Volume 15, Number 3 · August 13, 1970
Lichtenberg: Body Language & A Dream
By Matthew Hodgart
Hogarth on High Life: The Marriage à la Mode Series from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg's Commentaries
translated and edited by Arthur S. Wensinger, by W.B. Coley
Wesleyan, 208, 18 plates and marginal details pp., $35.00
Aphorisms and Letters
by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, translated and edited by Franz Mautner, by Henry Hatfield
Grossman, 124 pp., $1.50 (paper)
'Chief employment of my life, to observe people's faces,' Lichtenberg wrote in his diary in 1771. In fact, his chief occupation was teaching physics at Göttingen; he was also an astronomer of distinction (one of the craters of the moon is named after him), a mathematician, a philosopher, a brilliant letter writer, and the finest aphorist of his century. But the observation of expression and gesture was his lifelong interest, and to this he brought his scientific training and literary insight with great success. He was the first to show a theoretical mastery of the subject, even though he never wrote up his ideas systematically; distrusting systems, he put his observations into his aphorisms, into the classic description of Garrick's acting, and above all into his readings of Hogarth's engravings.
Review, 2242 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |