From an idyll to a bloodbath. Historicisation of the literary depiction ofthe Alps in the 18th and 19th century

History plays an increasingly important role in the literary depiction of t he Alps in the 18th century. The historical perspective replaces physico-th eologically and socio-politically motivated descriptive patterns (which had made the elevation of place to idyll possible in the first place.) In the process it integrates, with differing accentuations, aesthetic, scientific and historical-philosophical interpretative patterns. It finally prevails a t least in the early realistic depictions of the Alps in the first half of the 19th century. The following article sketches this process of historicis ation using examples from the works of Haller, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, F ouque and Immermann.