HENRY JAMES : A Novelist and Theorist of Fiction

 

·       HENRY JAMES : A Novelist and Theorist of Fiction

 

 

 

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Henry James was a pioneer in theory and criticism of the novel albeit he did not pen down any systematic writing in a book form on the art of fiction. According to Henry James ,fiction was something deeper. He felt that fiction must have the tendency to subordinate action to psychology and the central theme should be in the mental and spiritual development of the character rather than in their physical adventure. For Henry James ,the broad definition of novel can be personal  direct impression of life and value, depending upon the intensity of impression. At the outset, English novel had neither theory nor consciousness nor conviction. Henry james was the first to catch the atmosphere of mind and discover the ecosystem of the psychological world in his fiction. He was basically an analytical author. He championed or declared triumph over central intelligence and international theme. He showed his concerns for form and order ,authenticity and new vision in which hypothetical things and realistic objects can be precisely mixed. The rhetoric of fiction was less sublime in his novel. But the surprising thing is that  there were more ideologies, more emphasis and conventions but there was lack of authenticity due to his shallow observation as he is deprived of first hand experience.

                 For Henry james , the novelist is a particular window widely open to the world who simultaneously consult intensely with life and again intensely ignore life. When he discussed relationship between people and people and people and events, he negotiated them in particular situation rather than in general. His subjects have moral contents. The progress of his novel was primarily psychological and the value of work lied in the anecdotes. His subjects dwell on inner thoughts and tensions rather than in real world. He felt that the mere cause for the existence of novel is to represent life. He was amazingly prolific and productive writer and intensely moralistic novel critic.

                He believed in the superiority of art over life. His writings are interpersonal with various views regarding art of fiction. He had decided moral leaning towards morality which was not based on the cost of art. He had incredible faith that a good novel is the execution of good impulses in the minds of readers and other human beings. A good novel always stimulates the desire for perfection.

                He firmly trusts that experience doesn't mean rebellion, revolution, upheaval, war and battle. It all depends upon the imaginative sensibility and the fertility of the novelists mind. For james ,life is deeper, more inner and psychological. He has the fascination for sumptuous subjects. He believes in the fullest freedom of mankind and liberty of mind. He wishes philosophical bent of mind in novelist so that he may see an ideal concept of man. In Henry James, there is an ideal fusion of all necessary qualities like exciting sensibility, splendid visual sense, ample and exquisite style. He believed that life and literature should be mixed in such a way that it should be difficult to separate one from the another. He also believed that a novel must have an ideal vision, farsightedness , moral leaning and round finish. He felt that there should be a new vision in which imagination and reality should be mixed in a proper way. –SANDIPAN ROY

 

 

2.

Henry James is called the first of the greatest psychological realists in English Literature. He is also regarded as one of America's most influential critics and literary theorists besides being Honored as one of the greatest artists of the novel. During his literary career, which spanned the period from the end of the American Civil War to the beginning of World War I, James produced tales and novels that form many volumes and an almost equal number of volumes of non-fictional prose, including travel books, autobiography, books of criticism, letters. Henry James was born in New York City on April 15, 1843, into a prominent family. His father, Henry James, Sr. exposed his children to the cultural advantages of New England, especially Europe; before he reached his eighteen, the Henry James had lived abroad for extended periods on three separate occasions.

James is one of the major figures of trans-Atlantic literature. His works frequently juxtapose characters from the Old World of Europe embodying a feudal civilization that is beautiful, often corrupt, and alluring, and from the New World (United States), where people are often brash, open, and assertive and the virtues of the new American society —personal freedom and a more highly evolved moral character. James presents this clash of personalities and cultures, in stories of personal relationships where power is represented good or badly.

 

The first period of James's fiction, usually considered to have culminated in The Portrait of a Lady, concentrated on the contrast between Europe and America. The second period of James's career, which extends from the publication of The Portrait of a Lady through the end of the nineteenth century, features less popular novels including The Princess Casamassima, published serially in The Atlantic Monthly in 1885-1886, and The Bostonians, published serially in The Century Magazine during the same period. This period also featured James's celebrated Gothic novella, The Turn of the Screw. The third period of James's career reached its most significant achievement in three novels published just around the start of the 20th century: The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903), and The Golden Bowl (1904).

 

It is in his essay The Art of Fiction that James most succinctly expressed his critical principles as well as a justification of his novelistic endeavor. The objective of his essay is threefold. Firstly, he is combating what he takes to view the novel as a genuine art form. His text was written in part as a direct response to a lecture and pamphlet of the same title by the novelist and critic. James is concerned to establish the novel as a serious art form rather than as merely an amusing or escapist pastime. Secondly, he asserts that rules can be somehow prescribed for fiction. James’ central claim is that the novelist and the novel must be free. Finally, James is highly conscious of a puritanical environment that views art as having an injurious effect, and as opposed to morality, amusement, or instruction. Hence, for James, novelistic freedom entails also liberation from moral and educational requirements and constraints.---MANAB KARMAKAR

 

 

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Henry James is regarded American most influential critics and literary theorist.The novel has struggled to be taken seriously as an art form. The very title of James’s essay begins his campaign on its behalf: ‘art’ and ‘fiction’, often seen at odds with each other, are placed side by side here. Prose fiction includes short stories, novellas (longer short stories), and the novel. James regarded the novel as supreme in its importance, not least because of the possibilities it provided for larger-scale plot development and characterization. In this essay, as Mark Spilka has argued, James began ‘an adventure of immense importance to the novel’s history’ (1977: 208).

 

James begins by referring to ‘the mystery of story-telling’ (1884: 44), and it is worth reminding ourselves that the word ‘mystery’ originally referred to the secrets of a particular trade, or craft, and that ‘art’ was generally applied in mediaeval times and beyond to practical skills. James’s perspective in this essay is very much that of the producer, of the novelist, and he wants to retrieve this older, practical sense of ‘art’, together with the meaning that developed in the Romantic period (in literature, from around the 1780s through to the 1830s). In that period, artists were regarded as creative geniuses involved in the production of beautiful artefacts. What defined art, increasingly in the nineteenth century, was its detachment from the world, or its apparent lack of a specifiable purpose. The best fiction, for James, is an art because it involves both the kind of proficiency in a craft that comes with a long apprenticeship and the individual creative genius celebrated by Romantic writers such as the English poets William Wordsworth (1770–1850) and John Keats (1795– 1821). By combining these meanings of ‘art’, James attempts to fend off those who attack the novel for having ‘no great character’ and for being a ‘commodity so quickly and easily produced’ (1884: 49).

 

At the core of James’s definition of the novel is what he sees as its responsibility to represent life. He states that this is ‘the only reason for the existence of a novel’ (1884: 46). But it soon emerges that James is committed to a complex and shifting sense of what this responsibility amounts to. Part of the reason for these complications is James’s belief that ‘a novel ought to be artistic’ (1884: 47) as well as a representation of life. In an era of burgeoning popular photography, James wants to put as much distance as possible between the novel and crude realism. He argues that ‘[a] novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life’ (1884: 50). Crucially important here is the imaginative power of the writer; and this is what distinguishes the good novel from the bad, or popular, novel. To write artistic novels, rather than novels merely, the author must have ‘[t]he power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern’ (1884: 53). -BAPPA SARKAR

 

4.

           Henry James is an American novelist , essayist and critic . It is said that had James had not written a single novel throughout his life , he would still be remembered for his well-proportionate and large output of critical works , like “The Art of Fiction” , “The New Novel” and numerous prefaces to his own novels as in “The Portrait of a Lady” .  His views as a novelist and also as a critic are somewhat different from the traditional ones . As his concept of art is , it seems no less than an avantgarde in the field of writing about the construction and style of fiction writing , especially Novel Writing . His way of looking at art is quite similar as it is seen in the movement , “Arts for art’s sake” .

 

 

              He seems quite impressed by the authors in French who wrote fiction with more agreeable qualities than those of the English Writers . He is of the view that a novel does not necessarily have to have a grand or lofty theme in its writing , a very ordinary theme , a very ordinary idea can be made into a novel .

 

              A novelist projects himself into life , and a good critic projects himself into another mind . The perfect synthesis can be found in Henry James . He is skilful in both . He has written around twenty two novels . He has also written many critical works . In one of his writing , he says :

“ it is with the kinds of criticism exactly as it is with the kinds of art—the best kind, the only kind worth speaking of, is the kind that springs from the liveliest experience.”

 

               In the preface to “The Portrait of a Lady” ,we get a beautiful passage in written almost in Henry James’s colloquial tone . It speaks a lot about James’s personal views on the art of novel writing , how to construct a novel . He uses many metaphors and similes to explain his views , e.g. , windows and so on . We can quote some portion from there :.  

   “The house of fiction has… not one window, but a million—a number of possible windows not to be reckoned …. He and his neighbours are watching the same show, but one seeing more where the other sees less, one seeing black where the other sees white, one seeing big where the other sees small, one seeing coarse where the other sees fine…..Tell me what the artist is, and I will tell you what he has been conscious.”

 

                To him , the work of art is the direct impression of life . So in any writing of art , there should be no use of forced didacticism , rather it should be true to the author’s thoughts and feelings . And to speak of subject matter , one should not be limited . The input in a work of art is , as James hints , is the concrete projection of the artist’s mind with all its intricacies and complexities . In this regard we can quote : “The success of a work of art, to my mind, may be measured by the degree to which it produces a certain illusion; that illusion makes it appear to us for the time that we have lived another life—that we have had a miraculous enlargement of experience.”

 

 

           We can not deny the fact that Henry James is a real gem , a true theorist in writing a kind of whole prospectus of how to write fiction , what to avoid , what to include . He writes :It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance… and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.”

~BIKRAM CHOWDHURY

 

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The greatest figure among the victorian modern novelist is Henry James.He remains a prolific novelist,but his pre-eminence lies in the modernity of his craft,in which he far surpasses his contemporaries, claiming him as a modern novelist,a critic  has complimented him as " the greatest of our contemporaries".He is best known for a number of novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between Americans ,english people and continental Europeans.For example "The Portrait of a Lady"," The Wings of the Dove".

       The key to James's choice of subject is to be found in his own life.AnAmrrican fascinated by the charm of an older civilization,he finds a great many of his themes in the impact of one type of society upon the product of another,in study of the processes of adjustment and their effect upon the development of the ind character.

       His novels of the middle period is concerned  with decisively englishthemes.To this period,belong the novels" The pragic Muse" & " The AwakardAge".In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters,James often made use of a style in which ambiguous and impression were overlaid in the discussion of a character's psyche.Joseph Conrad regards him as" Historian of five conscious"

     Beyond his fiction,James was one of most important critics and therorists in the history of English literature."Art of Fiction" is important to recognize the value of the novel. In this,he accepted  the arguments by Walter Besant namely.....

1) we should also value narrative fiction.

2)lows for writing novel is important.

3) Mastering rule is necessary but it is not ultimate way to success because natural talent is important.

        According to James, the purpose of novel is to represent life & his points are...

1) novelist must write things,which he didn't experience.

2)the inner work of a character should be outlined not the appearance.

3) a novel must be interesting without imbinding  rule.

     Thus from the above discussion, we find that though the word  considers Henry,. james  more as a novelist,his contribution is lying down theory  about the art of fiction is not less important.In his " Art of Fiction", he argued against rigid prescription on the novelist choice of subject & method of treatment  .That is why, he is not only a greatest novelist ,but also a theorist.

 

-JagritiNath

 

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   Henry James though an American, occupies a distinctive place in the history of the English novel. Though he died in 1916,yet he is a modern in many ways, "In the history of the English novel James holds a position analogous to Flaubert's in the French, both strove to give the novel the aesthetic intensity of a great poem or a great painting, "says Walter Allen. He was a prolific writer who has left behind him a number of novels, short stories, essays, articles and critical tracts. Henry James developed his theory of the novel in his famous critical work 'The Art of Fiction '. According to James, the main business of the novelist is to give his impressions of life in such a manner as to create an illusion of reality in his work. Henry James departed from the Victorian tradition, in as such as he paid no attention to the construction of his plots. He was essentially an impressionist and a psychologist and as such he did not care much for the coherence or otherwise of his plots. James is an "intellectual "novelist and not a "passionate "one. He is concerned more with the study of mental processes than with the emotions of the human heart. James was a great artist who "incessantly experimented with technique, moving from subtlety to subtlety, from strength to strength ".James was the first to adopt the technique of "the stream of consciousness "which was developed later by James Joyce and Virgina Woolf. To many readers his novels appear "long Winded or affected "or complex and intricate due to his technique of presenting the impression or "points of view "of a number of different characters. – SHASWATI DAS

 

 

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       Through Henry James ,the novel in England and America reached a new level of maturity and refinement.He is the greatest figure among the American novelists.Two dominant themes are found in his novels.

one ,there is his international subject in which the range of his novel prolonged to America and the relationship between Europe and America.

And the other one is, related to the corruption of the influence of the sophisticated man.

 

James was one of the most reliable, important critics and theorists in the American History of Literature. James' powerful imagination exhausts the possibilities of his fictional situations.The resulting narrative is jam packed with information, distinctions, shades of meaning and so on.Beginning in ignorance he acquires a smattering of Europe's culture . F. O. Matthiessen suggests an important lesson for the literary critic whose first and perhaps only task in regards to Henry James can be "to read” his fiction. From the beginning of his career he brought to the craft of the novelist a high seriousness and a new sense of the writer's responsibility for the integrity of his work. While he lived ,no one in England or America wrote novels more worthy of admiration.

 

        Thus, from the above discussion,we find that though the world considers Henry James more as a novelist, his contribution in lying down theory about the art of fiction is not less important. ----Tanushree Biswas.

 

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In 1884 the publication of "the art of fiction" awarded Henry the title: a literary theorist. The article did not only give him a title but also explored new ways of reading his novel. The article, however, has a little to do with the role of imagination in art. What mainly attracted his attention is how a writer's culture serves the source of his works. As Henry stated in his famous essay "The Future of the Novel": " the future of fiction is intimately bound up with the future of the society and that produces and consumes it." Thus, according to Henry, every literally piece serves it's own age.

While giving an idea about novel, James said in "The Art of Fiction", that in the most general sense a novel was "a personal, a direct impression of life". In the case of his famous novel " Portrait of a Lady"  he mainly focused on creating a direct impression of the protagonist Isabel. And to create impression James bent on life and reality. Life, he said in the Prefaces was all " inclusion and confusion ", a " thick jungle", an endless multitudinous stream. however he believed that there was no single reality but only the flux and flow of life and experiencing life is actually storing all  impressions. In his favorite metaphor, the million windowed "house of fiction" helps every individual to explore a new reality. These all together created the fictional world of an individual. And this very theory of fiction is applied in the novels of James which makes his works worthy to analyze. - SRIPARNA DATTA.

 

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Henry James was an American novelist and critic. He was a voluminous writer whose works include novels, short story, and criticism. He was also a friend of New England group of writers. He remains a prolific novelist, but his per-eminence lies in the modernity of his craft, in which he for surpasses his contemporaries. He is best known for a number of novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between Americans, English people, and continental Europeans. For example, "The portrait of a lady", "The Ambassadors" and "The Wings of the Dove”.

 

James’ range, as a novelist, is found considerably broader than what his contemporaries could imagine. Two themes are found dominant in his novels. First, there is his international subject in which the range of his novel extends to america and the relationship between Europe and  America.The other theme is related to the corruption of the seductive influence of the sophisticated man.Of course, James implies here, with a symbolic  suggestiveness, the impact of European sophistication on American innocences.These two themes are found together in his early novels.

 His novels of the midddle period is concerned with decisively English themes. To this period belong the novels “The Tragic Muse” and “The Awkward Age”. In the last period considered to be his greatest phase of his authorship,he is found to return to his old American-European subject matter.Thelaternovel,related to contemporary London.His later works were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind, and social dynamics of his characters, James often made use of a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character’s psyche. Joshep Conrad regards him as the “ Historian of five consciousness”. James’ best fiction “reveals the complex psychological motivations that animate men, the social institution that mould them  and the moral dilemmas from which they emerge diminished or enhanced.”He is regarded as “one of the greatest writers  and most civilized intelligence of modern times”

Henry James elaborated his views on the Art of Fiction in his essays and prefaces.He thought it unfortunate that novel had no”theory ,a conviction, a consciousness of itself behind it…” He had a high conception of art. Art is not separate from life,According to him it is” art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance.”His Art of Fiction is important to recognize the value of novel.Walter Besant delivers lectures on “Fiction as one of the fine arts” and published as an essay with the same name as “ Art of fiction”

In his Art of Fiction he argued against rigid perceptions on the novelist choice of subject and method of treatment.His central idea is to freedom of fiction .”The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life…as the picture is reality,so the novel is history.” That is why he is not only a great novelist but also a theorist. -ARPITA SAHA

 

 

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Henry James(1843-1916) was an American novelist  and critic. He was a prolific writer. He had tired his hand in writing of novels, short stories, travel sketches, literary criticism and autobiography. During his lifetime he wrote 20 novels. "The portrait Of A Lady"(1881) is his best novel. James through out his novels portrays the lives of people such as himself. To him novels should not judge with the moral purpose but with the presentation of the reality of life.

 

His first novel is "Roderick Hudson" (1875)  in which he deals with contrast between the young American Civilization older European Culture. " The tragic Muse" (1890), "The spolis Of Poynton"(1897) and "The awkward  Age (1899) are some of other novels of Henry James. These novels are mainly devoted to the study of the English character. "The Wings of The Dove" (1902), "The Ambassador"(1903), " The Golden Bowl" (1904)— these are the novels that gives his career a high recognition. The theme of these novels are also the contrast between  European and American culture.

 

After the above discussion, two themes are found dominant in his novels. First one is his international subject which aggravates his novels to America and the the relationship between America and Europe. And second one is the innocence and exuberance of the New World in clash of with the corruption and wisdom of the old.

 

Henry James wrote "The Art of Fiction"(1884) as a rebuttal to " Fiction as one of the Fine Arts", a lecture given by Walter Besant. In this essay Henry James argues against the restrictive rules for writing and expresses his own point of view.

 

Henry James concerned with man as a social being, not with the relation of man with his God. He presented his own life as the subject of his novel. Rather following the restrictive rules of writing, he presented his own theory of writing. He expressed his own experience in his novels because to him experience is boundless. The representation of life and freedom of form are the main purpose of his novels. For these we can call him a great theorist as well as a great novelist  . – PRIYA SAHA

 

 

 

 

 

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Henry James was born 15 April 1843, New York, U.S.A  and died February 28, 1916, in London, England. He was an American author. He also wrote short stories, plays, fiction, non-fiction etc. His father, Henry James, was a lecturer and philosopher. His younger brother, William James, pragmatic philosopher.

  We know that a novelist is an author or writers of a novel, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. So, Henry James is also known as an American novelist. He has developed the technique of the novel and it is the most important contribution of Henry James in English literature. In his novels, we can see the technique of James through the stories and characters. His major works are - "The Portrait of a lady" ( masterpiece), "The American"(1877), "Washington Square"(1880), "Confidence", "The Golden bowl"(1904), "Daisy Miller"(1878) etc.

  Henry James had travelled to many places like  England, France, Italy, America. So we can see the influence of the places in his writings. In "The Portrait of a lady" we can see the divide between America and Europe. In "The American" the author showed us the difference between American and European society. The setting of the novel "The Golden Bowl" is in America. Therefore we have introduced the differences between the other countries, the cultures, the behaviour etc.

      Besides of a novelist, Henry James is also a theorist. A theory is a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained. Theorist, a person concerned with the theoretical aspects of a subject. For the first time, he composed a theory of the novel and selected the novels as an art form. James plans to show that fiction, all the other arts, is limitless. According to, Henry James, the most important thing - an author needs is freedom. Henry James tried to show us his idea in his writing " Art of Fiction "

        ---- MOU SARKAR .

 

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In the latter half of 19 th century, English literary basically the novel was not accepted on the seat of a respectable literary. American novel in 1870's also was chiefly concerned with story -telling method and adventure. James with his 'grasping imagination 'accepted the challenge and discovered his distinctly modern art which is grounded on the summation of commitment and devotion as a novelist and theorist.AsT.S.Eliot rightly said that Henry James is one of the great novelist as well as a theorist is equally important. He has written about all aspect of Literary Fiction in the form of critical appreciation, notes and prefaces.However James was always unhappy with the form and technique in novel.He found that the Victorian novel,inferior  in beauty precisely because of its incoherent quality and lack of form.James felt that the novel should develop a complete grammar and rhetoric. In James's view,an achieved work of art should have movement,intensity,coherence and objectivity.It should of course also have an aura of reality and life,morality and vision.Hence,in the end of the novel "The Portrait of a lady" when Isabel decides to go back to Osmond we can infer that the ultimate values of renunciation shown by Isabel are a projection of the novelist's own Puritan outlook.We can say that concreteness of detail and interaction of character,not Nationalist, produce morally important situations in his writings.Thusin the due course of time James's theories of fiction as well as novel come to influence the critics and writers quite deeply. – NAZESH AFROZ

 

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A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and nonfiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novel and other fiction, while others aspire to support themselves in this way or write as an avocation. A theorist is someone who develops an abstract idea or set of ideas about a particular subject to explain it. A person who is concerned with theory. Henry James is an American author who has them both quality. He is a novelist the one hand a theorist.

         Henry James is known as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. "The Portrait of a Lady", "The Golden Bowl", " The Aspern Papers", "What Maisie Knew", "The Ambassadors", " Washington Square", "The Bostonians", " Daisy Miller", " The Turn of the Screw "," The Tragic Muse" are the famous one.

         In the "Portrait of a Lady ", James concluded the first phase of his career with a novel that remains his most popular piece of long fiction. The text concentrates on the contrast between Europe and America. The story is of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer. " The Golden Bowl " is a study of marriage and adultery that completes what some critics have called the "major phase" of James' career. The text explores the tangle of interrelationships between a father and a daughter and their respective souses. "The Aspern Paper " is based on the letters Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to Mary Shelley's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, who saved them until she died. "What Maisie Knew " tells the story of the sensitive daughter of divorced, irresponsible, and narcissistic parents. "The Ambassadors " is a dark comedy that follows the trip of the protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe to bring the son of his widowed fiancee back to the family business. "Washington Square" is based upon a true story told to James by his close friend. The text deals with the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, unemotional father. "The Turn of the Screw " is considered a work of both gothic and horror fiction. The text follows a governess who, caring for two children at a remote estate, becomes convinced that the grounds are haunted. " The Tragic Muse " deals with the fortunes of two would-be artists: Nick Dormer, who throws over a political career in his efforts to become a painter, and Miriam Rooth, an actress striving for artist and commercial success. A cast of supporting characters helps and hinders their pursuits.

          To conclude we may consider Henry James both as a novelist and as a theorist. Most of the themes of his novel deal with the abstract idea about a particular subject to explain it through his work.

-         SNEHA DEBNATH

 

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Henry James' literary career has been divided into three stages or "periods": the early period, the middle years, and the "later manner" or,  the major phase.

 

The period of James' apprenticeship and first success — the early period of his career, is characterized by his discovery and development of the "international" theme: the study of the American abroad, the juxtaposition of New World innocence and Old World experience, American freedom and European convention, and an examination of the conflicting values of the two societies. Works of this period include Roderick Hudson; The American, James' first really successful novel; Daisy Miller; The Europeans; and the triumphant novel which ends this period, The Portrait of a Lady.

 

           The most important thing -according to James- an author needs is freedom. James differs between the freedom of content and the freedom of form, i.e. style. The first is necessary for intensity within the novel and generally the content is more important than the form. James gives his own idea of how one should proceed if one wants to write a novel: The first step is to observe life and take as many notes as possible. The next step is that the author asks himself which of his notes he can use for his work. James underlines the fact that it is only the author himself who can answer this question and that he should not receive any help from critics or other authors. After the task of deciding which incidents to make use of, the next step leaves the field of content and enters the field of style. The characterisation of people can be realised by three different manners: Description, dialogue and incident. Description is to be understood as the character's action, dialogue as the character's talking, incident as moments in which the character does something that not necessarily is important for the plot but serves as a part of characterisation. It is in the detailed description where he sees an important element for a true and realistic description of the real life that is produced as an illusion of life in the novels.

 

Since the inner structure and organization of a work of art is the concrete projection of the artist’s mind, it follows that when a work has aesthetic significance it also has moral significance and can reveal some of the most important truths about human character. The young James still believed that there were moral and immoral subjects, a view he rejected by the time he wrote the Prefaces.

 

                ---TANMAY PAUL

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 Henry James has been called the first of the great psychological realists in our time. Honored as one of the greatest artists of the novel, he is also regarded as one of America’s most influential critics and literary theorists. During the fifty years of his literary career, which spanned the period from the end of the American Civil War to the beginning of World War I, James produced a body of tales and novels that fills thirty-six volumes and an almost equal number of volumes of non-fiction prose, including travel books, autobiography, books of criticism, letters, and literary notebooks.In fact, James used the opportunity to present his ideas on the novel of fiction: “A novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life”. It is very important for him to stress that life is personally -and therefore subjectively- received by an author who than tries to represent life in his work.

 

  James sees “the idea of the tale being the revolution that takes place in the poor man. In a notebook he described “The Art of Fiction” as  a ‘germ’. Othe impression made on him by the particular experience, the incident in which this revolution and this impression embody themselves. They are determined by certain circumstances, and they produce a situation.The characterisation of people can be realised by three different manners: Description, dialogue and incident. Description is to be understood as the character’s action, dialogue as the character’s talking, incident as moments in which the character does something that not necessarily is important for the plot but serves as a part of characterisation. The author has to make use of all three elements because only a composition of them enables him to characterise his characters in a good and realistic way, according to James, It is in the detailed description where he sees an important element for a true and realistic description of the real life that is produced as an illusion of life in the novels.

 

 He has been asked to illustrate the first book of a series in which the characters belong to the upper class. The Monarchs, who are short of money, want to sit for him, convinced that they are the “real thing.”He soon realizes, however, that he cannot do anything with them: “do what I would with it, my drawing looked like a photograph or a copy of a photograph.” He makes the lady sit in different positions but she obliterates the differences. “She was always a lady certainly and into the bargain she was always the same lady. She was the real thing but always the same thing. They are good actors while the others are only good subjects for photographs, they are the “make-believe” opposed to the “real thing.” Besides, their plasticity and shifting variety are those of life itself and they stimulate the artist’s imagination where the static perfection of the Monarchs only paralyzes it. By illustrating the Monarchs’ failure with life and the painter’s failure with the Monarchs the tale amply demonstrates that perception is nothing without imagination.Such works are good—aesthetically and morally and these works are reflected in James every novels.

 

------- SHUBHANKITA DAS

 

16.

 

               Henry James was one of the most prolific prose writers in the history of English Literature. James’ evolving artistic intentions and literary style mirrored the transition between Literary realism and literary modernism. He was one of the first major novelists to utilize modernist, stream-of-consciousness techniques, and he perfected an aesthetic approach that obviates a conventional omniscient narrative voice.

                            In his novels, he had masterfully sketched the portrayal of American and European society and intersected the class and cultural differences between these two western societies. His works frequently juxtapose characters from different worlds—the Old World (Europe), simultaneously artistic, corrupting, and alluring; and the New World (United States), where people are often brash, open, and assertive—and explore how this clash of personalities and cultures affects the two worlds. Some of his best-known novels that explore intercultural connections, The American(1877), The Europeans (1878), Daisy Miller(1879), The Portrait of a Lady(1881), The Ambassadors(1903), and The Golden Bowl(1904).

                          His earlier work is considered realist because of the carefully described details of his characters’ physical surroundings. But, throughout his long career, James maintained a strong interest in a variety of artistic effects and movements. His work gradually became more symbolic and metaphorical as he entered more deeply into the minds of his characters.

                           James’s literary-critical view was influenced by Matthew Arnold, Goethe and Charles Augustin Sainte Beuve and he had acquired the idea of critical “disinterestedness”, from these writers.  He found it as a mediation between history and philosophy since criticism deals with both facts and ideas. James most concisely expressed his critical principles and a justification of his novelistic endeavour in his essay ‘The Art of Fiction(1884)’. James is concerned to establish the novel as a serious art form rather than as merely an amusing or escapist pastime. The well-known passage  from the Preface to The Portrait of a Lady contains, in a nutshell, the essence of James’s conception of the novel:

          “The house of fiction has…not one window, but a million-a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; everyone of which has been pierced, or still pierceable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual will.”

 

---SUBHADIP BARMAN

 

 

17.

 Henry James , an American Author , is considered as a key point between literary realism and literary modernism and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language.Honoured as one of the greatest artists of the novel, he is also regarded as one of the America's most influential critics and literary theorists.

 

Henry James was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of reputated philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.During the fifty years of his literary career, which spanned the period from the end of the American Civil War to the beginning of World War l, James produced a body of tales and novels.

 

Henry James is best known for a number of novels dealing with the social and material interplay between emigre Americans, English people, and continental Europeans. Examples of such novels include "The Portrait of a Lady","The Ambassadors", and "The Wings of Dove".His later works were increasingly experimental.In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James ofyen made use of a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche.

 

His novella "The Turn of the Screw" has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English Language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media.

 

James literary career hasbeen divided into three stages.The period of James' apprenticeship and first success - the early period of his career - is characterized by his discovery and development of the "international" theme.Works of this period include "Daisy Miller", "The American", "The Portrait of a Lady" etc.

 

James' second period , the middle phase of his career, has also been labeled the period of his "social" novels, involving a turning from the international theme to complex social and political issues set against both New England and European backdrops. For example "The Bostonians" etc.

 

The final period of James' career - the major phase- produced the novels that are today regarded as the peak of his achievement: "The Golden Bowl", "The Ambassadors", "The Wings of Dove".In these three novels , James returned to his "international" theme , but with a more subtle,mature and deeper exploration of its implications.

 

James' reputation is founded on his versatile studies of "the American Girl".In a series of witty tales, he pictured the "self-made" young woman,the bold and brash American innocent who insists upon American standards in European society.James ended this first phase of his career by producing his masterpiece, "The Portrait of a Lady", a study of a young woman from Albany who brings to Europe her narrow provincialism and pretensions but also her sense of her own sovereignty, her free spirit , her refusal to be treated , in the Victorian world , merely as a marriageable object .James' understanding of power in personal relations was profound , as evinced in Washington Square, the story of a young American heroine whose hopes for love and marriage are thwarted by her father's callous rejection of a somewhat opportunistic suitor.James used the opportunity to present his ideas on the novel fiction. "A novel is in its broadest definition a personal , a direct impression of life".It is very important for him to stress that life is personally and therefore subjectively received by an author who than tries to represent life in his work .

As a novelist, Henry believes that to become an intelligent novelist is to reach a moral stature beyond narrow , conventional , thinking.He further believes that this should be a general aspiration , while still holding to the view that intelligence is often the preserve of the new.The novel for both the reader and  the writer ,is the road not to moral principals , but to the moral sense ; and where the novelist is intelligent , the novel will offer an experience that has the potential for shaping and developing the reader's own intelligence. Novels should not transmit moral principles and rules as such, but renovate and development the mind by attempting to engage the reader in the persuit of intricate combinations of form, content,and germinating subjects. – NURI FIRDOUS

 

18.

: Henry James is one of the major figures of trans -Atlantic literature. His works frequently juxtapose characters from the Old World (Europe), embodying a feudal civilisation that is beautiful, often corrupt, and alluring, and from the New World  (United States), where people are often brash, open, and assertive and embody the virtues of the new American society — particularly personal freedom and a more highly evolved moral character. His critical works like ' The Art of Fiction ' and novels like ' The Portrait of a Lady ' easily portray him as a novelist and a terrorist of fiction.

 

 

It took a lot of work to take the novel to the stage of art. The very title of James's essay begins his campaign on its behalf: ‘art’ and ‘fiction’ are placed side by side here. Due to its long plot development and characterization, James has placed the Novel at the forefront in terms of importance. In this essay, James began an adventure of immense importance to the novel’s history. James begins by referring to ‘the mystery of story-telling ', and it is worth reminding ourselves that the word ‘mystery’ originally referred to the secrets of a particular trade, or craft, and that ‘art’ was generally applied in mediaeval times. he wants to retrieve this practical sense of ‘art’, together with the meaning that developed in the Romantic period. According to James, a good novel is an art because it has the proficiency needed to make a craft, as well as the apprenticeship and Individual creative genius. According to James, the core definition of the novel is its representation of life. He believes that a novel ought to be artistic as well as a representation of life. James wanted the novel to be as good as possible away from crude realism. A novel is a direct impression of life. The most important thing to distinguish between a good novel and a bad novel is the writer's imaginative power.

 

 

Novels represent experience realistically and leave it at that is to fail to acknowledge ‘that experience is never limited’, and that ‘it is never complete’. According to him, the character is like a seed, on which the plot can expand its branches. The form search is the main feature of the novel, which makes the novel well-structured and helps to narrate the novel well-organized. There should be a conscious moral purpose. The implications of what he goes on to say for the relation between the novel and morality are discussed below:

 

 

"There is one point at which the moral sense and the artistic sense lie very near together; that is in the light of the very obvious truth that the deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the mind of the producer . . . No good novel will ever proceed from a superficial mind."

 

 

Novels should not transmit moral principles and rules as such but renovate and develop the mind by attempting to engage the reader in the pursuit of intricate combinations of form, content, and germinating subjects. We can only be fair when we feel that our statements are partial and that we should know the statements of others from their perspectives also. Quite simply, James believes that to become an intelligent novelist is to reach a moral stature beyond narrow, conventional, thinking.

 

 

So, based on the above discussion we can easily say that Henry James is truly a novelist as well as a theorist of fiction who can remember till today.

 

 

DEBMALYA BHADURY

 

 

19.

 

Henry James is an important figure in every study of novel.Critics like William Dean, Howells, Bragdon Ezra Pound, T.S.Eliot uphold the fact that Henry James is one of the great novelists,whose contributions to fiction are undisputablyimportant.As a theoretician of fiction too his popularity knows no limits.

 

 

 

James believed in the organic growth of art or in the theory of Donne that is---art grows from within,some mysterious forces are at work and make the writer do what they desire.Nothing is imposed in the sense that a writer does not self consciously choose a subject,or a theme but everything comes from within with a sudden release of an idea.This is a romantic view of inspiration in the Jamesianform.James has discussed it in his Preface to the Portrait of a Lady.

 

At the core of  James's definition of the novel is what he sees as its responsibility to represent life.He states that this is "the only reason for the existence of a novel".But it soon emerges that James is committed to a complex and shifting sense of what this responsibility amounts to.Part of the reason for these complications is James's belief that "a novel ought to be artistic as well as a representation of life".In an era of burgeoning popular photography, James wants to put as much distance as possible between the novel and crude realism.He argues that "a novel is in its broadest definition a personal,a direct impression of life."Crucially important here is the imaginative power of the writer;and this is what distinguishes the good novel from the bad or popular novel.He then turns to the reality of life and the way it is supposed to be presented in the novel of fiction.The odour of reality mentioned above has its major source in the experience of the author.

 

James contradicts Besant and his idea that authors should stick to their class and their surrounding life,i.e,that they should not try to write about things they have not experienced themselves.He states that already short experiences,short incidents, can offer enough material for a while story.Incidents are moments in life, according to James,that can be part of everyday life.Incidents, in general,can have three different functions: Firstly,they can be the motivation and inspiration for a novel.Secondly, they can help the author to make his novel appear more realistic because they can be included in the story as the tiny little moments that are part of life but do not need to contribute to the plot.As a third function,the author can try to show the readers things that they usually would not realise or perceive as something worth having a closer look at.

 

Despite his radical views and ideas James could feel the need of freedom for a creative artist.Hard and fast rules and lack of freedom can shadow the beauty of a work of art.James emphasizes in his essay on Maupassant: "hard and fast rules have surely saved their time, and will in the nature of the case never strike an energetic talent as anything but arbitrary.A healthy, living and growing art ,full of curiousity and fond of concise ,has an indefeasible mistrust of rigid prohibitions.Let us then leave this magnificent art of the novelist to itself,and its perfect freedom,in the faith that one example is as good as another,and that our fiction will always be decent enough if it be sufficiently general.

 

In the due course of time ,James as theorist and novelist came to limelight and his theories of fiction influence the critics and writers quite deeply.

 

-         NAJELA KHATUN

 

20.

 

The importance of Henry James in the history of English literature is a novelist. Henry James is also considered a theorist, a thinker on the various issue of novel writing. James is the Frist to views the novel as an artistic form. To him, a novel is primarily an art form to be judged solely by artistic canons, concerned, not with moral purpose, but with the object and impartial presentation of the reality of life. He had huge contributions that he made. He was born an America. Henry James in all aspect is considered the ideas of fiction.

 

His important critical work The Art of Fiction make him an important singport of the modernist novel and its form. He was a pioneer figure with his use of point of view, interior monologue and unreliable narrator.

 

 

Henry James has been called a novelists' novelist. Among the English novelist, he considers the art of novel writing with the most unwavering seriousness. No other English novelist has devoted so much do thought to the problems of point of view and structure, of the adjustment of absence and form, of the exhaustive explanation of carefully defined themes. In English, fiction James is the supreme technical. After him, there could be no for the development of the well-made novel.

    ---ABDUL HAKID

 

21.

 

           Henry James was an American author and was considered to be the greatest novelist in English literature. He was the son of Henry James sr. and the brother of renowned philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.

 

              Henry James is best known for several novels like The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Turn of the Screw. James use of style in his novels is praiseworthy. His later works are increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James made use of a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid. However, he might have influenced steam of consciousness technique and we find its use in Henry's novels.

 

         James famous novel The Portrait of the Lady, we find the contrast between Europe and America. James establishes the novel as a psychological novel. James another work The Art of Fiction remains one of the most influential statements on the theory of the novel. According to him, " Fiction is an art in every way worthy to be called the sister and the equal of the Arts painting, music and poetry.

 

      Henry James other best works include The Princess Casamassima, Roderic Hudson, Bostonians The Ambassador( 1903) and The Golden Boul( 1904) etc.

 

       From the above discussion, we can say that Henry James was one of the most famous novelist as well as theorist.

 

         ---- SOUMIK GUPTA

 

22.

 

The term 'novel' was coined from the Latin word "novella" that means something new . Novel is a kind of long narrative fiction , typically written in prose style. The first English novel is "Pamela" (1740) written by Samuel Richardson. Then other writers also gradually began to start writing in this genre . Initially novel were written on the stories of adventures , namely Picaresque Novel . Then various kind of novel came into existence through different novelists ,  like, epistolary novel , gothic novel, historical novel , romantic novel etc.

 

             As the novel becomes a new platform of modern era, it begins to deal with difficult subjects , involving social and political issues also. Henry James is one of the major novelists of his time , and on the other hand , a famous American critic. As a critic , he establishes the basic grounds of novel writing as evident in his work , "The Art of Fiction" .  He had inspired through his own life that he had observed very closely. Though James the critic and James the novelist are different kind of fields , we find a connection between them. But James deals with criticism as well as fiction writing .

 

             In each of his novels , he had succeeded and took the attention of the reading public quite amazingly . He tried to write much above the contemporary writers that theirs writings were highly criticized because of poor conception . Maybe they could not connect their writings with common life that so necessary. James had a sense of responsibility towards his writings that we can relate our life though his own life . Though he had grown as a artist by his own effort.

 

             As a critic he awakened young artists about misuse of theory and it's conception and he also warned that "life" and "freedom" must be in there that gives a real flavour of art . In the preface of  "The Portrait of  A Lady" ,he gives the essence of conception of the novel :

             "These aperture, of dissimilar shape and size ,hang so, all together over the human scene that we might sameness of report that we find . They are but windows at the best ,mere holes in a dead well, disconnected , perched aloft ,they are not hinged doors opening straight upon life."

 

             James has to draw his writings from the whole field of life . Whatever portion of life he chooses to express himself in his own terms is determined by his exact turn of mind . He wants to make clear us that the readers must attain impression through writer's sense not from outside . James's main theme of writing is about the relation between the artist and life that stands side by side . James's literary style and artistic passions reflected the transition from the Victorian to the Modern era in English .

-         ALOKA SINGHA

 

 

23.

: The renowned British-American author Henry James is a dynamic figure between literary realism and literary modernism who focuses on the "madness of art".Being a very virtuous novelist James emphasises that " The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life....as the picture is reality, so the novel is history”. His prime opinion about the novel is that the novelist and the novel must be free which also directly differs from the opinion of the novelist and critic Walter Besant. He is well-known for his realistic works that deal with the daily lives of emigrant Americans, continental Europeans and English people. In this case, we may have a look at some of his very essential novels. In one of his finest novel "The portrait of a Lady", we can find the above-mentioned descriptions and most importantly the " International theme" along with the triumph of money over emotion and the central character Isabel's journey from innocence to experience which reminds us of the poet William Blake. In " What Maisie Knew" again we can find an innocent girl named Maisie and her terrible portrayal in a corrupt society. In "The Golden Bowl" we can see the constant battle between American innocence and European experience." The Turn of the Screw, "The Ambassadors", "Washington Square"," The Bostonians" and c. all are extraordinarily tremendous to explore the truth in a direct form. Morris Roberts in his book on "Henry James's Criticism" declares that "no critic has ever gone more deeply into the philosophy of art".

Generally, the theory is a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based but all the works of Henry James reveal that he does not have any specific set of principles as T.McCarthy comments: "His criticism discloses an increasing dissatisfaction with preconceived rules and fixed ideas".He adopted his own experimental principles. In his essay " The Art of Fiction" he explores his thoughts which bring a new dimension to the theory of the novel and enrich the theory of the fiction both at the same time. Samuel Richardson and Fielding are indeed considered as the founders of this genre but we had to wait till the end of the 18th Century to see the flourishment of this particular genre. James remarks "The novel remains still, under the right persuasion, the most independent, most elastic, most prodigious of literary forms" which he represents through his works. Though everyone doesn't consider him as a real critic, from the above discussion we can not but agree with his efficiency both as an enlightened novelist and as a great theorist.          

-         SREYASHI BHATTACHARYYA

 

24.

Hanry James is well known as an American novelist.He was interested  in the 'International Theme' ..his novel "The Portrait of a Lady " is a brilliant example of it.His other remarkable novels are : "The American","TheAmbassadors","The Golden Bowl" etc. He is also a critic though according to T.S Eliot he is "emphatically not a successful critic". He expressed all his critical principles in his "The Art of Fiction"(1884).He thinks a novel should be establised as a serious art ...not just for amusement.He also believes that the novelist and the novel  has to be free completely...even from moral or educational constrains.In his word the novel is "a personal,a direct impression of life".....and it is succesful because it reveals a unique mind a unique thought.The novelist is needed to possess " a sense of reality"..in his or her works.As reality ...experience is also a complex thing ....both are not limited .....we never can completely express our emotions ...or our experience..and then it is just a part of our experience and reality.Again in his own words "power to guess the unseen from the seen,to trace the implication of things,to judge the whole piece by the pattern.the condition of feeling life in general so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particulat corner of it - this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience".Through  his words... he made it clear that ...'the reality'  is the key of a work ...here, of a novel to thrive. None can teach someone how to express his or her real thoughts or experiences to others...it is different to each ....and this fact is itself amazing.This is how he still in our words and thoughts not only as a novelist but as a theorist. - DURBA SARKAR

 

 

 

 

 

25.

 Henry James, American novelist, story writer, critic, and essayist, was born on 15th April, 1843 in New York City into an affluent and socially prominent family. He settled in England in 1876,making London his home for about twenty years before moving to Sussex. During his lifetime , he wrote 20 novels,112 tales and 12 plays in addition to several volumes of travel writing and criticism .

 

Deeply influenced the continental literature ,James took the American experiences of Europe as the theme of his early important novels. James' literary career has been devided into three stages such as ; The early period , The second period or Middle years and The final or major phase.

 

The early period of his career is characterized by his discovery and development of the "international" theme , juxtaposition of New world innocence and Old world experience ,American freedom and European convention , conflicting values of the two societies and the study of American abroad. Works of this period are " Roderick Hudson","DaisyMiller","The Europeans" and "The Portrait of a Lady", his masterpiece and triumphant novel which ends this period.

 

His second phase has also been entitled as the period of his social novel , involving of turning  from the international theme  to complex social and political issues set against both New England and European backdrops. “The Bostonians" and " The Princess Casamassima" include of this period. He also wrote several plays of which only two were produced, one of them ,a dramatization of The American ,was moderately successful. He left London moving to Sussex. There he started to writing of fiction and produced a series of tales and the novels," The Spoils of Poynton","What Maisie Knew" and "The Awkward Age".

 

 The final period or major phase of his career produced the novels that are regarded as the peak of his achievements. These are "The Wings of the Dove","TheAmbassadors” and "The Golden Bowl". In these novels he returned to his international theme with more subtle and deeper exploration. “The Ambassadors" presents him at the peak of his literary career.

 

Almost in his all writings, he showed that when an author writes something , he needs freedom. James differs the freedom of content from the freedom of form i.e. style. The first thing is necessary for intensity within the novel  and generally the content is more important than the form. According to James, not laws but personal experience is the important guideline for a writer. James , as a novelist , gives his own idea of how one should proceed if one wants to write a novel. The characterisation of people can be realised by three different manners ; description, dialogue and incidents. Description is to be understood in character's actions, dialogue in character's talking and incidents in moments in which the character does something that is not necessarily important for the plot but serves as a part of characterisation.

 

From these aspects we can say that Henry James has all the qualities of writing novel such as    the technique of characterisation, fictional content, indivisualism both on the page and for the intended audience, etc ,which made him a successful novelist side by side a theorist also.

 

-MEHERUN NESHA

 

 

26.

 

Henry James was an American novelist and critic. He was born on 15th April, 1843,in New York City. Enormously prolific James authored 22 novels,hundred of short stories and dozens of volume of non-fiction including biographies, travel writing , art and literary criticism and memoirs.

 

    He spent much of his life in Europe. In his youth he travelled with his family. He studied with tutors in Geneva, London and Paris. At the age of 19 he attended Harvard Law School but he much preferred reading and writing fiction for studying law.

 

       James has been called the first of the great psychological realist in our time.Honored as one of the greatest artists of the novel, he is also regarded as one of America's most influential critic and literary theorist. His literary career has been divided into three period.

 

   His first period is characterized by his discovery and development of the "International" theme. Work of this period include 'Roderick Hudson'(1875);'The American'(1877), James really successful novel 'Daisy Miller'(1879) and triumphant novel which ends the period 'the portrait of a Lady'(1881).

 

   James second period has also been labelled as the period of his "social" novel, involving a turning from the international theme to complex social and political issue. The major novels of this period are 'Bostonians'(1886);'the Tragic muse'(1890)and 'The Awkward Age '.

 

    The third period of James career reached its most significant achievement in three novels published just after the turn of the century.These are 'Ambassador '(1903);'The wings of Dove'(1902);'The Golden Bowl'(1904).

 

    James was one of the most important literary critic in the history of the novel. In his classical essay 'The art of fiction ' he argued against rigid prescription of the novelist's choices of subject and method of treatment. When James assembled the New York edition of his fiction in his final year James wrote a series of prefaces that subjected his own work searching, occasionally harsh criticism. – RUAFSANA PARVIN

 

 

27.

            Henry James was an American novelist. Henry James's definition of the novel is what he sees as its responsibility to represent life. He states that this is 'the only reason for the existence of a novel'. But it soon emerges that James is committed to a complex and shifting sense of what this responsibility amount so. Henry James said that  the art of the novelist is ofcourse a whole hearted dedication.

 

                He is best known for a number of novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between Americans, English people, and continental Europeans. Example of such novels include 'The Portrait of a Lady', 'The Ambassadors', 'The Wings of the Dove'. Henry James's distinction contributions to the art of the novel were developed over a long career of some fifty years.

 

              Henry James is  regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism literary modernism and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelist in the English language. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often made use of style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche.

 

              By his mid 20s James was regarded as one of the most skillful writers short stories in American critics, however, deplored his tendency to write of the life of the mind, rather than of action. The stories of this early years show the leisurely existence of the well to do at Newport and Saratoga. James's apperenticeship was through. He wrote stories, reviews, and articles for almost a decade before he attempted a full lenth novel.

 

                Henry James is also considered as a theorist. The outline of Henry James's theory of fiction presented in this brief scope is based on a reading and interpretation of all James's available work, including his reviews and critical essays, his Notebooks, his Prefaces, his fiction about writers and artists, and his letters. The material is voluminous, and ranges in date from 1865 to 1915, a half - century during which James was privileged to change his mind, especially as the times moved through radical literary changes from the romantic through the realistic to the naturalistic and up to the explosive experimental movements of the 1920s .

 

-TONUSHRI MURMU

 

 

 

28.

The prestigious British-American creator Henry James is a unique figure between scholarly authenticity and artistic innovation who centers around the "frenzy of art". Being an idealistic author James stresses that " The solitary justification the presence of a novel is that it endeavors to address life....as the image is reality, so the novel is history". His prime assessment on the novel is that the writer and the novel should be free which additionally straightforwardly varies from the assessment of the author and pundit Walter Besant. He is notable for his reasonable works that manage the day by day lives of wanderer Americans, mainland Europeans and English individuals. For this situation, we may view a portion of his fundamental books. In one of his best novel "The Portrait of a Lady", we can track down the previously mentioned portrayals and in particular the " International topic" alongside the victory of cash over feeling and the focal character Isabel's excursion from blamelessness to encounter which helps us to remember the writer William Blake. In " What Maisie Knew" again we can track down a guiltless young lady named Maisie and her horrible depiction in a bad society. In "The Golden Bowl" we can see the consistent fight between American guiltlessness and European experience." The Turn of the Screw, "The Ambassadors", "Washington Square"," The Bostonians" all are remarkably huge to investigate reality in an immediate structure. Morris Roberts in his book on "Henry James' Criticism" announces that "no pundit has at any point gone all the more profoundly into the way of thinking of workmanship.”

                                                                James repudiates Besant and his thought that writers should adhere to their group and their encompassing life, i.e , that they ought do whatever it takes not to expound on things they have not experienced themselves. He states that all around short experiences, short occurrences, can offer sufficient material for some time story. Incidents are minutes throughout everyday life, as indicated by James, that can be important for ordinary life. Incidents, in general, can have three distinct capacities: Firstly, they can be the inspiration and motivation for a novel. Secondly, they can assist the writer with causing his novel to show up more reasonable in light of the fact that they can be remembered for the story as the minuscule minutes that are essential forever however don't have to add to the plot. As a third function, the writer can attempt to show the reader things that they for the most part would not understand or see as something worth having a more critical gander at.

 

Notwithstanding his extreme perspectives and thoughts James could feel the need of opportunity for an innovative artist. Hard and quick guidelines and absence of opportunity can shadow the excellence of a work of art. James stresses in his article on Maupassant: "immovable standards have certainly saved their time, and will in the idea of the case never strike a vigorous ability as anything besides arbitrary. A sound, living and developing workmanship ,brimming with curiosity  and partial to compact ,has an indefeasible doubt of inflexible prohibitions. Let us at that point leave this radiant craft of the author to itself, and its ideal freedom, in the confidence that one model is pretty much as great as another, and that our fiction will consistently be adequately respectable on the off chance that it be adequately broad. In the proper method of time ,James as novelist  and theorist came to spotlight and his hypotheses of fiction impact the pundits and essayists profoundly.

-DEEP SAHA

 

29.

Henry James is one of the greatest American novelists whose contributions to fiction and novel are very important. He came out with new theories of fiction. As a great novelist and a theorist of fiction, James was the architect of a modern novel. He gives the definition of fiction in his essay “The Art of Fiction”, published in 1884.

James acknowledged the unity of substance and form. He believed that the elements of the novel could never be separated from one another. He believed that every novelist had his own philosophy which will show in their works. He disagrees with the theory of “art for art's sake” and also shows the difference between art and life in his theories of fiction.

James was profoundly influenced by Nathaniel Hawthrone. Hawthorne impacted the ideas and thoughts of James. He learned the use of symbolic and poetic images from Hawthrone. Although James' mind and art were influenced by many authors, but he himself was a great founder. The form of “Jamesian novel” came for his great contribution to modern novels .

According to James, art should have realism but it is also noteworthy that if there is no romance, there would not be any elegance in fiction. The description of his novel shows the new dimensions of life.

James described the actual life in his novels. Past, present and future, all the features are present in the novels of Henry James. Any present scene or reaction is the manifestation of the past. The present does not subsist without the past in his novels. Every scene of the novel “The Portrait of a Lady” unfolds the past. These qualities made him popular as a modern novelist.

As a novelist James uses imagery, irony, symbolism, myth, etc. in his novels. In “ The Portrait of a Lady” James uses irony as an instrument of moral probe as well as a rhetorical device, to register the reaction of the speaker towards somebody or to some object .

Henry James remarked in his “The Art of Fiction” that “ What is a character but the determination of incident. What is incident but the illustration of character?” We come to know that the action to a character was the soul of a novel. It is because the historical events proceed the present reaction of the characters .

For Henry James, the inward life of a character is more interesting than a simple story. He also believes in inspiration which will inspire to release the sudden thoughts of an author to create a scene or action in their novel or fiction. T.S Eliot called James “a workshop critic.” –

“The portrait of a Lady” is among the best novels of Henry James because of the emphasis on the moral Intricacy. At the end of this novel when Isabel decides to go back to Osmond we can infer that the ultimate values of renunciation and acceptance shown by Isabel are a projection of the novelist’s own Puritan outlook. Thus the concrete details and interaction of character, not nationalities, produce morally important situations in James. T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were also all praise for James after his death in 1918. Some critics are pointed Out that James does not depict life in his novels. Stephen Spender criticized the novels of James because of his novels are become out of date.

 

 -----MAMUN ROSHID

 

 

-         Prepared by the 2^nd Semester students of the Department of English, University of GourBanga, Malda, West Bengal, India