A01=William Righter
Adam Verver
American Scene
American-European identity synthesis
analyst
Author_William Righter
bowl
Category=DSBF
Category=DSK
comparative literary criticism
cultural dislocation analysis
Dim
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Fanny Assingham
Follow
garden
gloriani's
Gloriani's Garden
golden
Golden Bowl
Good Life
Held
Jolly Corner
lambert
Lambert Strether
Maria Gostrey
Marie De Vionnet
Miss Gostrey
Mme De Vionnet
modern identity formation
moral philosophy in fiction
Mr Verver
narrative form evolution
Omnipresent
place
Pococks
portland
Portland Place
Prodigious Form
restless
strether
Strether's Sensibility
Superb
Timeless
transatlantic literary studies
Violated
Young Man
Product details
- ISBN 9780754636748
- Weight: 453g
- Dimensions: 153 x 219mm
- Publication Date: 12 May 2004
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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American Memory in Henry James is about the cultural, historical and moral dislocations at the heart of Henry James' explorations of American identity - between power and love; modernity and history; indeterminate social forms and enduring personal values. The text covers the power, and the limits, of the language of morality and interpretive imagination as James grapples with what America and Europe have in common; and also with what, because their contexts and sense of history are so profoundly different, they cannot have in common. Righter's great theme is the tensions that impelled James ultimately to stretch the novel, his beloved 'prodigious form', almost to breaking point, in search of an ultimately elusive synthesis. The American Scene - his account of an America, revisited after long absence, that was reinventing itself right down to the touchstones of its identity - is its entry point; The Golden Bowl is its primary testing ground. The questions raised transcend the historical moment and the specifically Jamesian sense of dislocation, to go to the heart of modern identity, and the nature of literary endeavour.
William Righter was Reader Emeritus in English Literature at the University of Warwick. His widow Rosemary is currently Associate Editor of The Times, London.
