Paper 05; Module 12; E Text

Paper 05; Module 12; E Text (A) Personal Details Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Prof. Tutun University of Hyderabad Mukherjee Paper Coordinator Prof. Niladri University of Kalyani, West Chatterjee Bengal. Content Writer/Author Mr. Mamud Hasan University of Hyderabad (CW) Content Reviewer (CR) Prof. Niladri University of Kalyani, West Chatterjee Bengal. Language Editor (LE) Prof. Sharmila University of Kalyani, West Majumdar Bengal. (B) Description of Module Item Description of module Subject Name English Paper name American Literature Module title Henry James: The Bostonians Module ID MODULE 12 About the module: This module deals with the novel The Bostonian by Henry James. It provides a short biographical note on the life of Henry James. It also presents a description of his various types of writings and the involvement in literary activities in various parts of Europe and United States. It offers the study of the novel The Bostonian by presenting various insights like background study of the novels, description of plot, theme and characterization, various techniques used in the novel etc. This module also discusses the writing style and techniques of Henry James in his various writings. The Bostonian by Henry James About the Author: Henry James, an American born British writer, was born in New York City on 15 April 1843 and died in 28 February 1916. He is considered as one of the key figures of 19th century literary realism. James was the son of Henry James, Sr. and the brother of William James and diarist Alice James. The first twenty years of his life he has travelled several times between Europe and America. During a 14 month trip through Europe in 1869–70, he personally met John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, Matthew Arnold, William Morris, and George Eliot. Rome impressed him profoundly. He attempted to support himself as a freelance writer in Rome, and was working as Paris correspondent for the New York Tribune. When these efforts failed, he returned back to New York City. Henry James met with various American and European literary figures of his time. Some of them, Ivan Turgenev, Joseph Conrad, Oscar Wilde, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Edith Wharton, and Stephen Crane influenced his literary style and his beliefs. His first published work was a review of a stage performance, "Miss Maggie Mitchell in Fan chon the Cricket," published in 1863. About a year later, A Tragedy of Error, his first short story, was published. James got his first payment for valuing of Sir Walter Scott's novels which was written for the North American Review. In 1870 he published his first novel, Watch and Ward. He was nominated thrice for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912 and 1916. Works of Henry James: The writing career of Henry James was one of the most productive and most influential in American literary histories. He has written 20 novels, 112 tales, 12 plays, volumes of travel writings and criticism, and a bucket of literary journalism in his long 51 years of writing period. Among James's most famous literary works are The Europeans (1878), Daisy Miller (1878), critically acclaimed Washington Square (1880), The Bostonians (1886), and The Turn of the Screw (1898). In 1864, he wrote his first short story A Tragedy of Error. He wrote several fiction and nonfiction writings for The Nation and Atlantic Monthly. In 1870 he published his first novel, Watch and Ward. Some of his other exemplary works are: Major Novels- Roderick Hudson (1875) The Portrait of a Lady (1881) The Princess Casamassima (1986) The Bostonians (1886) The Turn of the Screw (1898) The Wings of the Dove (1902) The Wings of the Dove (1902) The Ambassadors (1903) The Golden Bowl (1904) Short Narratives- James was very much interested in what he called the "beautiful and blest nouvelle", or the longer form of short narrative. Still, he produced a number of short stories in which he achieved notably compressed a variety of complex subjects. The following short narratives are some of the representatives of James’ contribution in the shorter forms of fiction. "A Tragedy of Error" (1864), short story "The Story of a Year" (1865), short story A Passionate Pilgrim (1871), novella Madame de Mauves (1874), novella Daisy Miller (1878), novella The Aspern Papers (1888), novella The Lesson of the Master (1888), novella The Pupil (1891), short story "The Figure in the Carpet" (1896), short story The Beast in the Jungle (1903), novella Play At several points in his writing career James wrote several plays, starting with one act plays which were written for periodicals in 1869 and a dramatized form of his popular novella Daisy Miller in 1882. In 1892, the dramatization of his famous novel The American was published. Some of his well-known plays are: Guy Domville (1895) The High Bid (1907) The Outcry (1911) Non-fiction Beyond his fiction, Henry James was one of the most important literary critics in the history of the American literature. Some of his representative non-fiction works are: The Art of Fiction (1884) The Noble School of Fiction (1865) Italian Hours (Travel writing) The American Scene (Travel writing) A Small Boy and Others (Autobiography) Notes of a Son and Brother (Autobiography) The Middle Years (unfinished) James was one of the great letter writers of American history. More than ten thousand of his personal letters are available, and over three thousand letters have been published in many collections. A complete edition of James's letters started publishing in 2006, edited by Pierre Walker and Greg Zacharias. As of 2014, eight volumes have been published, covering the period from 1855 to 1880. Writing style of Henry James Henry James is best known for a number of novels showing Americans encountering Europe and Europeans. His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue and unreliable narrators brought a new depth to narrative fiction. His method of writing from a character's point of view allowed him to explore issues related to consciousness and perception, and his style in later works has been compared to impressionist painting. By his mid-20s James was regarded as one of the most skilful writers of short stories in America. Critics, however, deplored his tendency to write of the life of the mind, rather than of action. His rendering of the inner life of his characters made him a forerunner of the “stream-of-consciousness” movement in the 20th century James is one of the major figures of trans-Atlantic literature. His works frequently compare characters from the Old World (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 embody the virtues—freedom and a more highly evolved moral character—of the new American society. James explores this clash of personalities and cultures, in stories of personal relationships in which power is exercised well or badly. It is noticed in his writing that he has increasingly abandoned direct statement in favour of frequent double negatives, and complex descriptive imagery. Single paragraphs began to run for page after page, in which an initial noun would be succeeded by pronouns surrounded by clouds of adjectives and prepositional clauses, far from their original referents, and verbs would be deferred and then preceded by a series of adverbs. In his preface to the New York edition of The American he describes the development of the story in his mind as exactly such: the "situation" of an American, "some robust but insidiously beguiled and betrayed, some cruelly wronged, compatriot..." with the focus of the story being on the response of this wronged man. He recognized and helped to fashion the myth of the American abroad and incorporated this myth in the “international novel,” of which he was the acknowledged master. His fundamental theme was that of an innocent, exuberant, and democratic America confronting the worldly wisdom and corruption of Europe’s older, aristocratic culture. In both his light comedies and his tragedies, James’s sense of the human scene was sure and vivid, and, despite the mannerisms of his later style, he was one of the great prose writers and stylists of his century. Background of the Novel The Bostonians was first published as a serial in The Century Magazine in 1885-1886, then as a three-volume novel in February 1886. As a Realist, he tried above all to convey the truth. In The Bostonians, he depicted what he saw as the decadence of New England culture in the late 19th century, epitomized by Boston in about 1875. Many men from the region had been killed in the Civil War, many more had left to go out West. Lesbianism was not discussed openly in the Victorian culture of that time and genteel Bostonians were defensive and mightily offended by The Bostonians, especially by its satirical tone. The novel was a commercial flop and James never set another novel in America. The novel is written in such a context when feminism movement was represented by two major organisations like National Women Suffrage Association and American Women Suffrage Association. Some of the characters in the novel are seen involved actively in the suffrage movement. Setting of the Novel: The Bostonian is generally regarded at the high point of what is called the ‘middle period’ of Henry James’ development as a novelist. The novel is set in Boston and New York; and it clearly reflects some of his contemporary impressions on the nation, written as a Native American. The novel includes some touching reflections on the Civil War, which had only concluded twenty years before. But its principle subject matter is its ‘women question’, the conflicts between traditional view of the role of women in society, and the views of suffragists and what today would be called supporters of women liberation.

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