A01=Elizabeth Stevenson
advanced Henry James biography analysis
Author_Elizabeth Stevenson
Awkward Age
Basil Ransom
Category=DS
character development theory
Coxon Fund
Daisy Miller
English literature studies
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Fleda Vetch
Golden Bowl
Graham Fielder
Henry James
Isabel Archer
Lamb House
Lambert Strether
literary criticism
Maggie Verver
Maisie Knew
Marie De Vionnet
Milly Theale
Miss Birdseye
Nanda Brookenham
narrative complexity
Owen Wingrave
Paul Muniment
Peter Sherringham
Princess Casamassima
psychological realism
Ralph Touchett
Sacred Fount
social class analysis
Tragic Muse
Young Men
Product details
- ISBN 9781138524798
- Weight: 500g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 04 Apr 2018
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Certain readers and critics have faulted Henry James for two contradictory reasons. He has been thought a writer limited in scope and depth in his treatment of a particular class of people. On the other hand, he has been thought to be too complex, too extreme in putting into difficult language his view of relationships between his chosen characters.Elizabeth Stevenson depicts Henry James as a stout and strong presence in the literature of the English language. From the relatively youthful, straightforward, and simple writing of his early years, to the involved complexities of his later stories, his significance cannot be denied. The barrier seems to have been a misunderstanding on the part of some. It is true nearly all of his characters are well clothed, well fed, and roofed comfortably. They are usually fairly well educated and talk literately and wittily. James rarely treats raw or wild nature, but he is sensitive to landscape as a background. He also does children well, and they are often outside the norms of society. Who is not touched by the uncanny in the tainted children of The Turn of the Screw, whether the taint is actually in the children or in the mind of the governess?In James, one may not travel physically a great deal, except to the resorts of those well-off financially and socially. One does travel extensively through the minds and hearts of his characters. The journey rewards the traveler. The delicacy of James' "melodramatic" insights causes tremor or appreciation from a reader. He describes the way life is, both horrible and wonderful. No one else has expressed this understanding in quite his way. Henry James: The Crooked Corridor will be of interest to students of American literature and general readers interested in biographies.
