PRIMITIVE CRITICISM AND THE NOVEL: G. H. LEWES AND HIPPOLYTE TAINE ON DICKENS

• Published in: Victorian literature and culture 2018-03, Vol.46 (1), p.125-142
• Main Author: Logan, Peter Melville
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 18th century; 19th century; Anthropology; British & Irish literature; Criticism; Critics; Dickens, Charles (1812-1870); English literature; Face (Body); Fiction; Literary characters; Novels; Periodicals; Political economy; Popularity; Stereotypes
• ISSN: 1060-1503; 1470-1553
• DOI: 10.1017/S1060150317000353

In a controversial article on the life and fiction of Charles Dickens, George H. Lewes ponders the inexplicable preference of readers for the novelist's too-simplistic characters over the more complex characters of other writers. He finds an answer in the primitive reaction to fine art: “To a savage there is so little suggestion of a human face and form in a painted portrait that it is not even recognized as the representation of a man” (“Dickens” 150). The implication, it would seem, is that readers turn to Dickens because they are similarly incapable of appreciating more refined modes of art. Today the remark reads as gratuitous and insulting to readers, to Dickens, and to the other cultures Lewes stereotypes as savage. At the same time, the casual nature of the passage also suggests that it reflects commonly held beliefs about primitive life, beliefs we do not have but that Lewes and his readers took for granted. He was clearly safe in assuming such a body of common knowledge, for many other articles in the Fortnightly Review (in which Lewes's article appeared in 1872) had similar references to primitivism. Reading through the journal issues of the time, the extent to which anthropological concepts had escaped the covers of books on primitive society and taken up residence in the pages of review essays on contemporary issues – from history, to life in the colonies, to life in Britain itself – is striking. In its print context, the comment about savages and art is less isolated and inexplicable than it is representative of a broad turn to the topic of primitivism in social commentary and analysis during the 1870s.