“Even in the most insignificant publication, there must be plan and order”: On natural history as a theme and genre in Danish-Norwegian parish topographies of the late eighteenth century (2021)
Mellemgaard, Signe (Author)
Endeavour: Review of the Progress of Science
Volume: 45
Issue: 3
Pages: 100776
Like the rest of Scandinavia, Denmark and Norway have a strong tradition of comprehensive topographical descriptions, often written by local clergymen. Physical-economic descriptions of small areas, most often parishes, emerging in the middle of the eighteenth century soon formed a model that remained strikingly uniform until around 1820, when the topographies changed once again. In the Dual Monarchy of Denmark and Norway, the years between 1760 and 1820 revealed a prolific topographic genre in which natural history and natural resources played important parts. Natural history was essential, being regarded as the condition for the composite peasant economy and offering the opportunity to reveal unknown sources of livelihood or intensify the use of those sources. Natural history was not only an aspect of the locality that should be dealt with in the description of the locality, but it became an entire scheme or method for the whole description, in which knowledge took up the form of inventories as did natural history itself. The topographical descriptions give hints as to the sort of observing, collecting, identifying, sorting, and ordering practices that lay behind the text. The concise and neutral form of these topographies did not give much room for the emotionality otherwise considered in the period as both a precondition for and an effect of dealings with natural history, and only rarely, in small gaps, did the sensual and aesthetic preferences of the authors come through, occasionally revealing their doubts but also their love of nature.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Mads Langballe Jensen;
(2020)
Libertas Philosophandi and Natural Law in Early Eighteenth-Century Denmark-Norway
(/isis/citation/CBB029014718/)
Article
Brenna, Brita;
(2012)
Natures, Contexts, and Natural History
(/isis/citation/CBB001250231/)
Article
Brenna, Brita;
(2011)
Clergymen Abiding in the Fields: The Making of the Naturalist Observer in Eighteenth-Century Norwegian Natural History
(/isis/citation/CBB001034612/)
Article
Overskaug, Kristian;
Steffensen, Morten;
(2014)
Communicating Science for 253 Years: The History of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters and Its Museum
(/isis/citation/CBB001421592/)
Article
Hilde Norrgrén;
(2019)
Hans Egede (1686–1758) and the Alchemical Tradition in Denmark-Norway
(/isis/citation/CBB293570302/)
Article
Whitmer, Kelly Joan;
(2013)
What's in a Name? Place, Peoples and Plants in the Danish-Halle Mission, c. 1710--1740
(/isis/citation/CBB001320282/)
Article
Baack, L. J.;
(2013)
A Naturalist of the Northern Enlightenment: Peter Forsskål after 250 Years
(/isis/citation/CBB001252590/)
Article
Alm, Torbjørn;
Elvevåg, Brita;
(2013)
Ergotism in Norway. Part 2: The Symptoms and Their Interpretation from the Eighteenth Century Onwards
(/isis/citation/CBB001320326/)
Book
Goldschmidt, Simone Ochsner;
(2012)
Wissensspuren. Generierung, Ordnung und Inszenierung von Wissen in Erik Pontoppidans Norges naturlige Historie 1752/53
(/isis/citation/CBB001211080/)
Book
Kragh, Helge;
(2005)
Natur, Nytte og Ånd, 1730--1850
(/isis/citation/CBB001031659/)
Article
Sundberg, Adam;
(2015)
Claiming the Past: History, Memory, and Innovation Following the Christmas Flood of 1717
(/isis/citation/CBB001422335/)
Book
Sörlin, Sverker;
(2013)
Science, Geopolitics and Culture in the Polar Region: Norden beyond Borders
(/isis/citation/CBB001421143/)
Article
Johansson, Magnus;
(1999)
Big Blue Gets Beaten
(/isis/citation/CBB000112053/)
Article
Olivier Bégin-Caouette;
(2020)
The Perceived Impact of Eight Systemic Factors on Scientific Capital Accumulation
(/isis/citation/CBB340797550/)
Article
Mirko Ancillotti;
Niklas Holmberg;
Mikael Lindfelt;
Stefan Eriksson;
(2015)
Uncritical and Unbalanced Coverage of Synthetic Biology in the Nordic Press
(/isis/citation/CBB013648247/)
Chapter
Myllyntaus, Timo;
(2003)
Discovering Switzerland: Internationalisation among Nordic Students of Technology prior to World War II
(/isis/citation/CBB000330998/)
Article
ROY W. MCINTYRE;
(2024)
Durham and Northumberland on the Topographic Maps William Smith Used as Manuscript Maps in the Field and on His Published Maps
(/isis/citation/CBB471164261/)
Article
May-Brith Ohman Nielsen;
(2020)
Syntheticising Scandinavia: The Introduction of Synthetic Pesticides to Scandinavian Gardens, 1945-1952
(/isis/citation/CBB221032786/)
Article
Asdal, Kristin;
Gradmann, Christoph;
(2014)
Introduction: Science, Technology, Medicine---and the State: The Science-State Nexus in Scandinavia, 1850--1980
(/isis/citation/CBB001420406/)
Article
Kerstin Enflo;
Eduard Alvarez-Palau;
Jordi Marti-Henneberg;
(2018)
Transportation and regional inequality: the impact of railways in the Nordic countries, 1860–1960
(/isis/citation/CBB051717769/)
Be the first to comment!