Romanticism on the Rocks
This chapter examines the influence of mountaineering’s demanding physical activities and challenging situations on Romantic-period literature, contesting later constructions of ‘Romanticism’ that see the period’s response as essentially imaginative and transcendent. It investigates the development of rock climbing from the 1790s to the 1820s, examining the activities and writings of a number of pioneer climbers. It then focuses on William Wordsworth’s and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s climbing writing, showing how the specific physical activities, environment, and emotions involved in climbing were productive of visionary states. It investigates Wordsworth’s presentation of the role of ‘fear’ in his mountain-based development in The Prelude. The chapter concludes with an examination of Coleridge’s mountaineering writings, exploring the relationship between mountaineering and writing, the poet’s attitude to risk, and his ambivalent construction of his mountaineering identity.