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Victorian Fetishism argues that fetishism was central to the development of cultural theory in the nineteenth century. From 1850 to 1900, when theories of social evolution reached their peak, European intellectuals identified all "primitive" cultures with "Primitive Fetishism," a psychological form of self-projection in which people believe everything in the external world—thunderstorms, trees, stones—is alive. Placing themselves at the opposite extreme of cultural evolution, the Victorians defined culture not by describing what culture was but by describing what it was not, and what it was not was fetishism. In analyses of major works by Matthew Arnold, George Eliot, and Edward B. Tylor, Peter Melville Logan demonstrates the paradoxical role of fetishism in Victorian cultural theory, namely, how Victorian writers projected their own assumptions about fetishism onto the realm of historical fact, thereby "fetishizing" fetishism. The book concludes by examining how fetishism became a sexual perversion as well as its place within current cultural theory.

English prose literature --- Culture --- Criticism --- Culture in literature. --- Fetishism in literature. --- Primitivism in literature. --- Cultural sociology --- Sociology of culture --- Civilization --- Popular culture --- History and criticism. --- Philosophy --- History --- Social aspects --- Arnold, Matthew, --- Eliot, George, --- Tylor, Edward B. --- Tylor, Edward Burnett, --- Tėĭlor, Ė., --- Taile, Aidehua, --- Tylor, E. B. --- Ṭaylor, E. --- Ṭaylor, Edṿard B., --- טיילאר, ע. --- Cross, Marian Evans, --- Evans, Marian, --- Eliot, Džordž, --- Ėliot, Dzhordzh, --- Cross, Mary Ann, --- Lewes, M. E. --- Lewes, Marian Evans, --- Elliŏtʻū, Choji, --- Eliyaṭ, Jārj, --- Evans, Mary Anne, --- אליוט, ג׳ַַורג׳ --- אליוט, ג׳ורג׳, --- עליאט, דזשארדזש --- עליאט, דזשארדזש, --- עליוט ג׳יארג׳, --- עליוט, גי׳ארג׳, --- עליוט, ג׳רארג׳, --- A., --- A. --- آرنولد، ماثيو، --- Criticism and interpretation. --- Great Britain --- Intellectual life