The Science of Character: Human Objecthood and the Ends of Victorian Realism

300 Pages·2022·3.82 MB·English

by  S. Pearl Brilmyer

The Science
of characTer
Thinking LiTeraTure
A series edited by Nan Z. Da and Anahid Nersessian
The Science
of Character
human objecThood and The
endS of VicTorian reaLiSm
S. Pearl Brilmyer
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2022 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except
in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For
more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427
East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2022
Printed in the United States of America
31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 1 2 3 4 5
iSbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 81577- 0 (cloth)
iSbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 81578- 7 (paper)
iSbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 81579- 4 (e- book)
doi: https:// doi .org /10 .7208 /chicago /9780226815794 .001 .0001
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Brilmyer, S. Pearl, author.
Title: The science of character : human objecthood and the ends of
Victorian realism / S. Pearl Brilmyer.
Other titles: Thinking literature.
Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2022. | Series:
Thinking literature | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: Lccn 2021034811 | iSbn 9780226815770 (cloth)
| iSbn 9780226815787 (paperback) | iSbn 9780226815794
(ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: English literature— 19th century— History
and criticism. | Characters and characteristics in literature. |
Personality development.
Classification: Lcc Pr461 .b73 2021 | ddc 823/.809— dc23
Lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021034811
♾ This paper meets the requirements of anSi/niSo Z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
So time passed on, changing all things greatly, or with infinitesimal
changes, according to their nature. . . . The very faces of the streets
were changing enlivened by plaster and paint and polish: the face
of the land with the certain advance of the season; the faces of
friends with something not to be named, but visible, strange, and,
for the most part, disheartening. It was the old story for ever and
ever; all things changed always; but the chime was immutable.
Sarah grand, “Proem,” The Heavenly Twins

Contents
LiST of figureS ix
inTroducTion  •  Ethology, or the Science of
Character 1
As Much an External Thing as a Tree or a Rock 14
A Power of Observation Informed by a Living Heart;
or, Involuntary, Palpitating 24
Inconsistency and Formlessness 33
chaPTer 1  •  Plasticity, Form, and the Physics of
Character in Eliot’s Middlemarch 42
Plastic Forms 45
Irregular Solids, Viscous Fluids 60
chaPTer 2  •  Sensing Character in Impressions of
Theophrastus Such 75
Theophrastus Who? 79
Descriptive Minutiae 85
To Sketch a Species 88
The Natural History of Human Life 93
After the Human 97
chaPTer 3  •  The Racialization of Surface in
Hardy’s Sketch of Temperament and Hereditary
Science 103
The Color of Heredity 110
On the Whiteness of the Ground 117
Accretions of Character 129
chaPTer 4  •  Schopenhauer and the
Determination of Women’s Character 144
An English Start 151
The Character of the Will 156
Impulsive Aesthetics 168
chaPTer 5  •  The Intimate Pulse of Reality;
or, Schreiner’s Ethological Realism 180
The Ethics of Nature 189
The Ethics of Description 201
The Ethics of Force 209
coda  •  Spontaneous Generations of Character
between Realism and Modernism 220
acknowLedgmenTS 245
bibLiograPhy 249
index 275
Figures
1 Jens Nikolaus, Five Regular Solids (2015) 64
2 James Clerk Maxwell, Dynamical Top (1890) 65
3 Francis Galton, Diagram of White, Black, and Hybrid Grey Forms
(1875) 126
4 Stan Celestian, Oolite (2018) 134
5 Grover Schrayer, Cross- section of Oolitic Limestone (2009) 135