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From Art to Marketing
The Relevance of
Authenticity to
Contemporary
Consumer Culture
Marta Massi
From Art to Marketing
Marta Massi
From Art
to Marketing
The Relevance of Authenticity to Contemporary
Consumer Culture
Marta Massi
Athabasca University
Athabasca, Canada
ISBN 978-3-030-17007-3 ISBN 978-3-030-17008-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17008-0
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Contents
1 Authenticity: A Polemical Concept 1

1.1 Introduction 2
1.2 What Is Authenticity? 3
1.3 Etymologies of “Authenticity” 4
1.4 The Historical Development of the Concept
of Authenticity 6
1.5 Authenticity Now 9
1.6 Conclusions 11
References 11
2 The Concept of Authenticity in the Broader Literature 15
2.1 Introduction 15
2.2 Art and Authenticity 16
2.3 The Concept of Authenticity in Philosophy 20
2.3.1 Authenticity in Greek Philosophy 21
2.3.2 Authenticity in the Modern Philosophy 23
2.3.3 The Concept of Authenticity in Existentialist
Philosophy 26
2.4 Authenticity in Sociology 29
2.4.1 The Institutional Theory Perspective 32
2.5 Authenticity in Psychology 33
2.6 Conclusions 34
References 36
v
vi CONTENTS
3 Authenticity in Marketing: Reality or Oxymoron? 41

3.1 Introduction 41
3.2 Conceptualizations of Authenticity in the Marketing
and Tourism Literature 43
3.2.1 Authenticity as an Intrinsic Attribute
of Objects: The Modernist/Objectivist Perspective 44
3.2.2 Authenticity as a Subjective Perception:
The Constructivist, Postmodernist,
and Existentialist Perspectives 47
3.2.3 Negotiated Approaches to Authenticity 50
3.3 Conceptualizations of Authenticity in the Marketing
Literature 52
3.4 Definitions of Authenticity in the Marketing Literature 53
3.5 Classifications of Authenticity 60
3.6 Conclusions 64
References 66
4 Building Authenticity: The Managerial Perspective 73
4.1 Introduction 73
4.2 Authenticity in Branding 75
4.3 Authenticity in Advertising 77
4.4 Authenticity in Public Relations and Communication
Studies 79
4.5 Authenticity in Tourism 81
4.6 The Manager Perspective: A Qualitative Study 82
4.7 Methodology 83
4.8 Results 83
4.8.1 Aura 83
4.8.2 Back to the Origins (Arcadia) 84
4.8.3 Antinomy 85
4.8.4 Allegory 86
4.9 Managerial Implications 87
4.10 Conclusions 88
References 90
5 Authenticity: Is It Really What Consumers Want? 95
5.1 Introduction 95
5.2 Authenticity in Consumer Culture 96
5.3 Consumer Perceptions of Authenticity in Adventures 103
5.4 Authenticity in Communication 104
CONTENTS vii
5.5 Consumer Perceptions of Authenticity in Tourism 105

5.6 The Measurement of Consumer Perceived Authenticity 106
5.7 How Do Consumers Define Authenticity? A Study
on Consumers 109
5.8 Conclusion 112
References 113
6 The Study of Authenticity: Implications and Future
Research 119
6.1 Introduction 120
6.2 Conceptual Gaps in Marketing Literature
on Authenticity 120
6.2.1 Issue #1: Prevalence of a Modernist
Conceptualization of Authenticity 121
6.2.2 Issue #2: Absence of a Generalizable
Definition of Authenticity 122
6.2.3 Issue #3: Predominance of a Taxonomic
Approach to the Concept of Authenticity 124
6.2.4 Issue #4: Partial Inclusion of the Dimensions
of Authenticity Identified in the Broader
Literature 125
6.2.5 Issue #5: Marketing Research Does
not Address the Active and Co-Creative Role
of the Consumer in Constructing Authenticity 129
6.2.6 Issue #6: Marketing Research Adopted
an Institutional Perspective on Authenticity 131
6.2.7 Issue #7: Marketing Research Does not Address
the Experiential Nature of Authenticity 132
6.3 Methodological Issues 133
6.3.1 Issue #1: Research Methodologies to Study
Authenticity Are Mainly Modernist 133
6.3.2 Issue #2: Authenticity is Studied in Very
Specific Contexts of Analysis 134
6.3.3 Issues #3: Lack of an Operational Definition
of Authenticity 135
6.3.4 Issue #4: The Study of Relationships Among
Factors of Authenticity is Scant 136
6.3.5 Issue #5: Soundness of the Measures 138
viii CONTENTS
6.4 Recommendations for Future Research 139

6.5 Conclusions 140
References 142
Index 149
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Etymologies of “authenticity” 7

Table 1.2 Conceptualizations of authenticity in different historical
phases 9
Table 2.1 Etymologies of authenticity and related dimensions 35
Table 2.2 Characteristics of modernist, constructivist,
and postmodernist approaches 36
Table 3.1 Dichotomous classifications of authenticity 62
Table 3.2 Classification of authenticity 64
Table 4.1 Dimensions of authenticity for an index or scale
of authenticity 80
Table 5.1 Authentic brands 110
Table 5.2 Inauthentic brands 111
ix
CHAPTER 1
Authenticity: A Polemical Concept
Abstract “Authenticity” is a polysemous and implicitly polemical

concept that most often comes into play when it is put in question, such as
when the authenticity of an artwork must be established. In fact, authen-
ticity has been described as an exclusionist notion and a contrastive term
apophatically defined by what it is not, not by what it is. This chapter
aims to clarify the concept by looking at the roots of the term “authen-
ticity” and investigating its origin. A review of the literature reveals four
main meanings of the term “authenticity”, i.e., “true to oneself”, Author-
ship/Originality, “to have mastery of”, “to have full power over”; “made
by one’s own hands”, craft; “posit oneself or, set oneself as a thesis”. The
chapter also traces the evolution of the notion of authenticity from the
premodern to the postmodern era.
Keywords Authenticity · Truth to oneself · Originality · Legitimacy ·

Craft · Separation
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
M. Massi, From Art to Marketing,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17008-0_1
2 M. MASSI
1.1 Introduction
The notion of authenticity is one of the most debated across different
disciplines and fields and has been the subject of myriad conceptualiza-
tions in the broader literature to the point that “there are as many defi-
nitions of authenticity as there are those who write about it” (Erickson,
1995: 123). Some scholars have emphasized the inherent paradoxes of
the notion (Straub, 2012) and have criticized the concept of authenticity
as being a hoax (Potter, 2010). Authenticity has been described as an
exclusionist notion and “a contrastive term” (Potter, 2010: 6), apophati-
cally defined by what it is not, not by what it is, and incapable of picking
out the “real properties in the world” (Potter, 2010: 14).
In fact, the notion of authenticity, as developed in other disciplines, is
only partially employed or considered in the work of marketing scholars,
who have often neglected insights contributed from other fields (Granville
Starr, 2011). There is therefore a need to go back to the broader literature
on authenticity in disciplines outside of marketing to examine how the
notion was originally conceptualized and developed in order to gain a
better understanding of the complexity of the concept (Rose & Wood,
2005).
Authors have often stressed the difficulty of defining such a multi-
dimensional concept in an unequivocal way. Trilling (1972: 11), for
instance, observed that “the word authenticity comes so readily to the
tongue these days and in so many connections that it may very well resist
such efforts of definition”. For Jacobson (2007: 295) “the definition must
be sufficiently open to embrace the fact that the term is infused with
meaning by every living person in his or her unique way”. Golomb (1995:
12) took a more pessimistic stance on authenticity, stating that it “defines
itself as lacking any definition”.
Dutton (2003: 258) was likely correct to argue that “‘authentic’ like
its near-relations, ‘real’, ‘genuine’, and ‘true’ is what J. L. Austin called
a ‘dimension word’, a term whose meaning remains uncertain until we
know what dimension of its referent is being talked about”. Owing to
the controversial nature of its etymology, the word “authenticity” has
experienced both terminological and conceptual confusion over the years.
An article recently published in Harvard Business Review defines
authenticity as a paradoxical concept with reference to leadership. In fact,
“a too-rigid definition of authenticity can get in the way of effective
leadership” (Ibarra, 2015: 4).
1 AUTHENTICITY: A POLEMICAL CONCEPT 3
This chapter will review some of the various etymologies of the term
“authenticity” to trace its historical and cultural evolution. Such a study is
particularly important because it will allow us to recognize what meanings
and dimensions of the concept have been preferred in the common use
of the language and in different disciplines. In particular, the chapter will
examine how the concept of authenticity has been conceptualized in the
arts, philosophy, sociology, and psychology, since these disciplines provide
interesting insights that could be developed and employed in the field of
marketing.
1.2 What Is Authenticity?

To gain a preliminary idea of the terminological redundancy, it is prac-
tical to examine how most popular English dictionaries define the term.
Such a review reveals that the term has accumulated a mare magnum of
meanings over centuries. The Oxford English Dictionary (1997: 45), for
instance, defines the noun “authenticity” as (1) “Being authoritative or
duly authorized”; (2) “Being what it professes in origin or authorship, as
being genuine”; (3)“Being real, actual”; (4) “Being entitled to acceptance
or belief, accordance with fact, or as stating fact, reliable, trustworthy, of
established credit”. Although these expressions have overlapping mean-
ings, they have been employed heterogeneously in very different contexts
and disciplines.
In addition, publications on authenticity have expanded the meaning
of the term. For instance, Boyle (2003) included terms such as ethical,
natural, honest, simple, unspun, sustainable, beautiful, rooted, and
human. Similarly, Potter (2008) pointed out that “authenticity these days
appears to have something to do with ideas like organic and natural
and artisanal and local”. The rationale behind such a clutter of mean-
ings is that the word “authenticity” has more than one etymon, resulting
in different interpretations of the term. Thus, scholars have emphasized
different aspects or nuances of the term in each instance.
The etymology of a term is not only the research of the true and
genuine (or authentic) meaning of a word/expression (i.e., the eτυμoς
= étymos) but also a tool of cultural and historical research (Crevatin,
2002). To trace the evolution of the term and to understand its applica-
tions to the marketing field, it is necessary to go back to the origins of
the word and outline what aspects of the authenticity concept have been
emphasized or neglected over the years and how the focus on different
4 M. MASSI
etymons has affected the development of definitions of authenticity in

various fields. It is certainly paradoxical that the “authentic” etymology
of the word “authenticity” is still neither clear nor well-defined.
However, it is important to keep in mind that authenticity is an opposi-
tional notion (Trilling, 1972) because, as Dutton (2003: 259) observed,
“whenever the term ‘authentic’ is used in aesthetics, a good first ques-
tion to ask is, Authentic as opposed to what?” Consequently, authenticity
is often defined apophatically (or via negativa) by stating what it is not
rather than what it is. Going back to the “authentic” meaning of “authen-
ticity” is not only a linguistic meta-exercise or a pun but also an obligated
choice to understand the essence of such a critical concept that has gained
increasing attention in popular culture.
1.3 Etymologies of “Authenticity”

A review of the literature reveals four main etymons of the term “authen-
ticity”. Based on the first etymology, “authenticity” derives from the
Greek adjective αÙθεντικóς (authentikòs), which is made up of autos (self)
and entos (inside). Thus, the first meaning of authenticity is “truth to
oneself”, broadly speaking (Trilling, 1972). “Authentic” therefore means
“our true self, our individual existence, not as we might present it to
others, but as it ‘really is’, apart from any roles we play” (Handler, 1986:
3).
This etymology is rooted in ancient Greek philosophy, particularly in
the maxim “Know thyself” (γνîθι σεαυτóν), the famous inscription in
the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, which is also credited
to Socrates (469 BC–399 BC). The tenet of “Know thyself” represents
a topos or leitmotif in philosophy and literature. For instance, in Shake-
speare’s (1997) Hamlet (Act 1, scene 3, 78–82), the character of Polonius
pronounces the famous maxim “To thine own self be true” as a piece of
advice to his son Laertes.
In practice, authenticity as “truth to oneself” is based on a criterion
of “identity or correspondence (content)” (Lindholm, 2008: 2). This
meaning also reveals a link to the issue of the ambiguity of human nature,
a subject that many authors and writers have dealt with in the literature
(e.g., Dostoevsky, 1985 [1865]; Pirandello, 1926; Shakespeare, 1997;
Stevenson, 1886) and that has been very emphatically summarized by the
French poet Rimbaud (1871) with his famous statement “Je est un autre”
(“I is someone else”). Moreover, the etymology of authenticity as “truth
to oneself” has favored the development of authenticity as a subjective or

personal characteristic.
Based on the second etymology of the term, “authenticity” derives
from the Greek verb αÙθεντεω (authenteo), meaning “having mastery
of” or “to have full power over” (Trilling, 1972). The corresponding
noun αÙθεντία (authentia) means authority (auctoritas in Latin), while
αÙϑšντης (from autos = self + hentes = doer, being) stands for author,
i.e., one acting on one’s own authority or having authority on him/herself
(Trilling, 1972). In this sense, authenticity refers both to authority
as authorship and originality (i.e., authentic is something that has the
authority of its original creator), and to legitimacy, i.e., something is
authentic because it has been “duly authorized, certified, or legally valid”
(Bruner, 1994: 400).
This etymology, however, remains controversial and debatable. An
example of such an uncertainty is represented by the considerable debate
that scholars have had over the last twenty years on the meaning of the
verb αÙθεντεω in Saint Paul’s first epistle to Timothy in the New Testa-
ment. The verb αÙθεντεω appears in its infinitive form (αÙθεντε‹ν) only
once within the New Testament and is therefore regarded as a hápax legó-
menon. The extract, in which the verb appears, is particularly meaningful
because it refers to the role of women in the Church. In the first epistle,
Saint Paul stated “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority
over (=αÙθεντε‹ν) a man. She must remain quiet”. The Greek verb has
been translated as “exercise authority” in most English Bible translations;
however, there is no agreement on the meaning of the word, which has
had a problematic lexical history. Perriman (1993: 137) concluded that:
It is ‘authorship’, not ‘authority’, that is at the heart of the meaning of

αÙθεντšω. This distinction is crucial. The idea of authority comes into play
only when the object of the verb is not an action or state of affairs but
a person: one cannot ‘author’ a person, but one can exercise an ad hoc
authority over a person in such a way that he or she becomes instrumental
in bringing about an action or state of affairs.
This etymology also evokes some of the violent meanings associated with
authenticity. As Trilling (1972: 131) explained, αÙθεντεω also means “to
commit a murder”, and αÙϑšντης stands for a “perpetrator, a murderer,
even a self-murderer, a suicide”. According to Bendix (1997: 14), “such
etymological layers need not reverberate fully in the present usage of the
6 M. MASSI
term, although the violence caused in the name of, say, ethnic or reli-
gious authenticity are painful present-day realizations of such old Greek
meanings”.
The third etymology of “authentic” is handcraft (from autos =
himself and éntea = arms), which means “made by one’s own hands”,
thus linking authenticity to the dimension of originality. The fourth
etymology of authenticity links authenticity to “thesis”. According to
Ferrara (1997), “authentikós” derives from the conjunction between
“eautón” and “theto”, which in turn has the same root as “thesis”. In
this sense, authenticity means to “posit themselves” or “to set them-
selves as a thesis” (Ferrara, 1997: 81). As the author explained, positing
oneself is “the capacity to express that uniqueness which has been socially
constituted through the singularity of the formative contexts but which
no formative social context as such can enjoin us to express” (Ferrara,
1997: 81). Thus Ferrara (1997: 84) conceived authenticity as a kind of
synecdoche that brings together “the universal with the particular aspects
of an identity”. This etymology brings about two further dimensions of
the concept of authenticity, i.e., uniqueness and difference.
The complexity of the etymology of authenticity has led to multiple
uses of the term in different fields, resulting in ambiguous meanings
(Golomb, 1995). In general, the “truth to oneself” dimension has been
stressed in existentialist philosophy and psychology, which study how
individuals relate to their self and to their ability to behave authentically.
Authority as originality and legitimacy, instead, has been mainly
stressed in fields such as the arts, where the authenticity of objects is
assessed as compliance with reference standards. Table 1.1 illustrates the
meanings that can be traced back to different etymons of authenticity.
1.4 The Historical Development

of the Concept of Authenticity
Authenticity has been defined as a historically and culturally embedded
concept because “any attempt to trace the concept’s meaning across time
constantly encounters problems of definition” (Erickson, 1995: 123).
Thus, a chronological approach would be appropriate to trace back
the different uses of the concept. In particular, three main historical
stages can be identified: the Ancient era (Premodernity), Modernity, and
Postmodernity.
Table 1.1 Etymologies of “authenticity”
Etymologies of authenticity Meanings Criteria
αÙθεντικóς (authenticós) True to oneself Identity or correspondence

(content)
αÙθεντεω (authentèo) Authorship/Originality Genealogical historical
(origin)
To have mastery of, to have Power/legitimacy
full power over
αÙτóς (autós) Made by one’s own hands, Genealogical historical
+ craft (origin)
éntea (arms)
εαυτóν (eautón) and Posit oneself or, set oneself Separation
“theto” as a thesis
Authenticity is considered a Western cultural concept (Handler, 1986)

that emerged as a subjective notion in Ancient Greece. The Greek
philosophical ideal of being true to oneself can indeed be related to
authenticity. In particular, the Socratic Method leads to authenticity of
the self through the art of maieutic. As a midwife (μα‹α = maia), Socrates
helped his disciples give birth to their authentic selves. In the ancient
world, philosophers believed that the real or authentic self of an indi-
vidual was his or her soul. For instance, Saint Augustine (354–430 A.D.)
posited: “Do not look outside yourself but turn, rather, inside yourself.
In the inner man dwells truth” (De Vera Religione, 39, 72). Thus, the
notion of authenticity, as developed by the Ancient World philosophers,
can be conceptualized as “truth to oneself”.
The modern meaning of authenticity emerged with the shift from
the medieval to the modern world (Trilling, 1972). In the Middle
Ages, individuals did not experience tension with regard to their social
roles (Baumeister, 1987; Kellner, 1992) because there was no separa-
tion between the private self and the public self. Starting from 1650,
with the advent of modernity and the diffusion of empiricism as the
main epistemological paradigm, the congruency between the individu-
al’s outer position and the individual’s inner or true self became critical.
Whether or not the individual was living authentically became an issue
for the first time (Handler, 1986). At the same time, individuals began
to think that their real selves could be hidden from other individuals, and
not correspond necessarily to the role they played in society. The works of
8 M. MASSI
Shakespeare and Machiavelli show this incongruence between the private

and the public identity of individuals (Kellner, 1992).
The development of capitalism, the disintegration of feudalism, and
the resulting loss of the importance of Christianity put into crisis the
value that dominated the premodern era, i.e., sincerity. In fact, authen-
ticity came into play “to suggest the deficiencies of sincerity and to
usurp its place in our esteem” (Trilling, 1972: 12). The etymology
of “sincerity” (from Latin sine cera = without wax, thus not adulter-
ated/sophisticated) suggests that the word originally referred to objects
(Trilling, 1972). Alternatively, with respect to individuals, sincerity refers
to the correspondence between “the public appearance of the person and
the inner self that is presumed to be hidden behind or underneath that
appearance” (Baumeister, 1987: 165). “Sincere”, in this sense, is synony-
mous with “genuine”, “true”, and “honest” (Golomb, 1995). Although
Erickson (1995) warned of confusing sincerity with authenticity, sincerity
(or genuineness) is usually considered as a dimension of authenticity.
Unlike sincerity, authenticity is a self-referential (Erickson, 1995;
Trilling, 1972) and inward-looking notion (Jones, 2010). In fact, if
sincerity corresponds to being true to others, authenticity corresponds
to being true to oneself and therefore represents:
A more strenuous moral experience than “sincerity” does, a more exigent

conception of the self and of what being true to it consists in, a wider
reference to the universe and man’s place in it, and a less acceptant and
genial view of the social circumstances of life. (Trilling, 1972: 12)
During the Enlightenment era, the notion of authenticity was linked to

objective thinking (Taylor, 1991). Enlightenment thinkers emphasized
rationality and logic and as a consequence, authenticity was interpreted
as an objective quality of things based on the Cartesian dualism between
object and subject (res extensa vs. res cogitans).
With the advent of nineteenth-century Romanticism, the modern
conception of the self was characterized by an emphasis on self-reflexivity
and on “the self being positioned as the Archimedean point of exis-
tence” (Rae, 2010: 25). This shift in the conception of the self led
to increased importance attributed to feelings and emotions in human
affairs. A romantic notion of authenticity was therefore introduced,
emphasizing the virtues of creativity, genius, intuition, imagination, and
feelings. Romantic poets and later existentialist philosophers (Heidegger
Table 1.2 Conceptualizations of authenticity in different historical phases
Historical phases Concept of authenticity Dimensions of

authenticity
Premodern Era Philosophical ideal of being Truth to oneself or

true to oneself Self-reflexivity
Middle Ages Medieval connection between Authority (legitimacy)
authenticity and authority
Modernity/Enlightenment Authenticity as an objective Authority (originality)
characteristic of objects
Romanticism/Existentialism Romantic notions of artistic Self-reflexivity as
originality and creativity Creativity
Postmodernity Authenticity is a myth in a /
world where it is impossible
to distinguish between the
originals and copies
and Sartre, for example) rejected the “unnatural and alienated perceived
modern social order” characterized by the urban, industrial environment
and mass production (Aupers et al., 2010: 4). Rousseau (1712–1778)
anticipated this stance in his glorification of the noble savage who is in
touch with his natural instincts.
A final conceptualization of authenticity comes out of postmodernism.
One of the consequences of the advent of the postmodern era is the
crisis of universally established grand metanarratives (Lyotard, 1984).
In the postmodern context, there is no one single universal reality or
worldview, but many different Weltanschauung, which are all legitimate
and acceptable. As a result of such “incredulity toward metanarratives”
(Lyotard, 1984: XXIV), there is a shift from one objectively and univer-
sally established episteme to multiple subjective stories or myths. As a
result, postmodern thinkers (Featherstone, 1991; Firat & Schultz, 1997;
Kellner, 1992) contend that authenticity does not exist anymore since it
is impossible to distinguish between the original and its multiple copies
(Lyotard, 1984). Table 1.2 summarizes the different conceptualizations
of authenticity throughout various historical phases.
1.5 Authenticity Now

The history of authenticity shows how the concept has evolved from
a desired state of being (true to oneself) to something unattainable (a
postmodern myth). The notion of authenticity has taken on increasing
10 M. MASSI
importance in contemporary society where the technological and digital

revolutions have gradually corroded the sacred aura of originals or proto-
types (Benjamin, 2008 [1936]), providing copies with new legitimacy. In
fact, the need for authenticity is currently emerging as a growing concern
for individuals.
A clear sign of this phenomenon is the shift of the concept of authen-
ticity from the realm of high culture (such as the fine arts or philosophy)
to that of contemporary popular or low culture.
Popular culture is full of references to the human need for authen-
ticity. Novels abound with characters dealing with the issue of authen-
ticity and the authentic self, such as Flaubert’s (1965 [1857]) Madame
Bovary or Stevenson’s (1886) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Film directors
such as Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) have dealt extensively with the
topic of authenticity, analyzing and contrasting between the authentic
and the inauthentic in movies such as Persona (1966) or Fanny and
Alexander (1982). In 1998, the Academy award-winning film The
Truman Show brought to the audience’s attention the theme of authentic
life. Conversely, reality television shows can be paradoxically read as a need
for more authenticity in the broadcasting industry (Rose & Wood, 2005).
Contemporary social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and
Tumblr have been increasingly used as a means to gather authentic narra-
tives around identity since they allow for a more authentic disclosure of
individuals’ perceptions and feelings (Henderson & Bowley, 2010). Even
advertising campaigns are based on the “rhetoric of real” (Duffy, 2013).
Launching the “Real Beauty” campaign developed by Ogilvy &
Mather in 2004, Dove has been one of the first brands to jump on the
authenticity bandwagon. By promoting an authentic, therefore imper-
fect, female body based on the payoff “Everybody is beautiful”, Dove
has fulfilled consumer need for authenticity.
Consumers are more and more interested in authentic, uncon-
taminated, and real consumption experiences, products, and services.
Increasing consumer interest in organic and non-adulterated foods, the
success of ecotourism and sustainable consumption practices, growing
consumer enthusiasm surrounding “retro brands” such as the Volk-
swagen New Beetle (Brown et al., 2003) and increasing preference for
“high touch” over “high tech” experiences and practices (Naisbitt, 1982)
provide but a few examples of such a tendency.
At present, individuals long for authenticity as they increasingly

struggle at distinguishing the real from the fake. Authenticity has become
the “word of the decade” (Byron, 2016).
1.6 Conclusions
The need for authenticity has not always been present. Its emergence is
in fact a “quintessentially a modern problem” (Gecas, 1994: 139). As
Feuerbach (1990 [1843]: xi) noted in the nineteenth century, the value
of authenticity has been appreciated with the advent of the modern age,
“which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original,
fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence” since “in these days illusion
only is sacred, truth profane”.
This chapter has described the evolution of the concept of authenticity:
from the philosophical ideal of being true to oneself in the premodern era
to the myth in the postmodern era where it is impossible to distinguish
between the originals and the copies. The evolution of the concept follows
the lines of an increasing popularization of authenticity that has emerged
as a topic in marketing and consumer culture.
References
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CHAPTER 2
The Concept of Authenticity in the Broader

Literature
Abstract This chapter reviews the broader literature on authenticity and

includes a discussion of the non-business areas which have more direct
relevance to the marketing issues, namely arts, philosophy, sociology,
and psychology. The first usage of the word “authenticity” is in the arts
context, specifically in the museum where experts in test whether artworks
are what they appear to be or are claimed to be. The chapter outlines
two main perspectives on authenticity, i.e., modernist and constructivist
approaches. On the one hand, modernist (or essentialist) approaches are
rooted in positivism and assume that there exists only one version of
authenticity. On the other hand, constructivist approaches are based on
relativist ontology and assume that authenticity is socially constructed.
Keywords Museum authenticity · Constructivism · Modernism ·

Existentialism
2.1 Introduction
This chapter reviews the broader literature on authenticity and includes a
discussion of the non-business areas which have more direct relevance to
the marketing issues, namely arts, philosophy, sociology, and psychology.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 15

Switzerland AG 2023
M. Massi, From Art to Marketing,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17008-0_2
16 M. MASSI
In particular, the chapter will point out how the first usage of the
word authenticity is in the arts context, specifically in the museum “where
persons expert in such matters test whether objects of art are what they
appear to be or are claimed to be, and therefore worth the price that is
asked for them or, if this has already been paid, worth the admiration they
are being given” (Trilling, 1972: 93).
The chapter will outline two main perspectives on authenticity, namely
modernist and constructivist approaches. On the one hand, modernist
(or essentialist) approaches are rooted in positivism and are based on
the assumption that there exists only one universal truth that is achieved
through scientific measurement (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). On the other
hand, constructivist approaches are based on relativist ontology and
assume that reality is socially negotiated (Berger & Luckmann, 1967).
Based on these premises, the chapter will review the broader literature
on the concept of “authenticity” to identify some of the main themes
and dimensions of the concept and to garner a greater comprehension of
why and how varying approaches to and understandings of the concept
are relevant to the marketing field. This chapter will set the stage for the
following chapters, which focus on authenticity in marketing and related
subfields.
2.2 Art and Authenticity

The concept of authenticity has referred both to objects and to subjects.
While the development of authenticity as a subjective notion dates back
to ancient Greek philosophy, the authenticity of objects pertains to the art
world, particularly to fine arts and to the museum as a context. According
to Trilling (1972: 93), the first usage of the word authenticity is in the
museum,
Where persons expert in such matters test whether objects of art are what
they appear to be or are claimed to be, and therefore worth the price that
is asked for them or, if this has already been paid, worth the admiration
they are being given.
In the context of art and heritage, two main perspectives on authen-

ticity have emerged, namely modernist and constructivist approaches.
Modernist (or essentialist) approaches are rooted in positivism and are
based on the assumption that there exists only one universal truth that
2 THE CONCEPT OF AUTHENTICITY IN THE BROADER … 17
is achieved through scientific measurement (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). On

the other hand, constructivist approaches are based on relativist ontology
and assume that reality is socially negotiated (Berger & Luckmann, 1967).
Modernist perspectives stress the dimension of originality. In this
sense, only original objects, as opposed to copies, are considered authentic
(Benjamin, 1936; Dutton, 2003). Under the modernist perspective, the
authenticity of an artwork depends upon and “requires a connection
to the artist, not necessarily the objective elements of the work itself”
(Moulard et al., 2014: 578).
No genuine reproduction can be considered authentic (Bruner, 1994)
because its origin (i.e., the unmediated contact with the author) cannot
clearly be traced. In addition, what makes an artwork authentic is its
“aura”, i.e., “a strange tissue of space and time; the unique apparition
of a distance, however near it may be” (Benjamin, 2008: 23/orig. 1936).
Thus, the aura provides objects with uniqueness, a characteristic lost in
the age of mechanical reproduction where infinite copies can be extracted
from an original prototype (Benjamin, 1936). The aura is the hic et nunc
(here and now) of an object, that is “its unique existence in a partic-
ular place”, which is missing “in even the most perfect reproduction”
(Benjamin, 2008: 21/orig. 1936). Similarly, Trilling (1972: 11) stated
the “here and now” rather than “some shadowy there and then” is a
dimension of authenticity, and Golomb (1995) argued that the authentic
self focuses on the present and “being-in-the-world”.
In addition, the aura of an object also carries a sacred value. As
Benjamin (2008: 24/orig. 1936) observed, “the unique value of the
authentic work of art always has its basis in ritual”. Before the Renais-
sance, art was always ritual or religious and then became increasingly
secular. Thus, Benjamin (1936) identified uniqueness as the main crit-
ical dimension of authenticity. Uniqueness, in turn, implies five semantic
areas or sub-dimensions, namely, Sacredness/Rituality, Exclusivity, Non-
Standardized Production, Exceptionality/Rarity, Scarcity and Hic et
Nunc. Indeed, an authentic object that is also unique is arguably exclu-
sive and not mass-produced. Being handcrafted, authentic objects are
also scarce and rare as opposed to commodified and mass-produced. In
addition to being unique, original objects are also perceived as “made
for eternity” (Benjamin, 2008: 27/orig. 1936). Longevity is therefore
another sub-dimension of authenticity. This also reflects the antinomy
between the world of ideas made for eternity and the ephemeral world
of copies as described by Plato (Nehamas, 1999).
18 M. MASSI
Thus, modernist approaches to authenticity develop the dimensions

of originality (i.e., the unmediated relationship to the origin/source)
and uniqueness (the presence of the aura). They apply objective criteria
to distinguish between authentic and inauthentic objects. In this sense,
the separation (difference) dimension of authenticity is also addressed.
Authenticity deals with “the recognition of difference” (Fine, 2003: 155)
and has a differentiating function because authentic objects possess an
aura that inauthentic objects cannot afford (Benjamin, 1936).
The modernist perspective on authenticity is represented by the decla-
ration of UNESCO’s 1972 World Heritage Convention, which estab-
lished a “test of authenticity” that monuments and sites must pass in
order to be included on the World Heritage List. Authenticity was defined
based on four parameters: design, material, workmanship, and setting.
By contrast, constructivist approaches consider authenticity as a cultural
construct, regardless of the originality and uniqueness dimensions. A
reproduction can still be considered authentic (Bruner, 1994).
The Nara Document on Authenticity (1994), a 13-point docu-
ment prepared by international experts meeting in Nara, Japan, took a
constructive stance on authenticity, emphasizing that authenticity cannot
be assessed based on objective criteria. In particular, Article 11 of the
Nara Document stated:
All judgements about values attributed to heritage as well as the credibility

of related information sources may differ from culture to culture, and even
within the same culture. It is thus not possible to base judgements of
value and authenticity on fixed criteria. On the contrary, the respect due
to all cultures requires that cultural heritage must be considered and judged
within the cultural contexts to which it belongs.
Thus, the Nara Document shifted the focus from material parameters to
assess the authenticity of an object/site to the “conditions of authen-
ticity”, establishing a more relativist definition of authenticity based on
criteria such as “traditions, techniques, language and other forms of intan-
gible heritage, as well as spirit and feeling or other issues” (par. 82).
By pointing out the historical and cultural contingency of the concept
of authenticity (Jokilehto, 1995; Lowenthal, 1995), the Nara Document
marked a turning point in the conceptualization of authenticity in the art
field.
The modernist concept of authenticity is the foundation of indexical

authenticity (Grayson & Martinec, 2004) based on which an artwork is
deemed authentic only if its provenance can be proved. Indexical authen-
ticity is crucial in the art market as the price of an artwork depends on it.
There are plenty of examples of artworks that have been devaluated as a
consequence of the assessment of their inauthenticity. Recently, a major
Amedeo Modigliani exhibition at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, Italy, was
halted by the authorities three days before its planned closing because 21
out of the 30 works in the exhibit were forgeries.
Indexical authenticity is fundamental in the art market as prices are
determined based on it. An artwork which is proved to be a fake by
experts has no economic value just as the Rothko fake sold in New York
in 2004 for $8.3 million (Raymond, 2016).
Constructivist approaches to authenticity also conceptualize authen-
ticity as an emergent or in fieri notion (Cohen, 1988). In this sense,
authenticity is not a synonym for fixity, but rather for vitality, fluidity,
and dynamism. In fact, an original object can change and lose elements
of its aura over time and still be considered authentic, such as restored
artwork. In addition, constructivist approaches introduce a new dimen-
sion of authenticity, i.e., conformity. An object can be deemed authentic
if it conforms to or matches specific norms. Bruner (1994) identified
two types of conformity, i.e., historical verisimilitude and genuineness.
An authentic reproduction is authentic not because it is an original, but
because it resembles the original and is historically verisimilar (Taylor &
Johnson, 1993).
Alternatively, a genuine reproduction does not merely resemble the
original but is “a complete and immaculate simulation, one that is histor-
ically accurate” (Bruner, 1994: 400). Being based on congruence, i.e.,
“the essence of sincerity” (Golomb, 1995: 5), genuineness corresponds
to sincerity. As a result, objects are considered authentic not only when
they are original and unique but also when they are genuine or verisimilar
reproductions that conform to standards and are therefore legitimized. A
corollary of the dimension of conformity is the referentiality. In order to
conform or be legitimate, an object can incorporate myths or ceremonies
(Meyer & Rowan, 1977) including historical, place, and time referents,
or stories, metaphors, allegories, etc.
In this sense, an artwork is deemed authentic when it “conforms to
traditional forms” as in the case of African art (Cornet, 1975: 55) or of
20 M. MASSI
the Chartres Cathedral, which is an “authentic instance of Gothic style

architecture” (Baugh, 1988: 477).
The two perspectives on authenticity (modernist and constructivist)
are exemplified by Dutton’s (2003) taxonomy, i.e., nominal vs. expres-
sive authenticity. The former addresses the positivist need for objective
criteria to assess authenticity and is defined as “the correct identifica-
tion of the origins, authorship, or provenance of an object, ensuring,
as the term implies, that an object of aesthetic experience is properly
named” (Dutton, 2003: 259). By contrast, the latter addresses subjectivist
perspectives and relates to “an object’s character as a true expression of
an individual’s or a society’s values and beliefs” (Dutton, 2003: 259).
Recently, the concept of artist authenticity has emerged, i.e., defined
as “the perception that the artist is intrinsically motivated, in that s/he is
passionate about and committed to her/his craft, as opposed to being
extrinsically motivated, where interest in art would be commercially
driven (e.g., ‘sellout’ to industry or ‘consumer’ [Moulard et al., 2014:
577]). The issue of artist authenticity is more than ever timely owing to
the success of artists being accused of using marketing and branding over
their arts orientation.
Artist authenticity occurs when an artist is “perceived as true to one’s
artistic self” (Dutton, 2003; Moulard et al., 2014: 578) and as not driven
by economic interests. In this sense, artist authenticity is similar to brand
authenticity as consumers perceive brands to be authentic when they are
disinterested (Holt, 2002). In a research conducted by Moulard et al.
(2014), artist authenticity proved to have a crucial role in influencing
attitudes toward the artist, which in turn affects consumers’ evaluation of
the artist’s work and behavioral intentions.
2.3 The Concept of Authenticity in Philosophy

The notion of authenticity is also central to philosophy, which has been
the first discipline historically to explore the concept. Ancient Greek
philosophers, Enlightenment authors, existentialists, and contemporary
philosophers have dealt extensively with the concept of authenticity,
conceptualizing it mainly as a subjective characteristic rather than a char-
acteristic of objects. Authenticity has emerged as a “protean concept
in philosophy”. This section reviews the main philosophical conceptu-
alizations of authenticity with digressions in other fields, e.g., poetry, to
outline some common dimensions/themes of the term.
2.3.1 Authenticity in Greek Philosophy

The first references to the concept of authenticity appear in Socrates
(469 BC–399 BC) as per Plato (428 BC–348 BC). Even though the
Platonic dialogues paradoxically do not explicitly develop an argument
per se for authenticity, they “successfully and comprehensively communi-
cate authenticity as a foundational theme” (Torrey, 2007: 24). Socrates’
maxims “the unexamined life is not worth living” and “‘Know thyself’
summarize the tenets of the Socratic method aimed at maieutically
persuading his disciples” authentic selves to emerge through self-inquiry
(Brickhouse & Smith, 2000).
In this sense, Socrates acted like “a midwife of authenticity” (Torrey,
2007: 18), who, as opposed to Sophists who usually tried to inculcate
theories or doctrines, did not intend to teach others his knowledge but
rather to push them to pursue self-knowledge through self-inquiry. Not
coincidentally, “authentic” is also the antonym of “sophisticated” (from
Sophists adulterated, altered, artificial), since Sophist oratory is known as
refined and artificial. Authenticity for Socrates was therefore a process of
both “questioning social discourse and gaining self-awareness” to achieve
an authentic mode of being (Torrey, 2007: 19).
Socrates’ notion of authenticity was characterized by some critical
dimensions of the concept, namely difference, balance, and unmediated
relation. First, Socrates conceived of authenticity as difference (from Latin
differre = to separate) as a way of separating authentic and true knowl-
edge (i.e., episteme) from common beliefs or opinion (i.e., doxa), the
world of Ideas from the inauthentic world of the copies. Many concep-
tualizations of authenticity have stressed the dimension of difference for
authenticity, i.e., it is being separated from and not conforming to social
and cultural rules or not responding to the individual’s authentic self
(Golomb, 1995; Kernis & Goldman, 2006; Taylor, 1991; Trilling, 1972).
The authentic way of being corresponds often, as in the case of Socrates
(who was sentenced to death for his opinions) with being different by
“contesting power through opposition” (Torrey, 2007: 21). Authenticity
therefore reveals itself as “implicitly a polemical concept” because it fulfills
its nature “by dealing aggressively with received and habitual opinion”
(Trilling, 1972: 94). Similarly, Golomb (1995: 5) observed that, “the
birth of authenticity is rooted in revolution”.
Artists and poets also emphasized the dimension of difference in the
second half of the 1800s to mean the separation or decoupling from the
22 M. MASSI
inauthenticity of reality characterized by industrialization and scientific

progress. Intellectuals perceived the negative aspects of the materialistic
society and expressed their feelings of alienation and oppression. For
instance, the theme of travel, which appears frequently in the poetry of the
French Symbolists (e.g., Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul
Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud), represented the desire to escape from a hostile
and unbearable reality to find refuge in a world of freedom and authen-
ticity. Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) often used the topos of travel to
describe the escape from the corrupt and inauthentic industrial society
(dominated by the “Spleen”) to authentic exotic seas and forests.
In Albatros, Baudelaire (1857) compared the poet to the bird that is
derided by humans on the Earth and would like to fly away to reach
a more authentic dimension, but he is “exiled on earth amid a jeering
crowd” and “prisoned and palsied by his giant wings”. Just like the
artwork, the poet has lost his aura, his religious function. In the Perte
d’Auréole (Loss of a halo), Baudelaire (1869) described a dialogue with
a friend who is surprised to see him in a Parisian slum. The poet says he
can attend those places as a mortal because he lost the aura that marked
its sacredness:
Just a little while ago, as I was crossing the boulevard very hastily and
jumping about in the mud, through that moving chaos in which death
comes galloping toward you from all sides at once, I moved abruptly and
my halo slipped from my head into the mire on the pavement. (emphases
added)
Thus, the search for authenticity is associated by nineteenth-century

artists and intellectuals with the will to escape from and fight the inau-
thentic reality and a response to their “fallen condition, [their] anxiety
over the credibility of existence and of individual existences” (Trilling,
1972: 93).
Balance is a second dimension of the Socratic concept of authen-
ticity. The idea that balance is an ideal to achieve by human beings is
a topos in Ancient philosophy and literature. For instance, in the Nico-
machean Ethics, Aristotle (384 BC–322 BC) stated that “balance is the
best thing” (“μšσoν τε καὶ ¥ριστoν”). In the Satires, Horace (65 BC–
8 BC) argued that “there is balance in things” (“est modus in rebus”).
Similarly, Socrates suggested that the art of measurement “would make
the appearances lose their power by showing us the truth, would give us
peace of mind firmly rooted in the truth and would save our life” (Plato
785, 356). As Torrey (2007: 21) explained:
The art of measurement, the balancing of the large and immediate desires
with the small and distant reasons, leads the individual toward an authentic
mode of being. The power of appearance, on the other hand, leads the
individual to a position within a significant set of power relations in which
her authenticity is constrained.
Plato equated authenticity with a balance between the higher and the
lower parts of the self. i.e., reason and sensible appetites. In the Phae-
drus, Plato described the “Chariot Allegory” in which a chariot is pulled
by two horses, one white and one black. The former represents the part
of the soul dominated by spiritual feelings (thymòs), which is directed
toward the Hyperuranium, while the latter represents the concupiscible
part of the soul (epithymetikòn) oriented toward the sensible world. The
charioteer, who represents the reason (lògos), must be able to ride the
horses in the same direction (the Hyperuranium), holding off the black
and urging the white one.
Similarly, Freud (1923) described authenticity as a balance between
the id, the ego, and the superego. In addition, existentialist philoso-
phers (e.g., Heidegger) described the authentic personality as a coherent,
congruent, and harmonious whole. They emphasized how the term “indi-
vidual” derives from individuum, meaning not separable and “which
rejects any symptom of dividuum within one’s authentic self” (Golomb,
1995: 5).
Third, Socrates conceptualized authenticity as unmediated relation. In
the Republic, for instance, Plato described the most human experience
as inauthentic because it is mediated. The medium is like the cave in his
“Allegory of the Cave” where imprisoned men get to know reality only
through the mediation of shadows projected in the cave and are therefore
brought to believe that the shadows are real. Plato believed that some
experiences can be unmediated and therefore real, and one can arrive at
them through philosophy.
2.3.2 Authenticity in the Modern Philosophy

In the modern era, one of the first philosophers to deal with the notion of
authenticity was Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), who is regarded as
24 M. MASSI
“the inventor of authenticity in both its personal and collective guises”

(Lindholm, 2008: 8). In agreement with ancient Greek philosophers,
Rousseau believed that authenticity stems from the natural self and that
“what destroys our authenticity is society” (Trilling, 1972: 93). The
search for authenticity in modern society is interpreted by Rousseau as
a desire to return to a primordial state of innocence. The myth of the
savage, who preserves his/her instincts and feelings from the artificiality
of modern life, embodies the authentic experience.
Such a conceptualization of authenticity emphasizes a number of
semantic areas of the concept. Authenticity as naturalness and purity
(Postrel, 2003) can be considered as a sub-dimension of originality.
In this sense, only original objects are perceived as uncontaminated,
unspoiled, untouched, spontaneous, and sinless. Authenticity is linked to
naturalness and is not metaphysical or hyperreal (Eco, 1986). The natu-
ralness dimension, for instance, was propagandistically and instrumentally
emphasized by regimes such as German Nazism and Italian fascism to
exalt the authenticity and attachment to traditional customs of the rural
world.
Cultural references of authenticity as naturalness include the topos of
aurea aetas (Golden Age), a mythical time of primordial peace, harmony,
stability, prosperity, and abundance described by ancient Latin and Greek
poets, the Old Testament, Renaissance, and Neoplatonic philosophers and
German romantic poets (e.g., Hölderlin). For instance, in the Works and
Days, Hesiod (700 BC) described the Golden Age as the first mythical
age when:
[Men] lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil
and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never
failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all devils. When
they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had
all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly
and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace. (Works and Days, lines
109 and following).
Thus, the desire for authenticity originates from the regret for the lost
paradise and nostalgia for the Utopia of the Golden Age, a legendary
and ahistorical era when men lived authentically in a mythical child-
hood of humanity characterized by eternal time. In particular, nostalgia,
whose etymology (from nostos = coming back and algos = pain, Online
Etymology Dictionary 2018) expresses the feeling of pain or regret for

the distance from people, places, or events placed in the past, which is
related to authenticity. Indeed, nostalgia can only be truly provoked by
authentic objects that belong to an individual’s past (Belk, 1990).
The Golden Age has also been referred to as Arcadia (Sannazaro,
1502). An earthly paradise and an idyllic lost paradise of perfect harmony
and uncontaminated Nature (locus amoenus ), Arcadia has been a subject
both in the visual arts and in classical literature. The Golden Age or
Arcadia is the locus of vitality and fluidity because nothing has yet stabi-
lized, no laws have yet been promulgated, no forms or identities are fixed
and time is cyclical. The dimension of vitality as a characteristic of subjec-
tive authenticity is also common to other philosophers, such as Pirandello
(1926) and philosophers affiliated with the Lebenphilosophie or philosophy
of life (e.g., Henri Bergson and Friedrich Nietzsche).
To return to this age of humanity corresponds with finding sacred unity
with Nature and the Cosmos, which is to become children again. In the
IV Egloga, Virgil (70 BC–19 BC) described the advent of the Golden
Age with the birth of a child (puer). The metaphor of the child refers to
the simplicity, innocence, and purity of the authentic human being and
is a topos itself that many poets have used to describe the stage of life at
which individuals are not yet incurred in Heideggardian “being toward
death” (Heidegger, 1927). The first reference to the child as a symbol of
purity is in Plato’s Phaedo where Cebes of Thebes, thinking of the death
of Socrates, who was about to drink the hemlock, begins to cry. Repri-
manded by Socrates, Cebes apologizes, saying that it is the child within
him and that he is not crying. A reference to the purity of children also
appears in the Gospel of Mark (10: 14), when Jesus invites his disciples
to let the children come to him (“Sinite parvulos venire ad me”) because
only those who are pure and innocent like a child are allowed to enter
the kingdom of heaven.
Moreover, for Nietzsche (1883: 139) individuals achieve authenticity
when “the spirit becomes a camel; and the camel, a lion; and the lion,
finally, a child”. To achieve authenticity, individuals have to be free from
all external conditionings imposed by society (i.e., the camel). Similarly,
the Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli (1907) compared the poet to the child
(fanciullino) who, by virtue of his intuitive and irrational nature, looks
at all things with astonishment and dawning wonder, as if for the first
time. The poet-child arrives at the truth in an irrational and intuitive
manner and finds meaning in a “forest of symbols” like in Baudelaire’s
26 M. MASSI
(1857) poem Correspondences. The language of the poet–child is made

of symbols, analogic and evocative correspondences, synesthesia, and
allegories.
This idea of authenticity reflects the need for a more intuitive and expe-
riential approach to reality (e.g., Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982), which
relies on different sensory levels. Emphasizing the scenic and spectac-
ular dimension, in contrast, is a characteristic of modern Western societies
where “sight has long been regarded as the noblest of the senses…viewed
as the most discriminating and reliable of the sensual mediators between
humans and their physical environment” (Jay, 1986: 178). With new
technologies, people observe spectacles, and instead of the real, they
experience simulations and simulacra (Baudrillard, 1983). The Golden
Age ends with the creation by the gods of the first woman, Pandora,
as a punishment for humanity for Prometheus’ theft of the secret of fire.
Similar to Eve, the first woman in the Bible, Pandora causes the end of
a paradisiacal or Edenic authenticity state. The secret of fire stolen by
Prometheus is a representation of technology and progress. Authenticity
is perceived as the opposite of technology, and the search for authenticity
is a symptom of the disillusion about the myth of progress (Benjamin,
1936). In conclusion, the myth of the Golden Age represents a metaphor
for an authentic state of being and allows the identifications of some sub-
dimensions or semantic areas of the originality dimension of authenticity,
namely Naturalness/Organicity, Vitality/Fluidity, Child-like Purity and
Innocence, Simplicity, Unmediated and Experiential Relation, Nostalgia
and Sense of Loss, Instinctual/Emotional, Symbolic/Implicit, and Eternal.
2.3.3 The Concept of Authenticity in Existentialist Philosophy

Existentialist philosophers have also dealt extensively with the notion of
authenticity, conceptualizing it as self-authority as opposed to societal
authority (Golomb, 1995). Existentialists regarded authenticity as “truth
to oneself” or self-reflexivity, an inward-oriented notion of authenticity,
arguing against the tenets of positivism and the objectification of reality.
German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), for instance,
examined the concept in Being and Time (1927) where he defined
Eigentlichkeit and Uneigentlichkeit (authenticity and inauthenticity) as
the two main possibilities of existence. For Heidegger, “authenticity is
a process of being true to one’s own self, of living life according to one’s
own being” (Zickmund, 2007: 407). In particular, Heidegger identified
Dasein or “being-in-the-world” and “being-toward-death” as the condi-

tions for authenticity. For Heidegger, an individual is deemed authentic
only if he/she is able to make independent and autonomous value-
based choices instead of accepting pre-programmed or socially imposed
values and rules. According to Heidegger, indeed, individuals can be
authentic only by living “a rigorous and self-sufficient existence wrenched
away from the ‘they’—that is the world of the ordinary and everyday”
(Heidegger, 1962: 307/orig. 1927). Thus, authenticity is conceived of
as inward-oriented and self-reflexive because it implies a distance from
the external world and a focus on the self.
Heidegger conceptualized living authentically as a narrative, “a well-
crafted story” with “a beginning, a development, and an ending that
gives the whole its point” (Guignon, 2000: 85). Authenticity is therefore
defined as a coherent and cumulative narrative that defines the individu-
al’s identity, an identitarian project that is not dictated by the world but
decided by the individual and in which both an alternation of authen-
ticity and inauthenticity occurs since both possibilities cannot be separated
(Guignon, 2000). The external world provides the symbolic material that
individuals can use to build their authentic identities (Ferrara, 1997;
Golomb, 1995).
French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980)
defined authenticity as “having a true and lucid consciousness of the
situation, in assuming the responsibilities and risks that it involves in
accepting it in pride or humiliation, sometimes in horror or hate” (Sartre,
1948: 60). In Being and Nothingness (1943), Sartre dealt with the notion
of authenticity by describing its opposite, i.e., mauvaise foi (bad faith),
which occurs when individuals objectify their selves. Similarly, in Nausea,
Sartre (1934) postulated that the internalization of the values of an
oppressive society prevents the individual from achieving authenticity.
German social psychologist Erich Fromm (1900–1980) expressed a
different perspective from that of Sartre. For Fromm (1942), individuals
can still live authentically, even acting in agreement with social rules to the
extent that they approve such rules instead of accepting them passively.
Thus, with the exception of Fromm, for existentialists, authenticity is
mainly a subjective and self-reflexive notion, implying a moral dimension
(Taylor, 1991), i.e., the moral law of the individual which supersedes the
normativity of other social and cultural institutions. The authentic indi-
vidual is one who follows his/her own moral law instead of being under
the thumb of the general ethics of the world.
28 M. MASSI
For Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), authentic living corresponded

with the celebration of instinct and vitalism. In The Birth of Tragedy from
the Spirit of Music (1872), Nietzsche argued that the Dionysian model of
subjectivity, based on irrationality, creativity, pleasure-seeking, and exal-
tation of life, leads to authenticity. In particular, Nietzsche refused the
deterministic and ordered conception of the universe expressed by the
Apollonian spirit. Nietzsche explained his understanding of authenticity
through the metaphor of art and artistic creation: “The individual is a
kind of artist who freely shapes his self as a work of art” (Golomb, 1995:
47). Thus, for Nietzsche, authenticity is essentially vitalism and creativity,
or the spontaneous and vital “creation of one’s self and life” (Golomb,
1995: 144).
In The Jargon of Authenticity (1964), Theodor Adorno (1903–1969),
an exponent of the Frankfurt School, criticized existentialist philosophers
(particularly Heidegger) for their conceptions of authenticity. In partic-
ular, Adorno (1964: 6) argued that the jargon of authenticity “is just
as standardized as the world that it officially negates”. Thus, Adorno
dismissed the existentialist inward-directed and determined concept of
authenticity to redeem the dialectical relationship of object and subject
and restore the objective social context where the self is historically
shaped.
Similarly, Ferrara (1997: 80) contended that existentialist conceptual-
izations of authenticity downplay the relational dimension of authenticity
and advocated for a re-evaluation of “the intersubjective moment of
relating to the other”. For Ferrara (1997: 80), most existentialists devel-
oped a substantialist notion of authenticity based on the “assumption that
the self possesses an essential core, a kind of psychological DNA, which
it tries to assert through its interaction with others, even if such core is
conceived as an essential tension toward self-transcendence”. In general,
existentialists interpreted contact of the self with otherness (the external
world) negatively because it leads to a loss of authenticity. According to
Ferrara (1997: 82), most existentialists emphasized the different dimen-
sion of authenticity, developing an antagonistic conception of the notion.
Existentialists developed a polemical aspect of authenticity and concep-
tualize it “as something to be attained in opposition to the demands of
society and of culture” (Ferrara 1997: 82). In this sense, they stigma-
tized the external world and institutions as disciplinary and repressive.
In contrast, other philosophers, such as Rousseau, Schiller, Herder, and
Kierkegaard, valued the relational dimension of authenticity proposing
an integrative version of authenticity that reconciles individuals with the

world.
Addressing Adorno’s criticism, Ferrara (1997: 84) advocated for the
development of a reflective (as opposed to self-reflexive) notion of authen-
ticity based on a dialectical movement. Ferrara (1997: 84) suggested that
authenticity be reconceptualized as a synecdoche that unifies “the unique
way in which an individual brings together his or her ‘difference’ with
what is shared, the ‘thick’ with the ‘thin”, the universal with the partic-
ular aspects of an identity”. According to Ferrara, Georg Simmel (1968
[1913]) provided the best conceptualization of reflective authenticity: “If
a life individualized in a certain way exists, also its corresponding ought
(Sollen) exists as objectively valid” (Simmel, (1968 [1913]: 217).
A reflective version of authenticity that presupposes an intersubjective
moment would be necessary to allow authentic identities to be recog-
nized. Recognisability is therefore the final dimension of authenticity that
emerges from the study of existentialist philosophy. As Ferrara (1997:
81) argued, “all authentic identities necessarily presuppose a moment
of recognition on the part of another human being” because it would
be “contradictory to call an identity authentic and at the same time to
maintain that no one can ever recognize it as a felicitous human identity”.
Despite their varying philosophical views on authenticity, existentialists
conceptualized authenticity as a self-reflexive notion, thus developing the
“truth to oneself” dimension of the concept. In particular, the review of
the literature makes it possible to identify eight sub-dimensions of Self-
Reflexivity, namely, Self-expression, Socialness, Morality, Projection/Identity
Building, Creativity/Genius, Narrativeness, Vitality/Fluidity (including
freedom and hedonism) and Recognisability.
2.4 Authenticity in Sociology

Sociologists have studied authenticity mainly as correspondence between
individuals’ authentic behaviors and their identity, but also as an impres-
sion that individuals want to give to others (Erickson, 1995; Goffman,
1959; Vannini & Williams, 2009). In this regard, one of the best descrip-
tions of such mechanisms is provided by Erving Goffman (1959). In his
classic work The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman (1959)
showed how individuals manage the impressions that others have of them
in order to control others’ behavior toward themselves in their everyday
lives.
30 M. MASSI
Goffman defined the concept of “face” as a person’s “most personal

possession and the center of his security and pleasure”, which, however,
“is only on loan to him from society” and “will be withdrawn unless he
conducts himself in a way that is worthy of it” (Goffman, 1972: 322).
Individuals use face-work or impression management, defined as “the
actions taken by a person to make whatever he is doing consistent with
face” (Goffman, 1959: 12) in order to deal with other individuals in the
social arenas.
Goffman’s (1959) work has been deemed critical in tourism studies. In
particular, as shown in Chapter 3, MacCannell (1973, 1976) has exten-
sively drawn from the theatrical metaphor to introduce the concept of
“staged authenticity”. The metaphor of theater is also developed by Piran-
dello (1926), who described in his novels the bewilderment and pain that
his characters feel whenever they are imprisoned in fixed social identity
forms or masks. The social roles that the individual has to play in everyday
life are perceived as a trap or a prison in which the individual struggles to
free him/herself.
At the base of the work of Pirandello stands a rejection of the forms
of social life, its institutions, imposed roles, and a desperate need for
authenticity, immediacy, and spontaneity. Similar to exponents of Leben-
philosophie (e.g., Bergson), Pirandello (1926) conceived of authenticity
as the opposite of fixity. Reality is vital, fluid, eternally becoming, or
in a constant transformation from one state to another. Everything that
detaches itself from the universal and assumes a particular form becomes
a mask, or “persona”, which in Latin refers both to the individual and
the theatrical mask. It is significant that one of the characters described
by Pirandello (1926) rejects his own name as a modern “iron cage”
(Weber, 1952) entrapping and controlling individuals. It is arguable that
a corollary of this dimension is authenticity as freedom.
Like in the art field, conceptualizations of authenticity in sociological
literature have been characterized by the dilemma between modernist and
constructivist approaches. Similar to other sociological concepts such as
gender, race, and other social phenomena, authenticity has been consid-
ered as either objective or socially constructed (Carroll & Wheaton, 2009;
Vannini & Williams, 2009). While the work of Goffman (1959) reflects
the modernist conception of authenticity since it implies the existence
of an objective form of backstage authenticity, constructivist perspectives
posit that “there is a plurality of ways of being an ‘authentic’ subject”
(Karmis & Maclure, 2001: 368).
For Handler (1986: 2) authenticity is a cultural construct of the

modern Western world, originating from individual need for “unspoiled,
pristine, genuine, untouched and traditional”, therefore authentic, experi-
ences. Constructivist approaches have affected studies on the authenticity
of national identities. For instance, Cheng (2004: 3) observed how
“modern and contemporary cultures—especially First World cultures—are
increasingly marked by an anxiety over authentic cultural identity”. For
Cheng (2004), concerns of authenticity stem from processes of globaliza-
tion that make it difficult to regard factors such as skin color as objective
markers of racial identity.
Similarly, Benhabib (1999) stated that contemporary ethnic and non-
ethnic groups employ authenticity criteria to build and protect their unity
and purity. In this regard, authenticity has been used similarly to nation-
alistic ideologies based on the tenet of the purity of race and culture.
In subculture studies, some scholars (e.g., Riley & Cahill, 2005; Widdi-
combe & Wooffitt, 1990; Williams, 2006; Williams & Copes, 2005) have
explored how subcultures (e.g., hip-pop subcultures), countercultures,
and peer groups employ authenticity to define membership, personal and
group identity, and values. In addition, Bendix (1997) observed how
authenticity has been used for its differentiating function to trace disci-
plinary contours in folklore studies as “an agent to define this subject,
differentiate it from other cultural manifestations, develop methods of
analysis, critique competing theories, or create new paradigms” (Bendix,
1997: 5). Similarly, Koontz (2010) described how producers and patrons
employ authenticating practices to differentiate between a mainstream
society, and the exotic and local “Other”.
This view is similar to Macdonald’s critique of mass culture that
threatens “spontaneous [and] autochthonous” folk culture of earlier
societies (1957: 60).
Like the concept of identity, which “cannot be thought in the old way”
(Hall & Du Gay, 1996: 2), e.g., as “sameness” (from Latin “idem”), espe-
cially in light of postmodernity, which replaced one fixed identity with a
multitude of identities (Firat & Shultz, 1997), the notion of authenticity
must be rethought in sociological contexts. Particularly in global contexts
characterized by social pluralism, rapid change, and the struggle for
self-meaning, authenticity emerges as a definitive challenge (Lindholm,
2008).
32 M. MASSI
2.4.1 The Institutional Theory Perspective

One final perspective on authenticity comes from organization theory,
a branch of sociology concerned with formal organizations, in partic-
ular from the institutional theory of organizations. Based on institutional
theory, organizations adopt and conform to taken-for-granted social and
cultural meaning systems, norms, and systems of belief that define their
social environment (Scott, 1987; Scott & Meyer, 1994). In order to
become institutionalized, and thus legitimated (Meyer & Rowan, 1977),
organizations isomorphically conform to the norms of the environment
in which they operate and are rewarded for doing so through increased
legitimacy, resources, and survival capabilities (Meyer & Rowan, 1977).
The concept of legitimacy as defined in institutional theory is similar
to that of authenticity as authority or certification because it assumes
the existence of legitimating bodies (DiMaggio, 1988) or institutions
that confer legitimacy. Like authenticity, which corresponds with confor-
mity to standards, legitimacy is “a generalized perception or assumption
that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within
some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and defini-
tions” (Suchman, 1995: 574). According to Hughes (2000: 190) “a
key ingredient in being legitimate is being authentic”. Indeed, legitimate
organizations are not only perceived as “more worthy, but also as more
meaningful, more predictable, and more trustworthy” (Suchman, 1995:
575).
In particular, legitimacy is achieved by conforming to myths and cere-
monies of the environment in which organizations operate (Meyer &
Rowan, 1977). As mentioned in the section above relating to the art
field, two dimensions of authenticity, namely genuineness (or sincerity)
and verisimilitude are relevant to conformity. Referentiality (references
to myths, time, and place) is also an aspect of authenticity developed by
institutional theory.
Another aspect of the institutional theory that can be applied to
authenticity is decoupling. Defined as the separation of the elements of
structure from activities (Meyer & Rowan, 1977), decoupling allows
organizations to maintain legitimacy “by adopting designs that mask or
distract attention from controversial core activities that may be unaccept-
able to some key constituencies” (Elsbach & Sutton, 1992: 700). Derived
from the idea of the separation between front and back stage (Goffman,
1959), decoupling develops the dimension of difference, which is connat-

ural to authenticity. Moreover, the legitimacy derived from adherence
to myths and ceremonies confers to organizations an unspoken and
taken-for-granted trust (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Internal and external
stakeholders are committed to supporting the organization’s ceremonial
conformity both in the front and back stage (Goffman, 1959), and display
high degrees of confidence in the organization. An additional dimension
of authenticity is therefore trustworthiness. Hence, the institutional theory
allows for the identification of the following dimensions of authenticity:
Legitimacy (Certification), Conformity (Genuineness and Verisimilitude),
Difference (Decoupling ), Referentiality, and Trustworthiness.
2.5 Authenticity in Psychology

Psychological perspectives of authenticity owe a great conceptual debt to
those of philosophy, particularly to existentialism and the work of authors
such as Sartre or Heidegger (Kernis & Goldman, 2006). In general,
as a psychological construct, authenticity has been described as having
a complex, multidimensional (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), and emer-
gent (Erickson, 1995) nature. In addition, the literature on authenticity
is fragmentary and inconsistent as far as what the construct represents and
research has yet to explore the concept in any depth empirically (Wood
et al., 2008).
In general, psychological research on authenticity has been related
to self-actualization (Maslow, 1970 [1959]), self-knowledge, one’s true
self (Harter, 1997), and the experience of feeling authentic (Sheldon
et al., 1997; Wood et al., 2008). Kernis and Goldman (2006) provided
a comprehensive review of the concept in order to build an authenticity
scale. Building on existentialist philosophy, the authors defined authen-
ticity as “the unobstructed operation of one’s true- or core-self in one’s
daily enterprise” (Kernis & Goldman, 2006: 294) and factorialized it into
a multidimensional model including four components.
First, awareness, develops the Socratic notion of authenticity as “truth
to oneself”, self-understanding and self-examination, and relates to “pos-
sessing, and being motivated to increase knowledge of and trust in
one’s motives, feelings, desires, and self-relevant cognitions” (Kernis &
Goldman, 2006: 294). Second, unbiased processing of self-relevant infor-
mation “involves objectivity with respect to one’s positive and negative
self-aspects, emotions, and other internal experiences, information, and
34 M. MASSI
private knowledge” (Kernis & Goldman, 2006: 296). Third, behavior

refers to “behaviors that are rooted in self-knowledge, as in Aristotle’s
“pursuit of the highest good”, and “involves behaving in accord with
one’s values, preferences, and needs as opposed to acting ‘falsely’ merely
to please others or to attain rewards or avoid punishments” (Kernis &
Goldman, 2006: 298). Fourth, relational orientation develops the social-
ness dimension of authenticity, which refers to “valuing and striving
for openness, sincerity, and truthfulness in one’s close relationships”
(Kernis & Goldman, 2006: 300).
Thus, the psychological notion of authenticity, as developed by Kernis
and Goldman (2006), includes dimensions already identified in exis-
tentialist philosophy, mainly “truth to oneself” and its sub-dimensions.
Relational orientation corresponds to the socialness dimension of authen-
ticity. In addition, unbiased processing reflects unmediated relation since
it addresses the absence of interpretive distortions in the processing of
self-relevant information.
2.6 Conclusions
The review of the broader literature has revealed the complexity and
multidimensionality of the concept of authenticity. In particular, a number
of dimensions have been identified as critical in defining authenticity,
namely originality, authority, conformity, uniqueness, difference, “truth
to one self“, and balance. As shown in Table 2.1, each dimension can be
traced to one of the etymologies of the term “authenticity”.
In addition, the literature review allows for identifying two main
approaches to authenticity. Modernist or objectivist approaches assume
that authenticity can be objectively assessed based on the dimen-
sions of originality (certainty of the source), uniqueness (aura), and
difference (separation) of authentic objects from spurious ones. By
contrast, constructivist approaches take a subjectivist stance on authen-
ticity (Guba & Lincoln, 1994), defining it as socially negotiated. In addi-
tion, postmodernism and poststructuralism bring constructivist perspec-
tives to the extreme, deconstructing authenticity as a “centered discourse”
(Derrida, 1967) and denying its existence (Table 2.2).
Some sub-dimensions of authenticity are overlapping, e.g., longevity
and fluidity/vitality since they are identifiable in conceptualizations of
authenticity in various disciplines. Other dimensions are similar but will
be regarded as different. For instance, “conformity” descends from the
2
Table 2.1 Etymologies of authenticity and related dimensions
Etymologies of authenticity Meanings Criteria Authenticity dimensions
αÙθεντικóς (authenticós) True to oneself Identity or correspondence Truth to oneself/conformity

(content)
αÙθεντεω (authentèo) Authorship/originality Genealogical historical (origin) Authority (originality/authorship)
To have mastery of; to have Power/legitimacy Authority (legitimacy)
full power over
αÙτóς (autós) + Éntea Made by one’s own hands, Genealogical historical (origin) Originality/uniqueness/difference
(arms) craft
εαυτóν (eautón) and theto Posit themselves or set Separation Uniqueness and difference
themselves as a thesis
THE CONCEPT OF AUTHENTICITY IN THE BROADER …
35
36 M. MASSI
Table 2.2 Characteristics of modernist, constructivist, and postmodernist

approaches
Philosophical Modernism Constructivism Postmodernism/Poststructuralism

paradigm
Ontology Realism Relativism Nominalist

Epistemology Objectivist Subjectivist Nominalist
Authenticity Originality Conformity (genuineness Incredulity toward authenticity
dimensions and verisimilitude)
Uniqueness Referentiality /
and difference fluidity/vitality
“truth to oneself” dimension but it will be considered as a separate

dimension because it implies a more objective dimension than “truth to
oneself”, which is regarded as a synonym of self-reflexivity. This schema
will be used as a reference to analyze the marketing literature on authen-
ticity and identify what dimensions of authenticity have been included or
excluded in the marketing conceptualizations and operationalizations of
the concept.
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“Indeed, one so young as you appear to be! But yours, young
man, are the sorrows, perhaps, of a youthful lover. Yours are not so
deeply rooted as mine.”
These words led to an explanation which told the two strangers
that their concerns were more nearly allied than they had been
aware. Our readers of course need not be informed that the elder of
the two was Mr Primrose, and the younger Mr Robert Darnley. They
were happy, however, in the midst of their sorrows, to have become
thus acquainted at a distance from home. They only regretted that
the distance between their respective situations in India had formed
an insuperable barrier against an acquaintance and intimacy there.
The fact is that, so long as Dr Greendale considered the return of Mr
Primrose as a matter of uncertainty, he had been very cautious of
exciting his daughter’s expectations. He had ventured to consider his
own approbation quite sufficient to allow of the correspondence
between his niece and Mr Robert Darnley, and had in his letters to
Mr Primrose simply mentioned the fact without stating particulars,
thinking that it would be time enough hereafter, should the mutual
affection of the young persons for each other continue and
strengthen. Mr Primrose had, in reply to that information, left Dr
Greendale quite at liberty to make such disposal of Penelope as he
might think proper; for the father was well aware that the uncle was,
both by discretion and affection, well qualified for the guardianship of
his child.
The vessels in which the two gentlemen sailed soon weighed
anchor and put to sea again. So the friends were parted for a time;
nor did they hold any farther communication on the course of their
voyage, for they had not left St Helena many days before the ship
parted company in a gale of wind. That vessel in which Mr Primrose
sailed first arrived in England, as we have already intimated.
CHAPTER XIV.
England appeared to Mr Primrose quite a new world. He had
sixteen years ago sailed down the river Thames, which presented on
its banks at that time quite as much picturesque beauty as now. But
he did not then observe these beauties. His heart was full of other
thoughts, and his mind was moved by widely different feelings. There
had not been in his soul the sentiment of moral beauty, nor was
there in his heart that repose of pleasure which could admit of
enjoying the external world in its manifestations of beauty or
sublimity. But on his return homewards his thoughts were far
different. He had left England in forlorn hope, but he was returning
under brighter auspices. He had sailed from his native land, bearing
a deeply felt burden of self-reproach; and though he could not forget
or forgive his former self, and though still there were painful scenes
to be witnessed, and melancholy information to be received, yet the
aspect of things was widely different from what it had been at his
departure. And he expressed himself delighted with all that he saw.
The little boats and the lighter craft upon the river spoke of bustle
and activity, and of human interest; and in them he saw the
flutterings of business and prosperity. Though it was winter, and the
trees on the rising grounds were leafless, and the fields had lost their
greenness, yet the very pattern and outline of what the scene had
been in summer, and of what it would be again in spring, were all
very charming to his eye, then active with imagination. His own
bright thoughts gave verdure to the trees and greenness to the
fields; and he thought that England indeed was a blessed land. And
as the vessel made her way up the river, and as at a distance a
dense black cloud was seen, he knew that that was a manifestation
of their vicinity to the great city, and that dark mass of floating
smoke, which rustic eloquence so glibly reprobates, was to his soul a
great refreshment and a most pleasing sight.
As soon as he disembarked, he first directed his steps to the office
of his agent in the city, to make enquiry respecting the speediest
mode of arriving at Smatterton: for he knew not that his daughter’s
residence was now in London. There is a great contrast between the
appearance of the banks of the Thames and the inside of a city
counting-house; but they are both very pleasant sights to those who
are glad to see them. Mr Primrose was indeed very glad to see his
native land, and to walk the streets of its busy metropolis; and with
very great cordiality did he shake hands with the principal in the
office, and very politely did the principal congratulate him on his
return to England. Mr Primrose did not notice the great contrast
between his own joy-expanded face and the business-looking aspect
of the agent; but he thought that all London looked as glad to see
him as he was to see London. After transacting at the office of his
agent such business as was immediately important, and without
waiting to observe what changes and improvements had taken place
in the great city since he had left it sixteen years ago, he made
enquiry after the readiest and quickest mode of reaching Smatterton,
and finding that the stage-coach was the most rapid conveyance, he
immediately directed his steps thitherward.
There are in the course of human life many strange and singular
coincidences. Now it happened that the very day on which Mr
Primrose was preparing to start for Smatterton, Mr Kipperson also
was going to travel the same road, and by the same conveyance.
Little did the former imagine that he was going away from his
daughter; little did he think that, in his way to the White Horse cellar
in Piccadilly, he had actually passed the house in which his beloved
child and only hope lay sick and ill. The days in December are very
short; and it was nearly dark when, at four o’clock in the afternoon,
Mr Primrose and Mr Kipperson, unknown to each other, took their
seats in the coach. They had the inside of the coach to themselves.
Mr Primrose, as we have said, was in good spirits. He certainly
had some cause for grief, and some source of concern; but the
feeling of satisfaction was most prominent. He had shed tears to the
memory of Dr Greendale, and he hoped that the worthy man had so
instructed the dependent one committed to his care, that no
permanent cause of uneasiness would be found in her. The
intelligence which he had received respecting her alleged and
supposed fickleness came from Mr Darnley, and the father,
therefore, knowing Mr Darnley to be a very severe and rigid kind of
man, and withal mighty positive, hoped that a premature judgment
had been formed, and trusted that, when all was explained, all would
be right. We must indeed do the father of Penelope the justice to say
that, with all his failings, he was sincere, candid, and downright. He
never suffered any misunderstanding to exist where it could possibly
be cleared up. He was plain and direct in all his conduct.
We need not say that Mr Kipperson was in good spirits. He always
was so. He was so very happy that by this last journey to London he
had saved the nation from being starved to death by a
superabundance of corn. What a fine thing it is to be the cleverest
man in the kingdom! What would become of us all were it not for
such men as Mr Kipperson starting up about once in a century, or
twice a-week, to rectify all the errors of all the rest of the world? And
what is the use of all the world beside, but to admire the wisdom of
such men as Mr Kipperson? Our only fear is that we may have too
many such profoundly wise men; and the consequence of an over
supply of wisdom would be to ruin the nation by folly.
Whether Mr Kipperson addressed Mr Primrose, or Mr Primrose
addressed Mr Kipperson, we know not; but in a very short time they
became mighty good friends. To some observation of Mr Primrose,
his fellow traveller replied:
“You have been abroad I suppose, sir?”
“I have, sir,” said Mr Primrose; “and that for a long while: it is now
upwards of sixteen years since I left England, and I am most happy
to return to it. Many changes have taken place since I went abroad,
and some, I hope, for the better.”
“Many improvements have indeed been made in the course of that
time. We have improved, for instance, in the rapidity with which we
travel; our roads are as smooth as a bowling-green. But our greatest
improvements of all are our intellectual improvements. We have
made wonderful strides in the march of intellect. England is now the
first country in the world for all that relates to science and art. The
cultivation of the understanding has advanced most astonishingly.
“I remember noticing when I was in India,” said Mr Primrose, “that
the number of publications seemed much increased. But many of
them appeared to be merely light reading.”
“Very likely, sir; but we have not merely light reading; we have a
most abundant supply of scientific publications: and these are read
with the utmost avidity by all classes of people, especially by the
lower classes. You have no doubt heard of the formation of the
mechanics’ institutes?”
“I have, sir,” replied Mr Primrose; “but I am not quite aware of the
precise nature of their constitution, or the object at which they aim.
Perhaps you can inform me?”
“That I can, sir,” said Mr Kipperson; “and I shall have great
pleasure in so doing; for to tell you the truth I am a very zealous
promoter of these institutions. The object of these institutions is to
give an opportunity to artisans, who are employed all day in manual
labour, to acquire a scientific knowledge, not only of the art by which
he lives and at which he works, but of everything else which can
possibly be known or become a subject of human inquiry or interest.”
“But surely,” interrupted Mr Primrose, “it is not designed to convert
mechanical into scientific men. That seems to my view rather a
contradiction to the general order of things.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied the other; “you are repeating, I
perceive, exploded objections. Is it possible, do you think, that a man
should do his work worse for understanding something of the
philosophy of it? Is it not far better, where it is practicable, that a man
should act as a rational reflecting creature, than as a piece of mere
machinery?”
“Very true, certainly, sir; you are right. Ay, ay, now I see: you
instruct all artisans in the philosophy of their several employments.
Most excellent. Then, I suppose, you teach architecture and read
lectures on Vitruvius to journey-men bricklayers?”
“Nay, nay, sir,” replied Mr Kipperson, “we do not carry it quite so far
as that.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” replied Mr Primrose, “I had not the
slightest idea that this was carrying your system too far. It might,
perhaps, be a little refinement on the scheme to suppose that you
would teach tailors anatomy; but after all I do not see why you
should start at carrying a matter of this kind too far. The poet says, ‘a
little knowledge is a dangerous thing;’ and, for my own part, I can
see no great liberality in this parsimonious and stinted mode of
dealing out knowledge; for unless you teach the lower classes all
that is to be taught, you make, or more properly speaking keep up,
the distinction.”
Mr Kipperson was not best pleased with these remarks; he saw
that his fellow-traveller was one of those narrow-minded aristocratic
people, who are desirous of keeping the mass of the people in gross
ignorance, in order that they may be the more easily governed and
imposed upon. Though in good truth it has been said, that the
ignorant are not so easily governed as the enlightened. The
ingenious and learned Mr Kipperson then replied:
“You may say what you please, sir, in disparagement of the system
of enlightening the public mind; but surely you must allow that it is far
better for a poor industrious mechanic to attend some lecture on a
subject of science or philosophy, than to spend his evenings in
drunkenness and intemperance.”
“Indeed, sir, I have no wish to disparage the system of
enlightening the public mind; and I am quite of your opinion, that it is
much more desirable that a labouring man”——
“Operative, if you please,” said Mr Kipperson; “we have no
labouring men.”
“Well,” pursued Mr Primrose, “operative; the term used to be
labouring or working when I was last in England: I will agree with
you, sir, that it is really better that an operative should study
philosophy, than that he should drink an inordinate quantity of beer.
But do you find, sir, that your system does absolutely and actually
produce such effects?”
“Do we?” exclaimed Mr Kipperson triumphantly: “That we certainly
and clearly do: it is clear to demonstration; for, since the
establishment of mechanics’ institutes, the excise has fallen off very
considerably. And what can that deficiency be owing to, if it be not to
the fact which I have stated, that the operatives find philosophy a far
more agreeable recreation after labour than drinking strong beer?”
“You may be right, sir, and I have no doubt you are; but, as I have
been so long out of England, it is not to be wondered at that my
ideas have not been able to keep pace with the rapid strides which
education has made in England during that time. I am very far from
wishing to throw any objection or obstacle in the way of human
improvement. You call these establishments ‘mechanics’ institutions:’
but pray, sir, do you not allow any but mechanics to enjoy the benefit
of them? Now there is a very numerous class of men, and women
too—for I should think that so enlightened an age would not exclude
women from the acquisition of knowledge;—there is, I say, a very
numerous class of men and women who have much leisure and little
learning—I mean the servants of the nobility and gentry at the west
end of the town. It would be charitable to instruct them also in the
sciences. How pleasant it must be now for the coachman and
footman, who are waiting at the door of a house for their master and
mistress, at or after midnight, instead of sleeping on the carriage, or
swearing and blaspheming as they too frequently do, to have a
knowledge of astronomy, and study the movements of the planets. Is
there no provision made for these poor people?”
“Certainly there is,” said Mr Kipperson. “There are cheap
publications which treat of all the arts and sciences, so that for the
small charge of sixpence, a gentleman’s coachman may, in the
course of a fortnight, become acquainted with all the Newtonian
theory.”
Mr Primrose was delighted and astonished at what Mr Kipperson
told him; he could hardly believe his senses; he began to imagine
that he must himself be the most ignorant and uninformed person in
his majesty’s dominions.
“But tell me, sir,” continued he, “if those persons, whose time and
attention is of necessity so much occupied, are become so well
informed; do others, who have greater leisure, keep pace with them;
or, I should say, do they keep as much in the advance as their
leisure and opportunity allow them? For, according to your account,
the very poorest of the community are better instructed now than
were the gentry when I lived in England.”
“Education, sir,” answered Mr Kipperson, with the tone of an
oracle, “is altogether upon the advance. The science of instruction
has reached a point of perfection, which was never anticipated; nay,
I may say, we are astonished at ourselves. The time is now arrived
when the only ignorant and uninformed persons are those who have
had the misfortune to be educated at our public schools and
universities: for in them there is no improvement. I have myself been
witness of the most shocking and egregious ignorance in those men
who call themselves masters of arts. They know nothing in the world
about agriculture, architecture, botany, ship building, navigation,
ornithology, political economy, icthyology, zoology, or any of the ten
thousand sciences with which all the rest of the world is intimate. I
have actually heard an Oxford student, as he called himself, when
looking over a manufactory at Birmingham, ask such questions as
shewed that he was totally ignorant even of the very first rudiments
of button-making.”
“Astonishing ignorance,” exclaimed Mr Primrose, who was rather
sleepy; “I dare say they make it a rule to teach nothing but ignorance
at the two universities.”
“I believe you are right, sir,” said Mr Kipperson, rubbing his hands
with cold and extacy; “those universities have been a dead weight on
the country for centuries, but their inanity and weakness will be
exposed, and the whole system exploded. There is not a common
boys’ school in the kingdom which does not teach ten times more
useful knowledge than both the universities put together, and all the
public schools into the bargain. Why, sir, if you send a boy to school
now, he does not spend, as he did formerly, ten or twelve years in
learning the Latin grammar, but now he learns Latin and Greek, and
French, German, Spanish, Italian, dancing, drawing, music,
mapping, the use of the globes, chemistry, history, botany,
mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, hydrodynamics, astronomy,
geology, gymnastics, architecture, engineering, ballooning, and
many more useful and indispensable arts and sciences, so that he is
fitted for any station in life, from a prime minister down to a shoe-
black.”
Before this speech was finished, Mr Primrose was fast asleep; but
short is the sleep in a coach that travels by night. The coach stopped
and woke our foreigner from a frightful dream. We do not wish to
terrify our readers, but we must relate the dream in consequence of
its singularity. He dreamed then, that he was in the island of Laputa,
and that having provoked the indignation of some of the learned
professors by expressing a doubt as to the practicability of some of
their schemes, he was sentenced to be buried alive under a pyramid
of encyclopedias. Just as the cruel people were putting the sentence
into execution, he woke and found his coat-collar almost in his
mouth, and heard the word ‘ology’ from the lips of his fellow traveller.
He was very glad to find that matters were no worse.
CHAPTER XV.
Few indeed are the adventures now to be met with in travelling by
a stage coach, and few also, comparatively speaking, the accidents.
But our travellers were destined to meet both with accident and
adventure. The coach, as our observant readers have noticed, must
necessarily have travelled all night. The nights in December are long
and dark; and not unfrequently, during the long cold silence of a
December night, there gently falls upon the dank surface of the earth
a protecting and embellishing fleece of flaky snow. And the morning
snow as yet untrodden has a brilliant and even cheerful look beneath
a blue and brightly frosty sky; and when a wide expanse of country
variegated with venerably-aged trees, and new enclosures and old
open meadow lands, and adorned with here and there a mansion
surrounded with its appurtenances of larch, pine, and poplar, and
divided into unequal but gracefully undulating sections by means of a
quiet stream—when a scene like this bursts upon the morning eye of
a winter traveller, and shows itself set off and adorned with a mantle
of virgin snow, it is indeed a sight well worth looking at. Mr Primrose
had not seen snow for sixteen years, and the very sight of it warmed
his heart; for it was so much like home. It was one of those natural
peculiarities which distinguished the land of his birth from the land of
his exile. He expressed to his fellow traveller the delight which he felt
at the sight. Mr Kipperson coincided with him that the view was fine,
and proposed that, as they were both well clad, and as the scenery
was very magnificent, they should by way of a little variety seat
themselves on the outside of the coach. The proposal was readily
embraced, and they mounted the roof.
The carriage was proceeding at a tolerably rapid pace on high but
level ground; and the travellers enjoyed the brightness of the
morning, and the beauty of the valley which lay on their left hand.
Shortly they arrived at a steep descent which led into the valley
beneath, and there was no slacking of pace or locking of wheels,
which had been customary in going down hill when Mr Primrose was
last in England. He expressed, therefore, his surprise at the
boldness or carelessness of the coachman, and hinted that he was
fearful lest some accident might happen. But Mr Kipperson
immediately dissipated his fears, by telling him that this was the
usual practice now, and that the construction of stage-coaches, and
the art of driving, were so much improved, that it was now
considered a far safer and better plan to proceed in the usual pace
down hill as well as upon level ground. Mr Kipperson, in short, had
just proved to a demonstration that it was impossible that any
accident could happen, when down fell one of the horses, and
presently after down fell coach and all its company together.
Happily no lives were lost by the accident. But if Mr Kipperson’s
neck was not broken by the fall, his heart was almost broken by the
flat contradiction which the prostrate carriage gave to his theory, and
he lay as one bereft of life. Equally still and silent lay Mr Primrose;
for he was under the awkward difficulty of either denying his fellow
traveller’s correctness or doubting the testimony of his own senses.
The catastrophe took place near to a turnpike house; so that those of
the passengers, who had experienced any injury from the
overturning of the coach, could be speedily accommodated with all
needful assistance. All the passengers, however, except Mr
Primrose, were perfectly able, when the coach was put to rights
again, to resume their journey. Mr Primrose, as soon as he
recovered from the first shock of his fall, was very glad to take refuge
in the turnpike house, and he soon became sensible that it would not
be prudent for him then to pursue his journey. He had indeed
received a severe shock from the accident, and though he had no
bones broken he had suffered a violent concussion which might be
doctored into an illness.
As soon as possible medical assistance was procured. The
surgeon examined and interrogated the overturned gentleman with
great diligence and sagacity. From the examination, it appeared not
unlikely that the patient might promise himself the pleasure of a
speedy removal. The truth of the matter was, that the poor
gentleman was more frightened than hurt. Some cases there are,
and this was one of them, in which no time should be lost in sending
for the doctor, seeing that, if the doctor be not sent for immediately,
he may not be wanted at all. This is one of the reasons why
physicians keep carriages, and have their horses always in
readiness; for by using great expedition they frequently manage to
arrive before the patient recovers.
The surgeon who attended Mr Primrose thought proper to take
some blood from his patient, and to supply the place of the same by
as many draughts as could be conveniently taken, or be reasonably
given in the time. It was also recommended that the gentleman
should be put to bed.
The dwellings attached to turnpike gates are seldom so roomy and
so abundantly provided with accommodation as to admit of an
accidental visitor: but in the present case it so happened that there
was an apartment unoccupied and not unfurnished. The
gatekeeper’s wife, who was a notable and motherly kind of woman,
said, that if the gentleman could put up with a very small apartment,
and a coarse but clean bed, he might be accommodated, and he
need not fear that the bed was damp, for it had been occupied for
the last month, and had only been vacated the day before. Mr
Primrose readily accepted the offer, not being very particular as to
appearance.
“I suppose,” said he, “you keep a spare bed for the
accommodation of those who may be overturned in coming down
this hill? Your surgeon, I find, does not live far off. That is a good
contrivance. Pray can you tell me, within a dozen or two, how many
broken bones the stage coach supplies him with in the course of the
year?”
At this speech the good woman laughed, for it was uttered in such
a tone as intimated that the gentleman wished it to be laughed at;
and as he was a respectable looking man, and carried in his aspect
a promise to pay, the worthy wife of the gate-keeper laughed with
right good will.
“Oh dear no, sir,” said she, “there is not an accident happens here
hardly ever. The coachman what overturned you this morning, is one
of the most carefullest men in the world, only he had a new horse as
didn’t know the road.”
“A very great comfort is that,” said Mr Primrose, and he smiled,
and the gate-keeper’s wife smiled, and she thought Mr Primrose a
very funny man, that he should be able to joke when under the
doctor’s hands. There are some people who are very facetious when
they are sick, provided the sickness be not very acute; for it looks
like heroism to laugh amidst pain and trouble.
Mr Primrose then proceeded; “So you will assure me that the
person who occupied your spare bed last, was not an overturned
coach passenger?”
The poor woman did not smile at this observation, but on the
contrary looked very grave, and her eyes seemed to be filling with
tears, when she compressed her lips and shook her head mournfully.
With some effort, after a momentary silence, she said:
“No, sir, it was not any one that was overturned; but it was a coach
passenger. It was a young lady, poor dear soul! that seemed almost
dying of a broken heart. But had not you better go to bed, sir? The
doctor said you wanted rest.”
Mr Primrose was a nervous man, and tales of sorrow inartificially
told frequently depressed him, and excited his sympathy with greater
force than was consistent with poetical enjoyment. He therefore took
the considerate advice which the good woman gave him, and retired
to rest. To a person of such temperament as Mr Primrose, the very
mention of a young lady almost dying of a broken heart was quite
sufficient to set his imagination most painfully at work. Rapidly did
his thoughts run over the various causes of broken hearts. Very
angry did he become with those hardened ones, by whose follies
and vices so many of the gentler sex suffer the acutest pangs of the
spirit. He thought of his own dear and only child, and he almost
wrought himself up to a fever by the imagination that some villanous
coxcomb might have trifled with her affections, and have left her to
the mockery of the world. He then thought of the mother of his
Penelope, and that she had died of a broken heart, and that his
follies had brought her to an untimely grave. Then came there into
his mind thoughts of retributive justice, and there was an
indescribable apprehension in his soul that the sorrows which he had
occasioned to another might fall also to his own lot. He wondered
that there should be in the world so much cruelty, and such a wanton
sporting with each others’ sufferings. The powerful emotions which
had been raised in his mind from the first hour that he embarked for
England, were of a nature so mingled, and in their movements so
rapid, that he hardly knew whether they were pleasurable or painful.
There was so much pleasure in the pain, and so much pain in the
pleasure, that his mind was rendered quite unsteady by a constant
whirl and vortex of emotions. He felt a kind of childish vivacity and
womanly sensibility. His tears and his smiles were equally
involuntary; he had no power over them, and he had scarcely notice
of their approach. Something of this was natural to him; but present
circumstances more strongly and powerfully developed this
characteristic. The accident, from which he had received so sudden
a shock, tended still farther to increase the excitability of his mind.
When therefore he retired for the purpose of gaining a little rest, his
solitude opened a wider door to imagination and recollection; and
thereupon a confused multitude of images of the past, and of fancies
for the future, came rushing in upon him, and his mind was like a
feather in a storm.
The surgeon was very attentive to his patient, for he made a
second visit not above four hours after the first. The people at the
turnpike-house told him that the gentleman had, in pursuance of the
advice given him, retired to take a little rest. The medical man
commended that movement; but being desirous to see how his
patient rested, he opened the door of the apartment very gently, and
Mr Primrose, who was wide awake, and happy to see any one to
whom he could talk, called aloud to the surgeon to walk in.
“I am not asleep, sir; you may come in; I am very glad to see you; I
have felt very much relieved by the bleeding. I think I shall be quite
well enough to proceed to-morrow. Pray, sir, can you inform me how
far it is to Smatterton from this place?”
“About sixty miles,” replied the surgeon.
“Sixty miles!” echoed Mr Primrose; “at what a prodigious rate then
we must have travelled.” Thereupon the patient raised himself up in
the bed, and began, or attempted to begin, a long conversation with
his doctor. “Why, sir, when I was in England last, the coach used to
be nearly twice as long on the road. Is this the usual rate of
travelling?”
The medical man smiled, and said, “The coach by which you
travelled, is by no means a quick one, some coaches on this road
travel much faster.”
“And pray, sir, do these coaches ever arrive safely at their
journey’s end?”
The surgeon smiled again and said, “Oh yes, sir, accidents are
very rare.”
“Then I wish,” replied Mr Primrose; “that they had not indulged me
with so great a rarity just on my arrival in England. I have been in the
East Indies for the last sixteen or seventeen years, and during that
time—”
Few medical men whose business is worth following, have time to
listen to the history of a man’s life and adventures for sixteen or
seventeen years. Hindoostan is certainly a very interesting country,
but there is no country on the face of the earth so interesting as a
man’s own cupboard. The doctor therefore cut off his patient’s
speech, not in the midst, but at the very beginning; saying unto him,
with a smile, for there is much meaning in a smile; “Yes sir, certainly
sir, there is no doubt of it—very true; but, sir, I think it will be better
for you at present to be kept quiet; and if you can get a little sleep it
will be better for you. I think, sir, to-morrow, or the next day, you may
venture to proceed on your journey. I will send you a composing
draught as soon as I return home, and will see you again to-morrow,
early in the morning. But I would not recommend you to travel by the
stage coach.”
“Ay, ay, thank you for that recommendation, and you may take my
word I will follow it.”
The doctor very quickly took his leave, and Mr Primrose thought
him a very unmannerly cub, because he would not stop to talk. “A
composing draught!” thus soliloquized the patient; “a composing
draught! a composing fiddlestick! What does the fellow mean by
keeping me thus in bed and sending me in his villanous compounds.
Why, I think I am almost able to walk to Smatterton. I won’t take his
composing draught; I’ll leave it here for the next coach passenger
that may be overturned at the foot of this hill. I dare to say it will not
spoil with keeping.”
The word “coach-passenger” brought to Mr Primrose’s recollection
the melancholy look and sorrowful tone of the poor woman who
mentioned the young lady who seemed almost dying of a broken
heart. His curiosity was roused, his nerves were agitated. He kept
thinking of his poor Penelope. He recollected with an almost painful
vividness the features and voice of the pretty little innocent he had
left behind him when he quitted England. He recollected and painted
with imagination’s strongest lines and most glowing colours that
distracting and heart-rending scene, when after listening with tearful
silence to the kind admonitions of his brother-in-law, he snatched up
in his arms his dear little laughing Penelope, and he saw again as
pungently as in reality, the little arms that clasped him with an
eagerness of joy, and he recollected how his poor dear child in the
simplicity of her heart mistook the agitations and tremblings of grief
for the frolicsome wantonness of joy, and he saw again that
indescribably exquisite expression with which she first caught sight
of his tears; and then there came over his mind the impression
produced by the artless manner in which the poor thing said, “Good
night, papa, perhaps you won’t cry to-morrow.”
Now he thought of that Penelope as grown up to woman’s estate,
and he felt that he should be proud of his daughter: but oh what
fears and misgivings came upon him, and he kept muttering to
himself the words of the woman who had talked of the young lady
almost dying of a broken heart. It was well for the patient that the
doctor soon fulfilled his word and sent a composing draught. But the
very moment that his attentive nurse gently tapped at the door of his
room, he called out:
“Come in, come in, I am not asleep. Oh, what you have brought
me a composing draught! Nonsense, nonsense, keep it for the next
coach-passenger that is overturned, and give it to him with my
compliments. Well, but I say, good woman, you were telling me
something about a poor young lady who was almost dying with a
broken heart. Who is she? Where is she? What is her name? Where
is she gone to? Where did she come from? Who broke her heart?
Was she married, or was she single? Now tell me all about her.”
“Oh dear, sir, I am sure you had better take this physic what the
doctor has sent you, that will do you more good than a mallancolly
story. Indeed you’d better, sir; shall I pour it out into a cup?”
“Ay, ay, pour it out. But I say, good woman, tell me where did this
poor young lady come from?”
“Lord, sir, I never saw such a curious gentleman in my life. Why,
then if you must know, she came from a long way off, from a village
of the name of Smatterton, a little village where my Lord Smatterton
has a fine castle.”
While the good woman was speaking she kept her eyes fixed
upon the cup into which she was slowly pouring the medicine, and
therefore she did not perceive the effect produced upon the patient
by the mention of Smatterton; for, as soon as he heard the name he
started, turned pale, and was breathless and speechless for a
moment; and then recovering the use of his speech, he exclaimed,
“Smatterton! Smatterton! Good woman, are you in your senses?
What do you mean?”
Now it was very well for Mr Primrose and his composing draught
that the wife of the gate-keeper was not nervous; for had she been
nervous, that sudden and almost ridiculous exclamation, uttered as it
was, in a very high key, and with a very loud voice, would certainly
have upset the cup together with its contents. If ever a composing
draught was necessary, it clearly was so on this occasion. The good
woman however did not let the cup fall, but with the utmost
composure looked at the patient and said:
“Lawk-a-mercy, sir, don’t be in such a taking. I durst to say the
poor cretter wasn’t nobody as you know. She was a kind of a poor
young lady like. There now, sir, pray do take your physic, ’cause
you’ll never get well if you don’t.”
Mr Primrose was still in great agitation, and that more from
imagination than apprehension. His nervous sensibility had been
excited, and everything that at all touched his feelings did most
deeply move him. He therefore answered the poor woman in a
hurried manner:
“Come, come, good woman, I will swallow the medicine, if you will
have the goodness to tell me all you know about this poor young
lady.”
Now, as it was very little that the good woman did know, she
thought it might be for the patient’s advantage if he would take the
medicine even upon those terms. For she had so much respect for
the skill of the doctor, that it was her firm opinion that the draught
would have more power in composing, than her slender narrative in
disturbing, the gentleman’s mind. She very calmly then handed the
cup and said: “Well, sir, then if you will but take the physic, I will tell
you all I know about the matter.”
Mr Primrose complied with the condition, and took the medicine
with so much eagerness, that he seemed as if he were about to
swallow cup and all.
“There, sir,” said the good woman, mightily pleased at her own
management; “now I hope you will soon get better.”
“Well, now I have taken my medicine; so tell me all you know
about this young lady.”
“Why, sir, ’tisn’t much as I know: only, about two months ago, that
coach what you came by was going up to town, and it stopped, as it
always does, at our gate, and the coachman says to my husband,
says he, ‘Here’s a poor young lady in the coach so ill that she cannot
travel any farther; can you take her in for a day or two?’ And so I
went and handed the poor thing out of the coach, and I put her to
bed; and sure enough, poor thing, she was very ill. Then, sir, I sent
for the doctor; but, dear me, he could do her no good: and so then I
used to go and talk to the poor cretter, and all she would say to me
was, ‘Pray, let me die.’ But in a few days she grew a little better, and
began to talk about continuing her journey, and I found out, sir, that
the poor dear lady was broken-hearted.”
Here the narrator paused. But hitherto no definite information had
been conveyed to Mr Primrose, and he almost repented that he had
taken the trouble to swallow the medicine for such a meagre
narrative.
“And is that all you know, good woman? Did not you learn her
name?”
“Yes,” replied the informant: “her name was Fitzpatrick: and after
she was gone, I asked the coachman who brought her, and he told
me that that wicked young nobleman, Lord Spoonbill, had taken the
poor thing away from her friends, and had promised to make a fine
lady of her, but afterwards deserted her and sent her about her
business. And all because my lord was mighty sweet upon another
young lady what lives at Smatterton.”
Now came the truth into Mr Primrose’s mind, and he readily knew
that this other young lady was his Penelope. This corroborated the
letter which Mr Darnley had written to him on the decease of Dr
Greendale. Happy was it for the father of Penelope that he had no
suspicion of unworthy intentions towards his daughter on the part of
Lord Spoonbill; and well was it for the traveller that he had
swallowed the composing draught. He received the information with
tolerable calmness, and thanking the poor woman for indulging his
curiosity, he very quietly dismissed her. And as soon as she was
gone he muttered to himself:
“My child shall never marry a villain, though he may be a
nobleman.”
CHAPTER XVI.
Whether it was that the medicine which Mr Primrose had taken
possessed extraordinary composing powers, or whether his mind
had been quieted by its own outrageous agitations, we cannot say;
but to whatever cause it might be owing, it is a fact that, on the
following morning he was much more composed, and the medical
attendant pronounced that he might without any danger proceed on
his journey.
He was not slow in availing himself of this permission, and he also
followed the suggestion of his medical attendant in not travelling by
the stage-coach. After astonishing the gate-keeper and his wife, and
also the doctor, by his liberality for their attention to him, he started in
a post-chaise for Smatterton. No accident or interruption impeded his
progress, and at a late hour he arrived at Neverden, intending to pay
his first visit to Mr Darnley, and designing through him to
communicate to Penelope the knowledge of his arrival, and prepare
her for the meeting.
It was necessary for Mr Primrose to introduce himself to Mr
Darnley. The stately rector of Neverden was in his study. He was not
much of a reading man, he never had been; but still it was necessary
that he should keep up appearances, and therefore he occasionally
shut himself up in that room which he called his study; and there he
would read for an hour or two some papers of the Spectator, or some
old numbers of the Gentleman’s Magazine, or Blackstone’s
Commentaries, or any other book of equal reputation for sound
principles. There is a great advantage in reading those books that
everybody talks about and nobody reads. It was also very proper
that, if any of the parishioners called on the rector, it might be
necessary to send for him “out of the study.” Sometimes also Mr
Darnley gave audiences in his study, and then the unlearned
agriculturists thought him a most wonderful man to have so many
books, and so many large books too; some of them looking as big as

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From Art to Marketing: The Relevance

ISBN 978-3-030-17007-3 ISBN 978-3-030-17008-0 (eBook)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan

1 Authenticity: A Polemical Concept 1

3 Authenticity in Marketing: Reality or Oxymoron? 41

5.5 Consumer Perceptions of Authenticity in Tourism 105

6.4 Recommendations for Future Research 139

Table 1.1 Etymologies of “authenticity” 7

Authenticity: A Polemical Concept

Abstract “Authenticity” is a polysemous and implicitly polemical

Keywords Authenticity · Truth to oneself · Originality · Legitimacy ·

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

1.2 What Is Authenticity?

etymons has affected the development of definitions of authenticity in

1.3 Etymologies of “Authenticity”

to oneself” has favored the development of authenticity as a subjective or

It is ‘authorship’, not ‘authority’, that is at the heart of the meaning of

1.4 The Historical Development

Table 1.1 Etymologies of “authenticity”

Etymologies of authenticity Meanings Criteria

αÙθεντικóς (authenticós) True to oneself Identity or correspondence

Authenticity is considered a Western cultural concept (Handler, 1986)

Shakespeare and Machiavelli show this incongruence between the private

A more strenuous moral experience than “sincerity” does, a more exigent

During the Enlightenment era, the notion of authenticity was linked to

Table 1.2 Conceptualizations of authenticity in different historical phases

Historical phases Concept of authenticity Dimensions of

Premodern Era Philosophical ideal of being Truth to oneself or

1.5 Authenticity Now

importance in contemporary society where the technological and digital

At present, individuals long for authenticity as they increasingly

Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Manch-

The Concept of Authenticity in the Broader

Abstract This chapter reviews the broader literature on authenticity and

Keywords Museum authenticity · Constructivism · Modernism ·

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 15

2.2 Art and Authenticity

In the context of art and heritage, two main perspectives on authen-

is achieved through scientific measurement (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). On

Thus, modernist approaches to authenticity develop the dimensions

All judgements about values attributed to heritage as well as the credibility

The modernist concept of authenticity is the foundation of indexical

the Chartres Cathedral, which is an “authentic instance of Gothic style

2.3 The Concept of Authenticity in Philosophy

2.3.1 Authenticity in Greek Philosophy

inauthenticity of reality characterized by industrialization and scientific

Thus, the search for authenticity is associated by nineteenth-century

2.3.2 Authenticity in the Modern Philosophy

“the inventor of authenticity in both its personal and collective guises”

Etymology Dictionary 2018) expresses the feeling of pain or regret for

(1857) poem Correspondences. The language of the poet–child is made

2.3.3 The Concept of Authenticity in Existentialist Philosophy

Dasein or “being-in-the-world” and “being-toward-death” as the condi-

For Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), authentic living corresponded

an integrative version of authenticity that reconciles individuals with the

2.4 Authenticity in Sociology

Goffman defined the concept of “face” as a person’s “most personal

For Handler (1986: 2) authenticity is a cultural construct of the

2.4.1 The Institutional Theory Perspective

1959), decoupling develops the dimension of difference, which is connat-

2.5 Authenticity in Psychology

private knowledge” (Kernis & Goldman, 2006: 296). Third, behavior