Product Information
This is a study of Henry James's changing attitudes to history as a narrative model, tracing the development from his early interest in `scientific' historiography to the radically anti-historical character of his late works.James's use of the term `history' was influenced by developments in nineteenth-century historiography, but was also embedded in the complex of defensive manoeuvres through which Victorian culture sought to control its anxiety about the power of fiction. Reading James's novels in the light of contemporary debates about the morality and authorship and the politics of reading, Dr Jolly finds that fiction develops from being history's censored `other' in the early works to being a valued mode of problem-solving in the later fiction. This shift may be seen as the product of James's increasing engagement with the reading practices of groups marginalized by high Victorian culture: women, the working class, other cultures, and the avant-garde. The book ends with a consideration of the challenge posed to James's radical anti-historical epistemology by the unprecedented violence of twentieth-century history.Drawing on contemporary narrative theory, and providing illuminating readings of a large number of James's novels, Roslyn Jolly had written a sophisticated and persuasive analysis of James's shifting definitions of history and fiction.Product Identifiers
PublisherOxford University Press
ISBN-139780198119852
eBay Product ID (ePID)87271307
Product Key Features
Book TitleHenry James: History, Narrative, Fiction
AuthorRoslyn Jolly
FormatHardcover
LanguageEnglish
TopicLiterature
Publication Year1993
Dimensions
Item Height223mm
Item Width143mm
Additional Product Features
Title_AuthorRoslyn Jolly
Series TitleOxford English Monographs
Country/Region of ManufactureUnited Kingdom