Henry James (1843-1916)

Henry James is generally acknowledged as a transition author, as ‘the last of

the Victorians and the first of the moderns’. H. James, Joseph Conrad and to a
smaller extent, Rudyard Kipling inaugurate a new type of novel characterized by a
modern sensibility in English literature.

James belonged to a famous American upper/class family, where fortune and

literary interests were present in abundance. His father was an accomplished
businessman and remarkable religious writer and his brother, William, was
considered a great philosopher in that period.
Born in America, he starts his education here but he continues his studies in
Europe (London, Paris, Geneva), returns to the States to Harvard Law School but he
abandons his studies for a literary career. After 1866, he lived mostly in Europe and
became a British subject in 1915.

Literary Activity
H. James published his 1st important novel in 1875 – Roderick Hudson, which
soon became a manifest of the new type of fiction, that of the 20 th century,
Modernism. Even if he does not totally belong to the class of modernists, in his
novels one may find strong elements which are different from the Victorian Age.
That is why he is often described as a transition author in whose activity one
discerns a new sensibility and a new approach to literature.
We may distinguish several groups of novels, not in a chronological order, but
from a thematic point of view:
 the impact of older European civilization upon America.
The American (1877)
Daisy Miller (1879)
The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

 second category, that of novels written in England and dealing with English
themes, considered as less important, but remarkable for the analysis of
English characters, extreme subtlety, fascination with the obscurity, doubled
by a refined commentary on the art of the novel.
The Tragic Muse (1890)
The Spoils of Poynton (1897)
The Awkward Age (1899)

 the third group comprises the very best novels, all written in the 20 th century;
they mark a return to the theme developed during the 1 st stage – the relation
between the old continent and the new world, a more complex novel dealing
 with the “international theme”, i.e. the heroes are either American or English
and they spend some time abroad, discovering their personality and becoming
stronger characters.
The Wings of the Dove (1902)
The Ambassadors (1903) - his most complex novel, conflict between
innocence and experience
The Golden Bowl (1904) – discovers the perversity of the old continent

Henry James is considered as radical by a part of literary criticism. This could

be due to his interest in modifying some essential elements of the literary text:
 he attaches an unprecedented importance to impurity (seen as a lack of logic
and coherence), a fact which completely shocked the audience
 he accompanies this by irony and detachment

H. James doubles this lack of purity of the plot by a lack of purity of the style.
As a result, he will be accused of obscurity, but, at the same time, will become an
inspiration for modernist writers.
Thus, he
 introduces new topics, such as anxiety and secret aspirations
 creates an artificial crisis – his task is to find a solution to that crisis
 his creation is a literary response to the social background

The question of national identity was crucial for H. James (for obvious
reasons – he leaves America for England) because his characters try to avoid it. They
are fugitives, innocents expelled from Eden (America), who try to discover their
inner self (personality) away from home.
When coming to Europe, characters perceive it at 2 levels:
- fascinating world, full of cultural wonders;
- place of corruption, suffused with sinister and sexual knowledge of the world.
For example, in Daisy Miller, the main character goes to Rome, to the Forum,
an area that is presented to the reader as a dangerous one, malaria (Roman fever) is
said to originate there. At the end, Daisy dies of malaria – symbolical.
In The Portrait of A Lady, Isabel Archer comes to England, travels to Italy
and ends up by making a disastrous marriage which is felt as frustrating by the
reader who cannot help sympathizing with her innocence.

On the art of the novel

He constantly meditated on the art of novel writing in his studies and prefaces
to his own novels. Their importance is continuously stressed by criticism as a
manifesto of the new Anglo-American type of fiction.
In James’s opinion, the novel is aesthetically as significant as poetry, drama or
painting.
He manages to impose an anatomist point of view in fiction criticism, stressing the
importance of identifying and classifying the elements of fiction.

His main contributions to the transformation of the novel, as they appear in

his literary considerations, were:
 the introspective novel;
 the development of the novel of reflective consciousness;
 the patterning technique = giving form to the novel in the process of
writing.

In his novels, the centre of interest shifts from the story or style
(traditionally) to the character’s consciousness. Therefore, the drama of his
novels is the drama of consciousness.
The conflict that the novel writer has to solve is situated between the
infinity of life relations and the finite form of fiction.

H. James deals with a limited number of themes and experiences, those that
he was familiarized with; he is not interested in the typical romantic feature, in
nature or realistic issues such as social and political problems.
His sphere was the novel of manners, concerned with a limited number of
characters, the rich and over-sophisticated international society. They belong to no
particular country and they easily feel at home anywhere. James studies them from
the point of view of development of the character through the work of fiction and
the social relationships they are involved in.

Criticism has noticed that he is obsessed with the theme of ‘evil’, therefore
the motif of ‘right and wrong’ occupies a central place in his work. The ethical
issue lies at the epicenter of all his novels as the most important force that drives
human existence.
He imagines an ideal place of beauty but he remains, however, a realist. His
basic artistic principle was that the novelist had to produce imaginary creations by
answering to situations and actions that existed in the actual space and time.
He conveys the illusion of reality by copying the rhythm of life (not as in
Stendhal, Le Rouge et le Noir, where ‘un roman, c’est un miroir qu’on promène le
long d’un chemin’).

Novels

The Wings of the Dove is the story of a man’s decision to give to a sick and very
rich woman a taste of happiness by marrying her. The author was tempted to make
nationalistic descriptions but he avoids the presentation of moral indecency in
every-day life.
The main character, Milly Theale, an American millionaire who travels to
Europe and who suffers from an incurable disease, falls in love with Merton
Densher, who wants to take advantage of her fortune but in his own complicated
way seems to love her.
The basic style of the novel is the indirect style; the author forces the reader
to look for the significance of the episodes, imagining the labyrinth of events
without giving him the key to these events.
He is exploring the consciousness of the characters by inviting the readers to
give significance to their acts, presenting the characters in an open manner during
the course of events. The second important manner of characterization is by using
conversation which allows a somewhat theatrical vision on reality. The characters
aren’t presented in their chronological evolution but by face to face confrontation
which provides that the plot presents a series of events based on the relations
established between the characters.

The Ambassadors The title is symbolic and announces that there will be some sort
of conflicting situation and encounters more or less ceremonial. Basically, we have
two connected stories, that of a young American, Chad Newsome, involved in a
strange love story in Europe and that of Lambert Strether who is sent by Chad’s
mother to bring him back to America. When he arrives to Europe, Strether
discovers that his mentality does not fit at all the experience of the European
culture; he is an idealist who preserves a great deal of innocence as compared to
Paris society; when he arrives he considers that Paris is the embodiment of
Babylon and Chad must be its victim.
However, the situation is more complex: Chad has become a European, a
very refined lover; he’s not at all the victim of Mme de Vionnet. (quite the
opposite, she is the victim; he takes advantage of her)
Strether also wants to explore the mysteries of European civilization, so his
personality is split between duty and pleasure, i.e. bringing Chad back vs.
investigating the beauty of European life. The analysis of Strether’s consciousness
occupies an important place in the novel.
He meets Maria Gostrey, who becomes a sort of guide in this process of
Europeanization of Strether’s. She plays the role of an eye-opener, as she makes
him realize that the other ‘ambassadors’ sent by Mrs. Newsome (Waymarsh and
Sarah Pocock) are limited and incapable to understand reality. When Waymarsh
and Sarah Pocock arrive, we realize that Strether has failed and his ambitions don’t
exist anymore, he betrayed his mission. He however preserves his idealism and
gradually comes to understand the Old Continent and its complex structure; he
becomes a keen observer of the enriching experience he finds here.
H. James wanted to underline the impossibility to reconcile the American
provincialism and the European sophistication. That’s probably why Strether
refuses Maria Gostrey, in an attempt to prove that his innocent side is stronger than
the experienced, sophisticated one.

In The Golden Bowl James goes further and presents in an ironic form the process
of desacralisation of the innocent. The main character, Maggie Verver, is the
embodiment of the supreme beauty who becomes the victim of an American
couple: Prince Amerigo and Charlotte Stant.
One of James’s favorite techniques relies on shifting points of view:
- in the first part of the novel, the story is told from Amerigo’s point of view;
- in the second part we are presented with Maggie’s point of view.
The result is the impression of a complicated society whose rules are not
psychological but rather the rules of a game: the character ironically change
partners, betray each other and are involved in meaningless actions and
purposeless situations.
James succeeded in giving his best comedy of appearances, the reader is
involved to a greater extent and thus the author came closer to the modernist
fiction. As a matter of fact, the novel is based on some modern techniques, such as:
- irony;
- deception;
- emphasis on textual gaps and ambiguity.
These are actually strategies designed to increase the reader’s participation
in interpreting the novel. Such techniques that bring forth the subjectivity of the
reader in the process of decoding the text imposed H. James as one of the fathers
of modern literature.

In The Portrait of A Lady, Isabel Archer is a young, self-educated American

woman from Albany, NY. Losing her mother when she was a child and being
raised by an absent father, turned Isabel into an intelligent, confident and
independent woman who had a reputation of intimidating men. Caspar Goodwood,
the son of a wealthy Bostonian, is no exception. He proposes Isabel, but she
refuses to marry him, although she is drawn to him, because she believes that such
a commitment would mean sacrificing her freedom.
Her father dies and Isabel’s aunt, Mrs. Touchett, offers to take her to Europe.
Isabel gladly accepts as she was feeling trapped by Caspar’s insistence and gives
her a reason to tell him that she needs to think about his proposal. When she
arrives to England, at the Touchetts’ estate in Gardencourt, Isabel makes a strong
impression on everyone. Not only her cousin Ralph, who is slowly dying of a lung
disease, but also one of the neighbours, Lord Warburton, are charmed with her
personality. Lord Warburton proposes but she declines for the same reasons that
she invoked in Caspar’s case.
One of Isabel’s friends, Henrietta Stackpole, arranges for Caspar to meet
Isabel in London, but his renewed proposal is declined once again. As his father’s
condition deteriorates, Ralph convinces him to leave half of his fortune to Isabel,
so that won’t have to marry for money, and Mr. Touchett agrees.
When he dies, Isabel is left with a large fortune and soon becomes
interesting for one of Mrs. Touchett’s friends, Madame Merle. They soon become
friends and Isabel goes to Florence with Mrs. T. and Mme Merle, where Isabel
meets Gilbert Osmond, who despite his rather delicate social standing is described
by Mme Merle as one of the finest gentlemen in Europe. Osmond’s daughter Pansy
is being brought up in a convent; his wife is dead. In secret, Osmond and Merle
have a mysterious relationship and Merle is trying to manipulate Isabel into
marrying Osmond so that he will have access to her fortune.
Despite warnings from Ralph, Isabel chooses to marry Osmond. Three years
later, Isabel and Osmond have come to despise one another; they live with Pansy in
a palazzo in Rome, where Osmond treats Isabel badly: to him, she is a a source of
wealth, and he is annoyed by her independence. Despite her commitment to her
independence, Isabel is also committed to her social duty, and does not consider
leaving Osmond.
Isabel comes to realize that there is something mysterious about Madame
Merle’s relationship with her husband; and she finds out that Merle is his lover. At
this time, Ralph’s condition is rapidly deteriorating, and Isabel receives word that
he is dying.
As Osmond forbids her to go and see Ralph, Isabel decides to follow her
heart and travel to England. Encouraging her to go, Osmond’s sister, the Countess
Gemini, tells her that Merle is Pansy’s mother. Osmond’s wife died at about the
time the child was born, so Merle and Osmond spread the story that she died in
childbirth. Pansy was placed in a convent to be raised, and she does not know that
Merle is her real mother.
After Ralph’s death, Isabel struggles to decide whether to return to her
husband or not. She promised Pansy that she would return to Rome, and her
commitment to social propriety impels her to go back and honour her marriage.
But her independent spirit urges her to flee from Osmond and find happiness
elsewhere.
Caspar Goodwood appears at the funeral, and afterwards, he asks Isabel
to run away with him and forget about her husband. The next day, unable to find
her, Goodwood asks Henrietta where she has gone. Henrietta quietly tells him
that Isabel has returned to Rome, unable to break away from her marriage to
Gilbert Osmond.