El viaje científico canario-americano (1799-1804) de Alexander von Humboldt. Diarios y relaciones epistolares y su recepción en la literatura en el siglo XXI

Resumo

My work tries to analyse the reception in literature of Alexander von Humboldt’s travel, which began in La Coruña and led him to the Spanish colonies, passing through the Canary Islands with a stay of only seven days in Tenerife, at the end of the XVIIIth century. As main point we have chosen the climbing of Teide by Humboldt on 21st and 22nd June 1799, focusing on the meaning of the volcano in the American travel of the universal scientist. The volcano and the volcanism scientifically investigated by Humboldt and lived, for the first time, in the shape of a physical challenge and of an experience of the sublime in Tenerife, contrasting with his later American travel which conveyed a feeling of longing and an experience of limitation, failure and error (Ette 2009), appear in the numerous literary works which deal with the humboldtian Weltbewusstsein.