The Lure of the Sea: The Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World - Hardcover

Corbin, Alain; Phelps, Jocelyn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520066383 ISBN 13: 9780520066380

Publisher: University of California Press, 1994

Synopsis

Once seen as a dark and sinister force, the domain of monsters, the sea was associated with catastrophe and fear by many Europeans prior to the eighteenth century. Alain Corbin's engaging book reveals how attitudes toward the ocean gradually began to shift from the negative to the positive, so that by the mid-1800s our present-day salubrious notion of the seashore had come into being.

Going back to ancient times, Corbin describes conceptions of the sea in relationship to how people thought and felt about their place in the world. He then shows how the Enlightenment and changing attitudes in science, literature, and art affected notions of the sea. Ocean bathing came to be seen as therapeutic, the sea was linked with the creation of life, and the shore became a locale for self-exploration and reverie. Discovery of the seaside had political, economic, and social effects, too. The shore as a place of pleasure led to the rapid growth of British coastal towns such as Brighton, followed by other resorts in Europe. All of this Corbin lays out in wonderful detail, blending history, theory, and anecdote into an absorbing whole.

The Lure of the Sea suggests the fashioning of a modern sensibility in the West's discovery of the shoreone that is health-conscious and intent on regeneration through vigorous contact with nature. Written by one of today's most literate and imaginative historians, it offers an inviting cultural excursion for scholars and general readers alike.

About this title

Review:

"Broad–ranging, scholarly, always suggestive." The Observer

"Alain Corbin′s The Lure of the Sea is a compact and brilliant taxonomy of the shifting meanings of the sea and shore." New York Review of Books

"Stimulating and valuable for students of the history of resorts, the arts and the economic value of the sea as a source of fish and routeway." The Mariner′s Mirror

From the Back Cover:

The Lure of the Sea is a brilliant account of how the pleasures of the seaside were discovered in the western world, written by one of the most creative historians in Europe today. Well–illustrated and accessible, it charts the changes in the popular view of the shore and the rise of the coastal resort as a place of recreation and rest.

Corbin argues that with few exceptions people living before the eighteenth century knew nothing of the attractions of the coast, the visual delight of the sea, the desire to brave the force of the waves or to feel the coolness of sand against the skin. The image of the ocean in the popular consciousness was coloured by Biblical and mythical recollections of sea monsters, voracious whales and catastrophic floods.

Corbin shows how, with the Enlightenment, a profound change occurred in people′s attitudes towards the sea. During the most important period, between 1750 and 1840, the discovery of the seaside as a place of pleasure and relaxation led to the rapid growth of British coastal towns such as Brighton, followed by the other resorts in Europe, from Deauville to Marbella and the Greek Isles. With abundant references to the literature and visual arts of the period, Corbin describes the changing habits and fashions of visitors to these resorts, from the patients sent under doctors′ orders to bathe in ice–cold seawater, to the women bathers of the nineteenth century who avoided indiscreet gazes by entering the waves through specially designed wagons.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0520066383
• ISBN 13: 9780520066380
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 380