Viaggiatori sentimentali e scientifici nel Distretto dei Laghi: i diari di viaggio di Thomas Gray e William Wordsworth [Sentimental and scientific travelers in the Lake District: the travel diaries of Thomas Gray and William Wordsworth]

Abstract

The present article purports to locate Gray’s and Wordsworth’s journals in a transnational culture, which culminates with Humboldt, whose effort was to combine scientific and poetic language in the discovery of landscape. The two poets shared scientific interests, which they show not only in their lexical choice but also in the reproduction of their experience of the territory, based on the material circumstances of their apprehension of reality. Historical studies in the natural sciences enabled them to perceive phenomenons. Still, their pictorial sensibility and mastery of the language gave them the tools useful to communicate the uniqueness of the re-discovery of familiar paths, meadows and mountains.

Keywords

• thomas gray
• william wordsworth
• travel literature
• picturesque
• natural history
• humboldt