The Drama of Ascent

Abstract

This chapter delves deeper into Alexander von Humboldt's multilayered style. It traces Humboldt's language as it oscillates between superlatives and negation, amazement and protest, exaggeration and humility, detailed measurement, and silence. It also presents a multitude of representations of Humboldt's mountain climbs in his travel diary, letters, published travelogues, and pictorial atlases, which attest to a multifaceted, shifting, and often inconsistent discourse. The chapter looks into Humboldt's exploration of some of the highest mountains in the world, specifically the volcanoes of the Andean Cordillera, which was an integral and underpublicized aspect of Humboldt's trip to the Americas. It also mentions Humboldt's vision and anticipation for the era of reconnaissance climbing in the twentieth century, in which climbers acclimatized in gradual, graduated steps.