La ville dans la montagne, la montagne comme une ville : analogies architecturales et urbaines dans la représentation des Alpes chez les écrivains voyageurs aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles

Abstract

Abstract : The eighteenth and nineteenth century descriptions of high mountain landscapes are rich in metaphors and analogies with the world of architecture. What is the reason for such numerous and regular analogies ? What role do they play ? Even though their ornamental value cannot be excluded, it remains secondary. Are such analogies intended to familiarise readers with an unknown yet not too disconcerting reality, to lessen the shock of something which is new ? Did travellers during the periods of Enlightenment and romanticism, most of whom were urban dwellers, project onto this sublime and yet inhospitable environment the imaginary elements of an urban landscape which at that time was developing rapidly and becoming accepted in French literature ?