The Art of Criticism: Henry James on the Theory and the Practice of Fiction

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Overview

In The Art of Criticism, William Veeder and Susan M. Griffin have brought together for the first time the best of the Master's critical work: the most important of his Prefaces, which R. P. Blackmur has called "the most sustained and I think the most eloquent and original piece of literary criticism in existence"; his studies of Hawthorne, George Eliot, Balzac, Zola, de Maupassant, Turgenev, Sante-Beuve, and Arnold; and his essays on the function of criticism and the future of ...

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More About This Book

Overview

In The Art of Criticism, William Veeder and Susan M. Griffin have brought together for the first time the best of the Master's critical work: the most important of his Prefaces, which R. P. Blackmur has called "the most sustained and I think the most eloquent and original piece of literary criticism in existence"; his studies of Hawthorne, George Eliot, Balzac, Zola, de Maupassant, Turgenev, Sante-Beuve, and Arnold; and his essays on the function of criticism and the future of the novel.

The editors have provided what James himself emphasized in his literary criticism—the text's context. Each selection is framed by an editorial commentary and notes which give its biographical, bibliographical, and critical background and cite other references in James' work to the topic discussed. This framework, along with the editors' introduction, gives the reader a sense of the place of these pieces in the history of criticism.

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780226391977
  • Publisher: University of Chicago Press
  • Publication date: 6/28/1986
  • Pages: 528
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Henry James
Henry James was a master at tracing the social boundaries of the Gilded Age -- between Old and New World, Europe and America, desire and convention, men and women. He brought an invaluably clear-eyed, and critical, sensibility to America's evolving cultural mores.

Biography

Henry James (1843-1916), born in New York City, was the son of noted religious philosopher Henry James, Sr., and brother of eminent psychologist and philosopher William James. He spent his early life in America and studied in Geneva, London and Paris during his adolescence to gain the worldly experience so prized by his father. He lived in Newport, went briefly to Harvard Law School, and in 1864 began to contribute both criticism and tales to magazines. In 1869, and then in 1872-74, he paid visits to Europe and began his first novel, Roderick Hudson. Late in 1875 he settled in Paris, where he met Turgenev, Flaubert, and Zola, and wrote The American (1877). In December 1876 he moved to London, where two years later he achieved international fame with Daisy Miller. Other famous works include Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Princess Casamassima (1886), The Aspern Papers (1888), The Turn of the Screw (1898), and three large novels of the new century, The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904). In 1905 he revisited the United States and wrote The American Scene (1907). During his career, he also wrote many works of criticism and travel. Although old and ailing, he threw himself into war work in 1914, and in 1915, a few months before his death, he became a British subject. In 1916 King George V conferred the Order of Merit on him. He died in London in February 1916.

Author biography courtesy of Penguin Group (USA).

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    1. Date of Birth:
      April 15, 1843
    2. Place of Birth:
      New York, New York
    1. Date of Death:
      February 28, 1916
    2. Place of Death:
      London, England
    1. Education:
      Attended school in France and Switzerland; Harvard Law School, 1862-63

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part One: Practicing Novelist as Practical Critic
1: Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism (1865)
2: Sainte-Beuve (1880, 1904)
3: Middlemarch (1873)
4: Honoré de Balzac (1875, 1878)
5: From Hawthorne (1879)
6: Ivan Turgénieff (1884, 1888)
Part Two: The Theorist on Fiction and Culture
7: The Art of Fiction (1884, 1888)
8: Guy de Maupassant (1888)
9: Criticism (1891, 1893)
10: The Future of the Novel (1899)
Part Three: The Master and His Prefaces
11: Roderick Hudson (1907)
12: The American (1907)
13: The Portrait of a Lady (1908)
14: The Awkward Age (1908)
15: What Maisie Knew (1908)
16: The Aspern Papers (1908)
17: The Wings of the Dove (1909)
18: The Ambassadors (1909)
19: The Golden Bowl (1909)
Part Four: Genius in Old Age
20: Emile Zola (1903, 1914)
21: The Novel in The Ring and the Book (1912, 1914)
Bibliography
Index

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