The Form of Affect in The Ambassadors

Abstract

Abstract:This essay sets James’s formal concerns in The Ambassadors in dialogue with what is re-contextualized by Fredric Jameson as the unnamed emotion, with the aim to explore James’s impressionist registering apparatus in accumulating yet not capturing the aura of affect through narratologicalcraftsmanships and stylistic choices. Focusing on temporality, tone, and the presentation of scenes that signal Strether’s meta-affect of disconcertedness which puts into invalidity his cognitive codification, this essay suggests that the act of representing the affect in The Ambassadorsself-reflexively borders on its non-representation, rendering the text proper as an affect that eludes conceptualization.