Physiognomy In The European Novel: Faces And Fortunes
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: Worn but not faded - jacket still in good condition. Page Condition: Good. Markings: No markings visible. Binding: Intact, no loose pages noted.
A landmark work in literary criticism, Physiognomy in the European Novel: Faces and Fortunes argues that the pseudo-science of physiognomy — the practice of reading character from facial features — played a profound and largely underexplored role in shaping European fiction from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. Graeme Tytler systematically examines how novelists across England, France, and Germany drew upon physiognomic theory to construct character, drive narrative, and communicate moral meaning to their readers. Drawing on a rich corpus of primary texts, the study details the influence of Johann Caspar Lavater's widely read physiognomic treatises and traces their absorption into the literary imagination of authors including Balzac, Dickens, and Goethe. Written with scholarly rigour and critical precision, this work presents an authoritative account of how the face became one of the most powerful semiotic tools in the European novelistic tradition.
Author: Graeme Tytler
Format: Hardback
Published: 1982, Princeton University Press
Genre: Literary theory
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: Worn but not faded - jacket still in good condition. Page Condition: Good. Markings: No markings visible. Binding: Intact, no loose pages noted.
A landmark work in literary criticism, Physiognomy in the European Novel: Faces and Fortunes argues that the pseudo-science of physiognomy — the practice of reading character from facial features — played a profound and largely underexplored role in shaping European fiction from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. Graeme Tytler systematically examines how novelists across England, France, and Germany drew upon physiognomic theory to construct character, drive narrative, and communicate moral meaning to their readers. Drawing on a rich corpus of primary texts, the study details the influence of Johann Caspar Lavater's widely read physiognomic treatises and traces their absorption into the literary imagination of authors including Balzac, Dickens, and Goethe. Written with scholarly rigour and critical precision, this work presents an authoritative account of how the face became one of the most powerful semiotic tools in the European novelistic tradition.