As readers, we develop an impression of characters and their settings in a novel based on the author’s description of their physical characteristics and surroundings. This process, known as physiognomy, can be seen throughout history including in the English Realist novels of the 19th and 20th centuries. Vision and Character: Physiognomics and the English Realist Novel offers a study into the physiognomics and aesthetics as presented by some of the best known authors in this genre, like Virginia Woolf, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. In this highly original approach to the issues of representation, visuality and aesthetics in the nineteenth-century realist novel, and even the question of literary interpretation, Eike Kronshage argues that physiognomics has enabled writers to access their characters’ inner lives without interfering in an authoritative way.
| ISBN: | 9781138710252 |
| Publication date: | 17th November 2017 |
| Author: | Eike Kronshage |
| Publisher: | Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis Ltd |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 240 pages |
| Series: | Routledge Studies in Nineteenth Century Literature |
| Genres: |
Literature: history and criticism Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Literature: history and criticism The arts: general topics |