Inspiration and Spectacle: the case of Fingal's Cave in nineteenth-century art and literature
Fingal's Cave is one of at least twelve sea caves on the tiny Scottish island of Staffa. It is, without doubt, the most famous and was depicted in countless written and visual records of visits to the island in the nineteenth century. As Jennifer Davis Michael observes, perhaps no other British...
Published in: | Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment |
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Online Access: | http://isle.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/08/02/isle.isv052.full.pdf+html https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isv052 http://ecite.utas.edu.au/96560 |
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ftunivtasecite:oai:ecite.utas.edu.au:96560 2023-05-15T16:52:59+02:00 Inspiration and Spectacle: the case of Fingal's Cave in nineteenth-century art and literature Crane, R Fletcher, L 2015 application/pdf http://isle.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/08/02/isle.isv052.full.pdf+html https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isv052 http://ecite.utas.edu.au/96560 en eng Oxford University Press http://ecite.utas.edu.au/96560/3/96560 - Fingal's Cave Post-print.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/isle/isv052 Crane, R and Fletcher, L, Inspiration and Spectacle: the case of Fingal's Cave in nineteenth-century art and literature, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 22, (4) pp. 778-800. ISSN 1076-0962 (2015) [Refereed Article] http://ecite.utas.edu.au/96560 Language Communication and Culture Literary Studies British and Irish Literature Refereed Article PeerReviewed 2015 ftunivtasecite https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isv052 2019-12-13T21:58:48Z Fingal's Cave is one of at least twelve sea caves on the tiny Scottish island of Staffa. It is, without doubt, the most famous and was depicted in countless written and visual records of visits to the island in the nineteenth century. As Jennifer Davis Michael observes, perhaps no other British site in the [Romantic] period was rendered in so many different arts (2), and, as Marianne Sommer and others have shown, Fingal's Cave was a key site in the cave rave (Sommer 197) that began with the Romantics and lasted throughout the Victorian period. Staffa, known to Viking travelers as the isle of staves for its basalt columns (Dean 194), and the iconic Fingal's Cave were, the story goes, discovered by Sir Joseph Banks in 1772 and were first made known to the world when his journal of travel appeared in Thomas Pennant's 177476 multi-volume, A Tour in Scotland, and Voyage to the Hebrides, 1772 . Banks, who was on his way to or returning from an excursion to Iceland (twentieth and twenty-first-century histories are inconsistent on this point), stopped off at Staffa to visit the cave and wrote the firstand most influentialstudy of its geological features and the experience of looking upon them. Banks, in his detailed description of Fingal's Cave published within Pennant's book, pronounced it the most magnificent. that has ever been described by travellers (301). This publication, the story continues, made Staffa known to the outside world (Michael 2; see also Dean 194, Gordon 69, Shortland 56) and thus initiated a flurry of tourism to the island by some of the most eminent writers and artists of the Romantic period and beyond. Michael Shortland writes that Banks set in motion a tide of enthusiasm and research in caves which lasted for over half a century (6). Banks's account also encouraged the connection between Fingal's Cave and the poems of Ossian, son of Fingal, as Michael discusses in Ocean meets Ossian: Staffa as Romantic Symbol. The repetition and consistency of this narrative in studies of Fingal's Cave is remarkable both for what it reveals about the significance of this extraordinary site in British cultural history and because the narrative is, to a surprising degree, an illusory one. Article in Journal/Newspaper Iceland eCite UTAS (University of Tasmania) Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 22 4 778 800 |
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English |
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Language Communication and Culture Literary Studies British and Irish Literature |
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Language Communication and Culture Literary Studies British and Irish Literature Crane, R Fletcher, L Inspiration and Spectacle: the case of Fingal's Cave in nineteenth-century art and literature |
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Language Communication and Culture Literary Studies British and Irish Literature |
description |
Fingal's Cave is one of at least twelve sea caves on the tiny Scottish island of Staffa. It is, without doubt, the most famous and was depicted in countless written and visual records of visits to the island in the nineteenth century. As Jennifer Davis Michael observes, perhaps no other British site in the [Romantic] period was rendered in so many different arts (2), and, as Marianne Sommer and others have shown, Fingal's Cave was a key site in the cave rave (Sommer 197) that began with the Romantics and lasted throughout the Victorian period. Staffa, known to Viking travelers as the isle of staves for its basalt columns (Dean 194), and the iconic Fingal's Cave were, the story goes, discovered by Sir Joseph Banks in 1772 and were first made known to the world when his journal of travel appeared in Thomas Pennant's 177476 multi-volume, A Tour in Scotland, and Voyage to the Hebrides, 1772 . Banks, who was on his way to or returning from an excursion to Iceland (twentieth and twenty-first-century histories are inconsistent on this point), stopped off at Staffa to visit the cave and wrote the firstand most influentialstudy of its geological features and the experience of looking upon them. Banks, in his detailed description of Fingal's Cave published within Pennant's book, pronounced it the most magnificent. that has ever been described by travellers (301). This publication, the story continues, made Staffa known to the outside world (Michael 2; see also Dean 194, Gordon 69, Shortland 56) and thus initiated a flurry of tourism to the island by some of the most eminent writers and artists of the Romantic period and beyond. Michael Shortland writes that Banks set in motion a tide of enthusiasm and research in caves which lasted for over half a century (6). Banks's account also encouraged the connection between Fingal's Cave and the poems of Ossian, son of Fingal, as Michael discusses in Ocean meets Ossian: Staffa as Romantic Symbol. The repetition and consistency of this narrative in studies of Fingal's Cave is remarkable both for what it reveals about the significance of this extraordinary site in British cultural history and because the narrative is, to a surprising degree, an illusory one. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Crane, R Fletcher, L |
author_facet |
Crane, R Fletcher, L |
author_sort |
Crane, R |
title |
Inspiration and Spectacle: the case of Fingal's Cave in nineteenth-century art and literature |
title_short |
Inspiration and Spectacle: the case of Fingal's Cave in nineteenth-century art and literature |
title_full |
Inspiration and Spectacle: the case of Fingal's Cave in nineteenth-century art and literature |
title_fullStr |
Inspiration and Spectacle: the case of Fingal's Cave in nineteenth-century art and literature |
title_full_unstemmed |
Inspiration and Spectacle: the case of Fingal's Cave in nineteenth-century art and literature |
title_sort |
inspiration and spectacle: the case of fingal's cave in nineteenth-century art and literature |
publisher |
Oxford University Press |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://isle.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/08/02/isle.isv052.full.pdf+html https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isv052 http://ecite.utas.edu.au/96560 |
genre |
Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_relation |
http://ecite.utas.edu.au/96560/3/96560 - Fingal's Cave Post-print.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/isle/isv052 Crane, R and Fletcher, L, Inspiration and Spectacle: the case of Fingal's Cave in nineteenth-century art and literature, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 22, (4) pp. 778-800. ISSN 1076-0962 (2015) [Refereed Article] http://ecite.utas.edu.au/96560 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isv052 |
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Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment |
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22 |
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4 |
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778 |
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800 |
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