A Superficial Reading of Henry James: Preoccupations with the Material WorldOhio State University Press, 2006 - 197 Seiten Do the surfaces matter? In this provocative book, A Superficial Reading of Henry James: Preoccupations with the Material World, Thomas J. Otten demonstrates that surfaces matter profoundly. Taking seriously the accessories of Henry James's fiction-the china and bric-a-brac, the antique cabinets and tapestries, the ribbons and hats-this book argues that James's famous ambiguity is a material state, an indeterminate zone where the difference between essence and ornament disappears. Ranging between fictions as well-known as The Portrait of a Lady (whose heroine is celebrated for her psychological complexity) and ones as understudied as "Rose-Agathe" (whose heroine is a hairdresser's manikin), Otten suggests that the distinction between what counts as thematic depth and what counts as physical surface is, for James, impossible to maintain. Achieving a superficial reading of Henry James means demonstrating the persistence of the material within the novelist's most conceptual formations of meaning-an argument with important consequences for literary theory, as Otten shows in his concluding chapters. Eloquently written and guided by a perverse love for the superfluous detail, this book makes an important contribution to a fast-growing area of the humanities, one newly committed to the serious study of material culture, the concrete experiences of everyday life, and the history of the physical senses. Book jacket. |
Inhalt
Revolving Heroines | 7 |
The Properties of Touch | 39 |
The Reproduction of Painting | 60 |
Bodies Papers and Persons | 86 |
Adulterous Matter | 110 |
Literary Studies as Sublimated Physicality | 135 |
New Materialism | 154 |
Notes | 167 |
193 | |
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Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
abstraction accessories adulterous aesthetic ambiguity American appurtenances argue argument Aspern Papers beautiful becomes Berenson bodily body Cambridge chapter characterizes conception concrete consciousness criticism culture decor Decoration of Houses Dorian economy Elaine Scarry emphasis epitomizes essay figure Fleda Further references appear gallery Gereth Golden Bowl hand Hawthorne Hence Henry James human imagines James’s Jamesian text language late fiction Leon Edel literal literary logic London Madame Bovary material world materialist matter metaphor Moby-Dick museum narrative narrator nineteenth-century novel objects one’s ontology painting painting’s passage persons physical poems poetics political portrait portraiture properties reading references appear parenthetically relation representation rhetorical Rokeby Venus Rose-Agathe Sacred Fount Sargent Scarry scene seems sense Shakespeare shape social sonnets space specific Spoils of Poynton Strether suggests Susan Stewart takes taste theory things thinking tion touch Tragic Muse trans turn vision Warren and Brandeis wholly William James woman writing York