Not Much Has Been Written about the Mountains… On the Subject of Mountain Studies
The article discusses the research subject of mountain studies. The standpoints of two scholars, representative for Polish literary studies, are distinguished, that of Jacek Kolbuszewski’s and Tomasz Stępień’s. While Kolbuszewski argues that the term “mountain literature,” however popular, is imprecise and it is more justified to speak of a theme or a motif of mountains in literature, Stępień draws upon the developments in media studies and adopts a broader definition encompassing all literature somehow related to mountains. Both researchers are united in their conviction that mountaineering literature (the works written by climbers) is a separate phenomenon in literature.