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1 results

  • 29 - Theories of drama

  • from VI - Genre criticism
  • Edited by M. A. R. Habib, Rutgers University, New Jersey
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    07 February 2013, pp 539-562

  • Summary

    Born into a remarkable family, Henry James exhibited signs of precocity early on. In his autobiography, he chronicled his discovery, at the age of about eleven, that a hyperactive consciousness and restless curiosity such as his had a value that could be put to critical use. The 1880s were a particularly rich period in James's career as critic and novelist. In 1882 he was saluted by Howells as the chief exemplar among the new school of novelists who combine the psychological analysis of Charles Eliot Norton and Hawthorne with the formal demands of the French Realists. In the same year James wrote his fullest tribute to Sainte-Beuve, the French critic most adept at making his point of view an art of appreciation. James was original in his stress on the reader's active role in the literary process. In this respect he encouraged the very different rhetorics of fiction advocated by Wayne Booth and J. Hillis Miller.