Wings of the Dove (Barnes & Noble Classi - Henry James [270]
—from Cakes and Ale: or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930)
Questions
1. What does the prose style of The Wings of the Dove accomplish that a more direct style does not? What can it not accomplish that a more direct style can? How would you formulate a description of James’s late style? He himself in an offhand moment described it as “sub-aqueous.”
2. Of James’s late fiction George Moore asks, “Why does he always avoid decisive action? ... Why is nothing ever accomplished? ... Mr. James’s people live in a calm, sad, and very polite twilight of volition.... Is there really much to say about people who live in stately houses and eat and drink their fill every day of the year?” Has George Moore got it right? Is he being fair? And what do you think about Somerset Maugham’s observation that what James does is “report tittle-tattle at tea parties in English country houses”?
3. Some readers of The Wings of the Dove have found in the novel a sense of doom, a sense of a civilization in a decline and about to crash. Do you see this in the book? How is this sense or atmosphere created?
4. In spite of the somewhat rarified milieu of the novel, do the characters seem to you to be motivated by the same ambitions, emotions, fears, and desires as, say, a group of average Americans? Or a group of movie stars, factory workers, or Appalachian Amish—in spite of the differences in circumstances? In other words, are James’s characters fully human?
5. What would you say is an accurate characterization of Merton Densher? He thinks too much? He’s weak? He has flaws but is essentially a good man? He begins ill and ends well? He is despicable? Instead of doing what he did, what should he have done?
For Further Reading
Bibliography and Reference
Edel, Leon, and Dan H. Laurence. A Bibliography of Henry James. 1957. Third edition, revised with the assistance of James Rambeau. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
Foley, Richard Nicholas. Criticism in American Periodicals of the Works of Henry James from 1866 to I916. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1944.
Freedman, Jonathan, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Henry James. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
James, Henry. The Notebooks of Henry James. Edited by F. O. Matthiessen and Kenneth B. Murdock. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947.
Putt, S. Gorley. Henry James: A Reader’s Guide. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966.
Stafford, William T. A Name, Title, and Place Index to the Critical Writings of Henry James. Englewood, CO: Microcard Editions, 1975.
Taylor, Linda J. Henry James, 1866-19I6: A Reference Guide. Boston, G. K. Hall, 1982.
Biography
Dupee, Frederick W. Henry James. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956.
Edel, Leon. Henry James: A Life. New York: Harper and Row, 1985. A condensed and revised version of Edel’s original five-volume biography Henry James (1953-1972).
___. Henry James: The Master: 1901-1916. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1972. This final volume of Edel’s five-volume biography covers the last period of James’s life.
___ ,and Gordon N. Ray. Henry James and H. G. Wells: A Record of Their Friendship, Their Debate on the Art of Fiction, and Their Quarrel. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958.
Horne, Philip. Henry James and Revision: The New York Edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Matthiessen, F. O. The James Family. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947.
Monteiro, George. Henry James and John Hay: The Record of a Friendship. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1965.
Moore, Harry T. Henry James. New York: Viking Press, 1974.
Letters
Edel, Leon, ed. Henry James: Selected Letters. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987.
Horne, Philip, ed. Henry James: A Life in Letters. New York: Viking Press, 1999.
Lubbock, Percy, ed. The Letters of Henry James. New York: Scribner, 1920.
Powers, Lyall H., ed. Henry James and Edith Wharton: Letters, 1900-1915. New York: Scribner’s, 1990.
Literary Criticism and Commentary
Allen, Elizabeth. A Woman’s Place in the Novels of Henry James. New York: St. Martin