Read more
Unter den Millionen von Touristen, die auf der Suche nach Vergnügen, Abenteuer und Erholung alljährlich die Schweiz bereisen, gibt es wenige, die zwischen ihrem Tun und dem Dichter Haller einen Zusammenhang entdecken könnten. Doch ist es gerade sein Meistergedicht, das erstmals das allgemeine Interesse an den Alpen entfachte, das seither zu einer Lawine angeschwollen ist, die sich immer noch in Bewegung befindet. Er verstand es mit seinen beschwingten Strophen, das hohe Lied der Berge anzustimmen, zu einer Zeit, als sie noch als unnahbar und furchterregend galten.
About the author
The Swiss polymath Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777) was one of the central figures of the century of the Enlightenment. As a poet and scholar, physician and botanist, collector and encyclopaedist, university professor and experimental researcher, society president and correspondent, renowned author and influential reviewer, magistrate and orthodox Christian, he reflects many of the intellectual movements, events, and conditions of his time.
Although relatively small, Haller’s literary output was significant.
His poem “Die Alpen” (“The Alps”) contrasted the vigorous and pure natural and human environment of the Alps with effete urban civilisation and marked the advent of enthusiasm for mountains and the tourism linked with it.
Stanley Mason was born in the Canadian Rockies in 1917 but grew up in an English mining village. A scholarship took him to Oxford, and a teaching job to Switzerland, where he married and lived until his death in 1997. He worked for many years as a technical translator, then on the editorial staff of an art and design magazine. He has translated numerous books, from steam boiler manuals and glaciological yearbooks to works on Picasso, Constructivism and Yoga. Among others, he published a four-volume course on modern English structures and three books of poetry. The publications by Salzburg University include «A German Treasury», German poetry from 1100 to Rilke with English translations in four volumes, as well a his own collected poems.
Summary
Amongst the millions of tourists who roam the Alps from end to end each year in search of pleasure, health and adventure, few would be likely to consider him as a forerunner of such recreations. Yet it was in fact his master poem that first stirred people's interest in the Alps, fostering a movement that from small beginnings turned into an avalanche which has not yet come to a halt. He wrote his enthusiastic stanzas at a time when high mountains were considered to be harsh and fear-inspiring.
