Tytler, Graeme. Physiognomy in the European Novel: Faces and Fortune. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1982.

In this book, Tytler provides historical background for physiognomy and profiles the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century foregrounds of the science. His main goal is "to suggest how far the nineteenth-century European novel ... may be regarded in some measure as an expression of that phase in the history of Western physiognomy which, beginning in the early 1770s and ending roughly in the 1880s, may be called essentially 'Lavaterian'" (xiv). Tytler examines the rise of physiognomy as a cultural product, and discusses its demise after the 1850s.

Seven chapters structure the book. After the introduction, Tytler dedicates one chapter to discussing the literary precursors to Lavater's Physiognomische Fragmente and then Lavater's work itself. The third chapter, "Physiognomy in Nineteenth-Century European Letters," explores how primary texts were assimilated into literary culture and the science community. Both the subsequent "Physiognomy before 1800" and "The Nineteenth-Century Novel" chapters offer insight into the 1790s, mentioning Matthew Gregory Lewis and William Godwin among others. The book's scope and focus frequently extends beyond England and the United States. A chapter on literary portraiture examines "individual physical features and characters, and ... ways in which the appearance is determined by psychological, social, and hereditary influences" (208), offering several reproduced illustrations. The final chapter focuses exclusively on novels post-1800.

Entered by Elisa on 04 August 2004 at 7:24 AM.