Shookman, Ellis. The Faces of Physiognomy: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Johann Caspar Lavater. Columbia (SC): Camden House, 1993.

As editor Shookman writes, the essays in this book "reexamine physiognomy in the aesthetic, cultural, literary and scientific contexts of Lavater's day as well as our own. Its significance is studied from an interdisciplinary point of view that combines the efforts of specialists in English, French, and German literature, as well as in art, art history, psychology, and the history of ideas" (ix). Helpful reproductions of eighteenth-century caricatures and Lavater's own illustrations appear throughout.

Shookman writes an introduction discussing Lavater's broad significance. Two subsequent chapters ennumerate Lavater's theories and include primary text excerpts and translations. Other chapters discuss, for example, Lavater's theology and the stereotypes and prejudice suggested by his illustrations. Perhaps most important to a study of 1790s literature, Graeme Tytler's essay "Lavater and the Nineteenth-Century English Novel" offers some discussion of Anne Radcliffe, William Godwin, and Matthew Lewis. The final essay is an interesting piece by Warja Lavater, Johann Caspar's relative.

Entered by Elisa on 03 August 2004 at 2:35 PM.