Henry James: A Certain IllusionThe success of a work of art, to my mind, may be measured by the degree to which it produces a certain illusion; that makes it appear to us that we have lived another life, that we have had a miraculous enlargement of experience. Henry James A concept of 'illusion' was fundamental to the theory and practice of literary representation in Henry James. This book offers readings of James' fictional and critical texts that are informed by the certainty of illusion, and links James' mode of illusion with a number of concerns that have marked novel criticism in both the recent and not-so-recent past: gender, publicity, realism, aesthetics and passion, cults of authorial personality, the narrative construction of the future, and absorption. Flannery addresses each of these concerns through close engagement with particular texts: The Portrait of a Lady, The Tragic Muse, The Wings of the Dove, and some other less familiar texts. Although cognizant of debates that have raged around James as he is read both by 'radical' and 'traditional' critics, this book's primary focus is on the specific nuances of James' texts and the interpretive challenges and pleasures they offer. |
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Contents
A Certain Illusion | 1 |
Gender and Illusion in The Portrait of a Lady | 27 |
Illusion and the Cult of Personality | 134 |
Copyright | |
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absorption aesthetic Ambassadors Amerigo anxiety aspects Aspern Papers aspirations Basil Berridge Berridge's Bostonians Bronzino Carpet characters claims construction Corvick crucial cult of personality Densher described desire discussion Dove emphasis equation essay Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick example experience fiction figure Firstly Furthermore gender genre Golden Bowl Henry James historical Hyacinth illusion illusionist impact intensely interest Isabel James's critical James's narrator James's novel James's text Judith Butler Kate Kate's Lady literary London Madame Merle Maggie Maggie's marriage Merle's metaphor Milly Milly's Miriam narrative narrator's Nash Nick novelistic object Olive Olive's Osmond painting passage passion Penniman performative Portrait possible Preface present Princess Casamassima produced question Ransom reader reading realism reality relation relationship representation Secondly secret Sedgwick sense sexual social status story success suggest takes Theale theatre theatrical thing Touchett Tragic Muse Velvet Glove Vereker Vereker's Verena visual Warburton Wings writing York Edition
References to this book
Cognitive Stylistics: Language and Cognition in Text Analysis Elena Semino,Jonathan Culpeper No preview available - 2002 |