"One remembers Eugenio": Polyglot James

Abstract

Abstract:This paper contests a long-standing and increasingly popular idea about James's late novels: that all of the characters in them share the same distinctive linguistic style and share that style as well with the narrative voice. The situation of characters whose speech is only obliquely represented suggests instead that we should understand the only relative stylistic uniformity of James's late novels as in part a reflection of the incomplete exclusionary work that constitutes their main communities. I will also propose that we see Milly Theale as an exception to her circle's linguistic hermeticism.