"Henry James's Use of "Vulgar

W HEN MAXWELL GEISMAR published his lengthy attack on James, Henry James and the Jacobites,1 he fastened with glee upon the negative associations surrounding, for the modern reader, James's use of the word vulgar. After quoting it2 from The Wings of the Dove, he concluded, somewhat savagely: And isn't a writer so horribly obsessed by the notion of'vulgarity' itself--and to this novelist, perhaps, nothing human was not vulgar-isn't such a writer more than half aware of his own vulgarity ? I am sure many James scholars feel that the best way to treat Geismar's book is to ignore it.3 In this matter, however, Geismar echoed, and only slightly exceeded, the conclusion of one whom he considers a high priest of the James cult, F. O. Matthiessen, whose Henry James4 has done as much as any critical study to elevate James's literary standing. For Matthiessen wrote, in the manner of a disciple torn between devotion to the master and devotion to the truth: Another word that shows the drift

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