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Paper short abstract

The talk explores an elemental poetics of the calm at sea by focusing in particular on the entanglement of humans, animals, and the elemental dimensions of a sea voyage. To this end, I will close-read travelogues written by German-speaking naturalists Adelbert von Chamisso and Georg Forster.

Paper long abstract

At the beginning of the 19th century, author and naturalist Adelbert von Chamisso made a groundbreaking discovery: He was the first to describe the alternation of generations in the animal kingdom, a special model of reproduction. During a circumnavigation (1815–1818), the actual goal of which was the discovery of the Northwest Passage, the wind ceased, and the sailing ship came to a standstill. For the first time, Chamisso turned his gaze not to the horizon as usual, but downwards. There, at the bow of the resting ship, he discovered salps, tiny marine creatures, and also learned about their unusual reproductive habits. Apparently, the lack of wind and the therefore mirror-like water surface were the reasons why these small animals became visible to the naturalist in the first place. Similar to Chamisso, who published this encounter in his travelogue "Reise um die Welt" (1836), the German naturalist Georg Forster experienced a comparable situation, which can be read about in his travelogue, which he also entitled "Reise um die Welt" (eng. "A Voyage round the World"; 1777).

While there are already cultural-historical works on wind (cf. Cartier 2014; Decker 2023; Horn 2024), calm as a borderline experience at sea has not yet been examined in detail. The talk engages with the question of an elemental poetics of the calm by focusing in particular on the entanglement of humans, animals, and the elemental dimensions of a sea voyage.