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E-book The Spectral Arctic : A History of dreams and ghosts in polar exploration

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Penilaian

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In popular myth Nansen is the archetypal Scandinavian polar explorer – a manly, no- nonsense hero with little time for the sentimentality or plodding amateurism of his British contemporaries.1 However, Nansen’s account of this expedition, Farthest North (1897), reveals someone with a deeply romantic outlook whose musings on the Arctic ‘dreamland’ have much in common with the thoughts and ruminations of other nineteenth- century polar explorers. Nansen’s was a book, moreover, that did not just appeal to other explorers, for it was massively popular too, selling some 40,000 copies shortly after its publication in English (Huntford, 1997, 442).Some years later in a busy household in Vienna, the psych-iatrist Sigmund Freud read the German translation of Farthest Northafter noting that his family were ‘hero- worshipping’ Nansen: ‘Martha [Freud’s wife] because the Scandinavians obviously fulfil a youthful ideal of hers, which she has not realized in life, and Mathilde [Freud’s daughter] because she is transferring her allegiance from the Greek heroes she has hitherto been so full of to the Vikings’. Freud was in the midst of writing The Interpretation of Dreams when he read Nansen, and had recently begun an intense period of self- analysis. It was in this context that he thought he could make use of the ‘practically trans-parent’ polar dreams that Nansen wrote down (qtd. in Lehmann, 1966, 388).Although they never met, Freud and Nansen shared more than an appreciation for dreams. Like Freud, Nansen was an early investigator in neuroanatomy and in his doctoral dissertation on the central ner-vous system – defended in 1888 – Nansen cited and challenged some of Freud’s ideas. While Nansen soon after launched a successful expedition to cross Greenland on skis, Freud was forced to shelve his neuroscientific research and earn a living as a specialist in private practice. As a psych-ologist he was fascinated by the motivations of polar explorers and was impressed by their heroic feats; but in the case of Nansen – a rival neuro-anatomist who became internationally famous only a few months after graduating – his feelings were notably ambivalent (Anthi, 2016).After reading Farthest North Freud described Nansen’s mental state as ‘typical of someone who is trying to do something new which makes calls on his confidence and probably discovers something new by a false route and finds that it is not so big as he expected’ (qtd. in Lehmann, 1966, 388). On a conscious level Freud identified with the polar explorer as a fellow pioneer and intellectual adventurer – someone whose theories about reaching the North Pole by drifting with the Arctic ice had been originally dismissed by incredulous scientific authorities in Britain.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

998 MCC t

Penerbit

USA : UCL Press., 2018

Deskripsi Fisik

278 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

978177352452

Klasifikasi

998

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

History of Arctic Islands and Antartica

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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