Character sketch

A character sketch is a rough-and-ready rendering or thumbnail portrayal—a "short essay or literary profile," as Dictionary.com puts it—of an individual, capturing, in brief, that person's physical characteristics, psychological attributes, and the like. The brief descriptions often capitalize on the more unusual or humorous aspects of the person’s character. Character sketches are usually identified by irony, humor, exaggeration, and satire. The term originates in portraiture, where the character sketch is a common academic exercise. The exercise itself is modeled after the work of an ancient Greek writer called Theophrastus. Theophrastus wrote thirty brief sketches that outline different types of people. These sketches were collected and published after his death under the name Characters in 1592. Many writers since have attempted to imitate Theophrastus’ style. As late as William Hogarth, portraitists were doing studies of (in his case) Nine heads. The artist performing a character sketch attempts to capture an expression or gesture that goes beyond coincident actions and gets to the essence of the individual.

The first English writer to delve into the form was Joseph Hall in his book Characters of Virtues and Vices which was published in 1608. However, the character sketch didn’t become popular amongst the literate public until the late seventeenth century. The public appreciated sketches for their humor and readable style. As Pat Rogers notes, Henry Fielding, in book I, chapter 14 of Joseph Andrews, invokes William Hogarth to create a character sketch of Mrs. Tow-wouse: "Indeed, if Mrs. Tow-wouse had given no Utterance to the Sweetness of her Temper, Nature had taken such Pains in her Countenance, that Hogarth himself never gave more Expression to a Picture." Thomas Overbury, John Earle, Richard Steele, and Joseph Addison also wrote notable character sketches. Addison and Steele’s sketches appeared in a periodical that was issued twice a week under the name “The Spectator Papers.” They created several personas such as Roger de Coverly, Mr. Spectator, and Captain Sentry who represented different classes in English society. From the point of view of these personas, Addison and Steele wrote sketches that addressed important events in the social and political atmospheres. In America, Walt Whitman published a series of remarkable character sketches in 1856. Whitman’s sketches involved mostly physical descriptions, however, like Addison and Steele, his sketches were written with a purpose. Rather than make social or political commentary, Whitman used the opportunity to provide sketches that publicly praised his friends and ridiculed his enemies.

In later literature, a character sketch became a short story or narrative presented without significant action or plot, as the purpose of the writing is solely to present a character at his or her typical. Character sketches of this sort are also frequently found in journalism and regionalist humor (e.g., sketches of "Big John" or "the country rube" or "the wise Squire"). Each of these attempts to delineate a model of a type (a category of person) rather than a realistic person.

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