{"product_id":"meaning-in-henry-james","title":"Meaning in Henry James","description":"\u003cp\u003eHenry James rebelled intuitively against the tyranny and banality of  plots. Believing a life to have many potential paths and a self to hold  many destinies, he hung the evocative shadow of \"what might have been\"  over much of what he wrote. Yet James also realized that no life can be  lived--and no story written--except by submission to some outcome. The  limiting conventions of society and literature are, he found, almost  inescapable. In a major, comprehensive new study of James's work,  Millicent Bell explores this oscillation between hope and fatalism,  indeterminacy and form, and uncertainty and meaning. In the process Bell  provides fresh insight into how we read and interpret fiction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBell  demonstrates how James's texts steadfastly, almost perversely at times,  preserve a sense of alternative possibilities. James involves his  characters in overlapping scenarios drawn from folklore, drama,  literature, or naturalist formula. The reader engages, with the hero or  heroine, in imagining many plots other than the one that finally--and  often ambiguously--emerges. The story arouses expectations, proposes  courses, then cancels them successively. In complicity with author and  character, the reader crafts the story in an adventure of constant  revision and anticipation. Literary meaning becomes an experience as  well as a goal. In the end, revelations and resolutions, even if unclear  or partial, assume an altered significance in light of the earlier  imaginings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot surprisingly, James's deepest sympathies lay with  those characters who resisted entrapment by cultural expectations--his  idealistic free spirits like Isabel, his marriage renouncers like Fleda  Vetch, his largely silent and detached witnesses to life like Strether  and the generous Maisie. They are frequently the victims of callous  manipulators who box them into oppressive roles or who literally \"plot  against\" them. By looking closely at James's critiques of the \"clever\"  categorical mind and at his loving and complex portraits of characters  of unfulfilled potentiality, Bell celebrates the paradoxes of James's  story-denying fiction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn extended analyses of \"Daisy Miller,\" \u003ci\u003eWashington Square\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Portrait of a Lady\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eThe Bostonians\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Princess Casamassima\u003c\/i\u003e, \"The Aspern Papers,\" \u003ci\u003eThe Spoils of Poynton\u003c\/i\u003e, \"The Turn of the Screw,\" \u003ci\u003eWhat Maisie Knew\u003c\/i\u003e, \"The Beast in the Jungle,\" \"The Jolly Corner,\" \u003ci\u003eThe Wings of the Dove\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Ambassadors\u003c\/i\u003e,  Bell relates James's work to influential movements of the day, notably  impressionism and naturalism. She examines the influence of Hawthorne,  Emerson, Flaubert, Balzac, and Zola on James at various periods  throughout his career. Drawing on rich traditions of criticism and on  stimulating recent theories, Bell forges a critical approach both  accessible and profound for this elegant reading of one of the greatest  writers of this or any time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harvard University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54251667063128,"sku":"9780674557635","price":44.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780674557635.jpg?v=1770272134","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/meaning-in-henry-james","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}