The Question of Henry James (Revisited)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8894905 |
|---|---|
| Authors | William R Macnaughton (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1984 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 323-336 |
| Publication date | 1984-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Review of American Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-7720 • E-ISSN: 1710-114X |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.3138/cras-015-03-07 |
| OpenAlex | W2073345237 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
Alwyn Berland. Culture and conduct in the novels of Henry James. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1981.231 + xi pp. Nicola Bradbury. Henry James : The Later Novels. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. 228 pp. James Kirschke. Henry James and Impressionism. Troy, N.Y.: The Whitston Publishing Co., 1981. 333 + ix pp. R. W. J. Wilson. Henry James's Ultimate Narrative : "The Golden Bowl. "St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1981. 329 + xii pp. Ruth Bernard Yeazell. Language and Knowledge in the Late Novels of Henry James. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 1980.142 + vii pp. In a peculiar, hostile and fascinating review of James Miller, Jr.'s, book on The Waste Land, John Peter writes, "There's a bitter saying in North Ameri- can universities that the real difference between a businessman and an academic is that, when the businessman knifes a colleague in the back, he knows why."1 Although the smugness in the remark about businessmen seems somewhat chilling to me, I know enough about academic communi- ties to see a modicum of truth in this probably apocryphal observation. I note it here because in the following review of five relatively new books on Henry James, many of my own comments will be less than complementary, in a sense collegial knifings. Readers of this review essay should therefore be skeptical in advance about my motives and qualifications. I am not a Jacobite, and find the writings of Henry James beginning with The Spoils of Poynton to be difficult to read and at times not worth the effort. As a result, I occasionally suspect that his mammoth reputation is an unequi- vocal example of the Emperor's New Clothes, and wonder how a writer so narrow, so evasive, so—despite his self-justifications and self-glorifications in his Prefaces to the New York edition—frequently out of control, could inspire so much adulation
Art · Art history · Literature · Miller · Narrative · Publishing · Skepticism · Theology · Classics · History · Literary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Philosophy · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
Henry James and the Visual Arts
Henry James and the Jacobites
Henry James and Pragmatistic Thought
Person, Place, and Thing in Henry James's Novels
Henry James and the Experimental Novel
Stephen Crane and Literary Impressionism
Henry James and the Naturalist Movement
The Ordeal of Consciousness in Henry James
The Ambiguity of Henry James
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |