The Turn of the Screw

Abstract

This chapter proposes a Radical Fictionalist analysis of critical discourse. In particular, it contrasts actuality-concerned modes of criticism directed towards educated naturalization with two different, non-propositional enterprises. One is a form of critical retelling aimed at bringing to the foreground certain allegedly important but not obvious features of the storyworld. Accordingly, this chapter discusses the idea of underreading and the critics’ commitment to faithfulness, paying particular attention to examples from the critical literature on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. The other type of critical retelling is a form of biased retelling which abandons faithfulness in favour of canonicity, that is, in favour of retellings consonant with the critical canon.