{"title":"Olive's Vision: Evolution, Pragmatism, and Radicalism in The Bostonians","authors":"Joshua Fagan","doi":"10.1353/hjr.2023.a910907","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2023.a910907","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The Bostonians , despite frequent framing of it as a non-radical or even anti-radical novel, contains within it a pattern of disruptive evolutionary change. I argue that the novel's concept of evolution is not linear and gradualist, but rather overwhelming and radical, befitting the Pragmatist conception of Darwinian evolution supported by the James brothers. Change itself is not abhorrent to the narrative, and Basil Ransom's desperate attempts to prevent and reverse change are largely ineffectual and absurd. What is abhorrent is only supporting utopian, hyper-individualist concepts of change that satisfy self-aggrandizing ends, as Olive Chancellor does. Only when she loses Verena, I argue, does Olive awaken from her possessive solipsism and participate in a non-elitist way in the democratic, communal process of social transformation. This evolutionary process is chaotic and unpredictable, revising and challenging old convictions, but it organically creates powerful change that extends beyond the expectations of any singular individual.","PeriodicalId":43156,"journal":{"name":"HENRY JAMES REVIEW","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135737256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Reading James Radically","authors":"J. Michelle Coghlan, John Funchion","doi":"10.1353/hjr.2023.a910904","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2023.a910904","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Reconsidering untapped radical energies in James's writings alongside revelations regarding his entanglements with radical London made possible by The Complete Letters of Henry James , this \"Radical James\" special issue works to read radicalism not just out of but back into James. The essays in it approach the matter of reading James radically from a number of vantage points, re-thinking not just the politics of those novels long taken to be his brief foray into \"social problem fiction\" but also the narrative of where a political James might be imagined to begin and end.","PeriodicalId":43156,"journal":{"name":"HENRY JAMES REVIEW","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135737265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Small Black Boy and Others: James Baldwin's Essays as a Radical Framework for Understanding Henry James","authors":"Michèle Mendelssohn","doi":"10.1353/hjr.2023.a910909","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2023.a910909","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: James Baldwin revered Henry James but dreamt of writing an essay called \"A Negro Looks at Henry James.\" This article proposes a transhistorical reading method that addresses the racialized emotional and political aspects of A Small Boy and Others and The American Scene . The article brings into focus a radical Black context for understanding James by positioning him in relation to a longer history of interracial encounters exemplified by Baldwin. By attending to James's elisions and reading them in conversation with Baldwin, the article proposes a new framework for reading James's nonfiction that compensates for his limited racial vision.","PeriodicalId":43156,"journal":{"name":"HENRY JAMES REVIEW","volume":"143 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135737409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ralph Touchett, Anarchist","authors":"Nathaniel Cadle","doi":"10.1353/hjr.2023.a910905","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2023.a910905","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This essay argues that The Portrait of a Lady evinces a radical imagination in its treatment of the character Ralph Touchett. It examines Ralph's attitudes and behaviors through the lens of nineteenth-century anarchist political philosophy, including the writings of Peter Kropotkin, Paul Lafargue, and Mikhail Bakunin. Focusing on Ralph's self-presentation as a dissident, decision to share his inheritance with his cousin Isabel Archer, and later rethinking of that decision, this essay contends that Henry James critiques but ultimately does not disavow the radical ideas his novel explores.","PeriodicalId":43156,"journal":{"name":"HENRY JAMES REVIEW","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135737263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Henry James Review","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/hjr.2023.a910910","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2023.a910910","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43156,"journal":{"name":"HENRY JAMES REVIEW","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135737426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Slumming it with the Princess, or Henry James's Millennium People","authors":"Thomas Meaney","doi":"10.1353/hjr.2023.a910908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2023.a910908","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The idea that one's class position determines one's suitability for overturning bourgeois society was once a staple of communist thought worldwide. Henry James was no radical. But in The Princess Casamassima , following his commitment to a realistic depiction of the political underground of London of the 1880s, James gamely entered into questions of revolutionary strategy. Curiously, the novel rejects the nascent Fabian belief that upper classes, and elite class traitors, can contribute to the overthrow of bourgeois society and instead, in the figure of Paul Muniment, acknowledges the advantages of revolutionary groupings made up of workers with no illusions about their origins.","PeriodicalId":43156,"journal":{"name":"HENRY JAMES REVIEW","volume":"96 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135737420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Isabel's \"Indefinable\": The Fate of Liberal Feminism in James's The Portrait of a Lady","authors":"Sophia Forster","doi":"10.1353/hjr.2023.a910906","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2023.a910906","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay places the marriage plot in Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady in the context of the rise of liberal feminism. This essay argues that by showing how Isabel's conventional marriage is both created and maintained by her assertion of her rights as a woman, the novel invites readers to consider the limits of the model of liberal selfhood as a path to meaningful freedom for women.","PeriodicalId":43156,"journal":{"name":"HENRY JAMES REVIEW","volume":"82 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135737410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Authoring \"the real thing\": Influence, Impressibility, and The Wings of the Dove's Queer Style","authors":"Rachel Haines","doi":"10.1353/hjr.2023.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2023.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Except for The Bostonians little scholarship focuses on women's homoerotic desire in Henry James's fiction. This article responds by reappraising The Wings of the Dove's much-discussed queerness. While most interpretations emphasize Lionel Croy's unspeakability or Susan Stringham's homosexual panic, this paper locates queerness in Wings's seductive entanglement of influence and impressibility—an entanglement that indexes female-female desire. Reading Wings in this way reveals that powerful attachments between women occupy such a place of centrality in James's fiction that to overlook them is to overlook a crucial aspect of the nuanced representation of sexuality critics have traced across his oeuvre.","PeriodicalId":43156,"journal":{"name":"HENRY JAMES REVIEW","volume":"44 1","pages":"115 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45723903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Novel Accents: Reading Realist Voices in The Bostonians","authors":"Eleanor Reeds","doi":"10.1353/hjr.2023.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2023.0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article examines Henry James's 1886 novel, The Bostonians, as a case study of voice in late nineteenth-century realism, beginning with the famous decision by the narrator to introduce its protagonist by refusing to \"reproduce\" his Southern accent. I argue that the novel instead takes as its object of representation how characters hear each other. By demonstrating how characters labor both to distinguish and hierarchize the form and content of speech, James identifies that what the realist novel can and should give readers access to is how voices sound to specific listeners.","PeriodicalId":43156,"journal":{"name":"HENRY JAMES REVIEW","volume":"44 1","pages":"166 - 182"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46110637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Louder Than Words? Actions and Reactions in James's Guy Domville","authors":"Dee MacCormack","doi":"10.1353/hjr.2023.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2023.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:At the first night of James's play Guy Domville in January 1895, some members of the audience booed James as he took his author's bow. This single event has come to dominate James's dramatic legacy resulting in a widely held belief that the result was a humiliating retreat from the theater and an end to James's dramatic ambitions. This essay will examine the history behind that belief and, by presenting a factual account of the production and performance of James's play, contextualized within the nineteenth-century theater, will contradict the accepted critical narrative of the play as an irredeemable failure.","PeriodicalId":43156,"journal":{"name":"HENRY JAMES REVIEW","volume":"44 1","pages":"149 - 165"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44039200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}