A Model Jew: ““Literary Photographs”” and the Jewish Body in Daniel Deronda

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay examines the relationship between George Eliot's representation of the Jewish body in Daniel Deronda and Francis Galton's photographic race-science. It argues that, for both Eliot and Galton, Jewish racial identity is, paradoxically, defined by a corporeal evacuation and abstraction——that is, by a ghostly disembodiment. While Eliot's representation of Deronda has traditionally been read as a radical departure from the realism that Eliot was so instrumental in defining, in a sense, Daniel Deronda represents a thorough adaptation to photographic technology and scientic realism.