From foot-traveler to tourist: staging the Alps in 19th-century literature

The present article aims to illustrate the influence of the birth of modern tourism in the Alps on 19th-century literature. The massive presence of visitors in these mountain regions is now facilitated by the use of transports replacing traditional hiking, so that these sites, which were once a source of inspiration for the first explorers and their literary endeavors, become the ideal setting for meticulous sociological investigations. In this study, I will analyze works by Hugo, Ruskin, Labiche, and Daudet in order to outline two main attitudes towards this unprecedented social phenomenon : on the one hand, the sharp criticism of modernity; on the other, a parodistic turn accounting also for new modes of interaction with mountain landscape.