Physiognomy in the European Novel

Physiognomy in Anne Brontë’s Fiction

“…Thus there seems to be something quite Lavaterian about the fact that, for example, Arthur Huntingdon's eyes are blue and Edward Weston's brown, given that Lavater finds strength of character in brown-eyed people rather than in blue-eyed ones. 7 Interesting, too, are Anne's numerous references to Arthur Huntingdon's unpleasant laughter, for they forcibly remind us of Lavater's injunction to note the quality and manner of someone's laugh as a useful means of estimating their character. 8 Another physiognomic idea resorted to by Anne is the family physiognomy, as may be seen in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, where family likenesses, especially those between children and adults, are notable for the dramatic or lyrical or ironic functions they aptly serve.…”

“…7 Interesting, too, are Anne's numerous references to Arthur Huntingdon's unpleasant laughter, for they forcibly remind us of Lavater's injunction to note the quality and manner of someone's laugh as a useful means of estimating their character. 8 Another physiognomic idea resorted to by Anne is the family physiognomy, as may be seen in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, where family likenesses, especially those between children and adults, are notable for the dramatic or lyrical or ironic functions they aptly serve. 9 And though Anne may have been just as readily prompted to this by, say, Sir Walter Scott's elaborate treatment of family resemblances in his fiction, she might also have been made aware of Lavater's claim to be practically the first physiognomist ever to have drawn special attention to that particular concept.…”

“…12 Certainly Anne's use of physiognomy seems to hark back to Scott both through her paragraph-length portraits and through her tendency to single out particular features for their physiognomic significance -the voice, the hand, the smile, the eyes, which last are sometimes depicted in considerable detail for their shape, expression, and colour, reminding us as they do of the importance that Lavater himself attaches to these features. 13 But interesting as such analogies or parallels may be, it is through her uses of physiognomy for characterization and plot, rather than through the manifestation of specific physiognomic influences, that Anne Brontë's novels are worth examining. Indeed, even though, say, in our reference to Anne's treatment of the family physiognomy we have made mention of Lavater, what is of primary aesthetic import for us is the way in which, through observations on, or disagreements over, family resemblances, the author manages not only to bring something of the physiognomic climate into her narrative, but to illustrate a significant aspect of the English novel after 1790: the prominence of physiognomic awareness in narrators and characters alike.…”

“…15 Worthy of mention, too, is the narrators' use of physiognomic terminology such as 'legible', 'decipher', 'lineaments', 'cast of countenance', and so on; even Gilbert Markham's reference to 'the frequent distortions of [Mrs Wilson's] wrinkled physiognomy' (TWH, p. 72) is a reminder that 'physiognomy' was, as seldom before, being used more and more as a synonym for 'face' in English fiction after 1800. 16 But although, in respect of their descriptions of the outward person, Anne Brontë's narrators may be deemed scarcely dissimilar from their counterparts in other nineteenth-century English fiction, there are, nevertheless, notable differences between her three narrators where their observational skills come into play in the author's treatment of love.…”

“…The fact that until the end of the eighteenth century many such figures are almost invariably also possessed of utterly virtuous qualities may be linked with Lavater's own concept of human beauty as being usually a sign of virtue. 22 And it is possibly out of deference to that concept that few, if any, of the more or less flawed heroines of nineteenth-century fiction have perfect beauty. Thus, for example, Agnes Grey observes that the fair Rosalie Murray's facial features are 'not quite regular' (AG, p. 61).…”