Abstract
This book represents a close conversation between two traditions in James studies: feminist and queer theoretical readings of his work, life, and/or influence. James’s relationship to what his contemporaries called “the woman question” both is and is not consistent with his era’s conventions. His focus often is on feminine viewpoints, but this doesn’t necessarily make him a feminist (or, indeed, not feminist)—reading him in either way may actually blind us to his negotiations with ideals of masculinity and femininity. His letters to Annie Fields, a Boston women’s rights activist, have never fully been considered by scholars. Emily Dickinson’s reading of James’s The Europeans suggests grounds for a fuller comparison. Marguerite Duras’s theatrical adaptations of James suggest his resonances with her postwar French feminist perspective.
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Notes
- 1.
“If we are to look for a ‘class consciousness’ in Henry James…perhaps we should look first to women, lesbian and straight, children, and gays as contributors to such a class consciousness…[T]he victimization of these groups is…an essential part of James’s social critique of bourgeois values” (Rowe, Other 19).
- 2.
See Chap. 2, note 6.
- 3.
See Linda Simon, and the final section of Henry James in Context (edited by David McWhirter), for summaries of the history of James studies to 2007 and 2010, respectively. In 1984 Elizabeth Allen famously presents a feminist alternative to existing scholarly models by tracing the ways that James’s women characters develop from “simply…sign(s)” to fully-developed figures with agency (10). In the 1990s, Vivian R. Pollak proposes that James identifies with his female characters, and voices an “intelligent empathy with the situation of women who seek to outwit their cultural fates” (“Introduction” 11). Other feminist readings of James’s project, understood generally—many although not all predominantly focusing on The Portrait of a Lady—include Louise K. Barnett, Heike Fahrenberg, Susan Griffin, Juliet Mitchell, Peggy McCormack, Nancy Roberts, Kaja Silverman, and William Veeder (“The Portrait”). Chris Foss, writing in 1995, is critical of feminist analyses of James from the 1980s and 1990s, arguing that “many of the recent feminist recuperations…ultimately, if unwittingly, serve to repress the persistency of the texts’ masculinist vision” (254). See similar objections by Alfred Habegger (Henry James) and Martha Banta. More directly relevant feminist discussions will be addressed in-text where appropriate.
- 4.
On James and masculinity, see Kelly Cannon as well as Eric Haralson (Henry James), Leland Person, Hugh Stevens (Henry James), and Veeder (“The Portrait”). Kimberly Lamm uses Bersani as the basis for one of the few recent queer feminist readings of James; see also Benjamin Bateman and Gert Buelens.
- 5.
The term “homosexual” does not emerge until 1892 (Foucault 42–44). See Elizabeth Reis, Introduction and Chapter 3; Alice Domurat Dreger, Prologue; Anne Fausto-Sterling, Chapters 1 and 9. For context, Gary Williams’s introduction to Julia Ward Howe’s The Hermaphrodite (written in the 1840s, published 2005) is helpful.
- 6.
Alfred Habegger, in 1989’s Henry James and the ‘Woman Business’, views James as appropriating American women’s writing; he rejects readings that, in his view, “underestimate James’s condescending view of women” and attempt to “rehabilitate James for feminism” (4–5). In a similar vein, see Banta, Foss. Most useful of these “critical” feminist readings is Lyndall Gordon, who presents a nuanced analysis of the ways that, in her view, James sympathetically uses intelligent women, specifically Constance Fenimore Woolson and his cousin Minnie Temple.
- 7.
See Complete Letters, of which ten volumes are extant at the date of this writing. Four volumes of selected letters relevant for my purposes were produced by Susan E. Gunter (2000), by Gunter and Stephen H. Jobe (2001), by Philip Horne (1999), and by Michael Anesko (1997).
- 8.
“By light of the misrecollection James is not just reading the words. He is also being represented by them: ‘After long exile and martyrdom, [he/she] came to this peace’.” Cameron provides both Dante’s original Italian as well as her translation of James’s version. From the Paradiso (10:128–129) the relevant lines are “ed essa da martiro/ e da essilio venne a questa pace,” which James transcribes as “Dopo lungo exilio e martiro/ [Venne] a questa pace” (14–15). See also Victoria Coulson, Chapter 1.
- 9.
There have been many studies of Alice James that touch on her intimacy with Katharine Loring, her literary and intellectual abilities, and her relationship to her second-oldest (and clearly favorite) brother. In addition to Coulson, see Jean Strouse and Ruth Bernard Yeazell. I also rely here on various biographical studies of the James family, including those by Paul Fisher, Gunter (Alice), Habegger (The Father), R. W. B. Lewis, and Jane Maher.
- 10.
Hayes 49–64.
- 11.
For material culture readings, see Hazel Hutchison , Kendal Johnson, and Thomas Otten. On James’s personal writing, see Oliver Herford .
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Wichelns, K. (2018). Introduction: On James, Mastery, and Transgression. In: Henry James's Feminist Afterlives. American Literature Readings in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71800-2_1
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