Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession
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Overview
”In her wide-ranging cultural history of the term [’character’], Garber has unearthed fascinating material and is a convivial, stimulating critic.” —Michael Saler, The Times Literary Supplement
Since at least Aristotle’s time, philosophers, theologians, artists, and scientists have pondered the enigma of human character. Whether defined as a moral idea, a literary persona, or a scientifically observable type, character has become omnipresent in discussions of politics, ethics, gender, morality, and the psyche. In this “magisterial book," Marjorie Garber examines the evolution and influence of this pervasive concept.
Is there a connection between “character" in the moral sense and the “character" of a novel or a play? Can character be “formed" or taught in schools, in scouting, in the home? From Plutarch to John Stuart Mill, from Shakespeare to Darwin, from Theophrastus to Freud, from nineteenth-century phrenology to twenty-first-century brain scans, the search for the sources and components of human character still preoccupies us.
With her distinctive verve, humor, and erudition, Marjorie Garber explores the stakes of these conflations, confusions, and heritages, from ancient Greece to the present day.
- Title: Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession
- Author: Marjorie Garber
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 466
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9780374709372, 9780374120856, 0374120854, 0374709378
- Resource ID: LLS:9780374709372
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2026-01-20T06:02:49Z
Marjorie Garber is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English and of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including Shakespeare’s Ghost Writers and Shakespeare After All, as well as of books on cultural topics ranging from dogs and real estate to cross-dressing, bisexuality, the use and abuse of literature, and the place of the arts in academic life. A member of the American Philosophical Society, she was the recipient of a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship.