Style and language in Alexander von Humboldt’s writings

Alexander von Humboldt wrote a huge number of pages in his long life and career: letters, papers, books constitute a large testimony of his contribution to geographical and natural sciences. The process of writing is not to be seen as superficial or anecdotic in his trajectory. On the contrary writing represents for him a major part of his scientific activity. With Ludwig Fleck and his idea of “collective thought”, we can argue that Humboldt considers writing as an act of translation, a way to assure the understanding of the world to a large public. He not only built a dialogue with other scientists, but also with a non-scientist public, considering that the world has to be understood by everyone. In that perspective, he built a writing program that echoed his scientific one. By using metaphors and depicting the landscapes as paintings, by using art as a medium in his writing, he therefore emphasized the style, not over the scientific message but in order to reinforce it. In that way, the work of Humboldt is as much a work of understanding the world as much as a work of translating it.