for creating applied scenography in the form of walking-performances in mountainous and rural landscapes that emplace, re-image and transform ‘missing’, marginal and challenging life-events. Underpinning that model are seven ‘scenographic’ principles, which I demonstrate through an analysis of a number of walking-performance projects. The Gathering / Yr Helfa (2014), which revealed the fertility cycles of the ewes on a hill-farm in Wales, and two projects specific to The Lake District: Warnscale: A Land Mark Walk Reflecting On Infertility and Childlessness (2015-ongoing) aimed at women who are biologically childless-by-circumstance (2015); Dorothy’s Room and Women’s Walks to Remember: ‘With memory I was there.’ (2018), an installation and surrogate-walking project that maps walks women are no longer able to do physically but remember vividly.”
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Beattie-Smith — Dorothy Wordsworth: Tours of Scotland (2019)⁠

Beattie-Smith, Gillian. “Dorothy Wordsworth: Tours of Scotland, 1803 and 1822.” Northern Scotland 10.1 (May 2019): 20–40.

Abstract: “Dorothy Wordsworth’s name, writing, and identity as an author are frequently subsumed in the plural of ‘The Wordsworths’, in her relationship as the sister of the poet, William Wordsworth. But Dorothy was a Romantic author in her own right. She wrote poetry, narratives, and journals. Nine of her journals have been published. In 1803, and again in 1822, she toured Scotland and recorded her journeys in Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland and Journal of My Second Tour in Scotland. This article considers Dorothy’s two Scottish journals. It discusses them in the light of historical and literary contexts, and places of memorial.”