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1. Biographical Backgrounds
- University of Virginia Press
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1 Biographical Backgrounds Alexander von Humboldt Alexander von Humboldt was born on September 14, 1769, in a small palace in the town of Tegel, near Berlin. He spent his childhood with his older brother,Wilhelm,¹ with whom he maintained a close relationship throughout his life.² The two boys were raised in an aristocratic family.Their father,Alexander Georg von Humboldt, was chamberlain to the Prussian king and an important figure at court. Their mother, Marie Elisabeth von Humboldt (née Colomb), was a wealthy woman who had decisive impact on the young Alexander . The Humboldts engaged as their sons’ tutor a well-known writer and linguist, Joachim Heinrich Campe, who strongly influenced the intellectual development of the Humboldt brothers, as did another teacher, Gottlob Johann Christian Kunth (1757–1829), who encouraged them to study languages. Campe and Kunth contributed substantially to the brothers’ success in the cultural circles of the time.The salons of the Jewish community in enlightened Berlin , particularly that of Marcus Herz and his wife, Henriette, were privileged cultural and social enclaves that also played an important role in Alexander’s education. Humboldt was a child of the German Enlightenment, which had its inception in the 1780s in reaction to Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason) and lasted until the death of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in 1831.³ Alexander’s formal education brought him in direct contact with Enlightenment ideals, first in his native city and then during his studies at the universities of Frankfurt and Göttingen. He continued his studies for one year at the Academy of Commerce in Hamburg and after that at the AcadRebok , final pages.indd 5 Rebok, final pages.indd 5 2/27/14 10:56 AM 2/27/14 10:56 AM 6 humboldt and jefferson emy of Mining in Freiberg, Saxony, where he was taught by the eminent geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner. In 1792, Humboldt was appointed to the position of assessor in the mining department. Shortly afterward he was promoted to the post of superior mining officer in the Franconian principalities. These appointments marked the beginning of Humboldt’s serious study of mineralogy and natural history. Previously he had traveled through the Netherlands, England, and France with the famous naturalist Georg Forster, who, with his father, Reinhold, had accompanied Captain James Cook on his second expedition around the world. Humboldt dedicated several years to mining, but during this period he also published an encyclopedia of Freiberg flora,⁴ as well as several monographs on physics and chemistry,some of which were published in French and British journals. Humboldt came of age in an era of great explorations, such as the voyages undertaken by Louis Antoine de Bougainville, JeanFran çois de La Pérouse, James Bruce, Carsten Niebuhr, and Alejandro Malaspina and José de Bustamante; or those carried out by James Cook. The descriptions of their adventures had fascinated Humboldt from his early youth and formed his image of the tropical realm idealized by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He devoured the works of Haller, Macpherson, and Goethe that imagined the return of human beings to their original state, far from civilization. Humboldt learned much about what were to him exotic worlds through the works of the French writer and botanist Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre—whose novel Paul et Virginie he read repeatedly—as well as those of his preceptor Campe, author of Robinson, der Jüngere (1779) and Die Entdeckung Amerikas (1781–82), which made a particularly strong impression on him. Although the books did not provide him with much concrete information on obscure and distant territories, they awoke in him a fierce desire to experience these faraway and alluring lands himself. From his early youth he longed to undertake a real scientific expedition. Another significant influence upon the young Humboldt was the Prussian pharmacist and plant taxonomist Carl Ludwig Willdenow , who became the most important botanist in Berlin. In 1798, he was made professor for natural history at the Collegium medicochirurgicum , and three years later he was appointed botanist at the Academy of Sciences. From 1801 until his death he directed the Rebok, final pages.indd 6 Rebok, final pages.indd 6 2/27/14 10:56 AM 2/27/14 10:56 AM [3.139.236.178] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 19:10 GMT) biographical backgrounds 7 Botanical Garden, and after the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III created the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin...