环境、性格、命运：共存于《美国人》和《欧洲人》中的有机模式

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Chapter 1 Introduction

§1.1 Henry James and His two novels

Henry James (1843-1916) is a prestigious writer in American literary history. “He

has created more than 120 works in all his life, among which there are novels with a

length of 1 millions words, and there are essays, plays, travel diaries, autobiographies

and memoirs etc.”（Conn 244）. James's contribution to novel writing is obvious to all.

“James refined the novelistic art, purified it, and gave it directions never thought of

before his time” (Magill 1435). So he occupies an important position in American

literature of the nineteenth century. He is not only a productive novelist but also a

famous fiction critic. His theory about fiction refreshes the American literary tradition

in that he renovates the traditional way of the narration of novels and turns to show his

interests in writing psycho-realistic novels and his techniques of producing fictions are

very unique. It was under his influence that a new era in American literary history was

ushered in. According to Shen Dan’s summary, in the early 20s and 30s of the

twentieth century, not long after the death of Henry James, T.S. Eliot, E. Pound, and

F.M. Ford etc. showed much attention to his works as well as the viewpoint advanced

by him; from the 40s to 70s, James has been in the center of the novelistic criticism

and the study of novelistic theory; in the 70s, with the diversification of critical

theories, the critics began to re-interpret James’s works from various points of view; in

the 80s and 90s, the scholarship of Henry James had two divisions: for one group of

the scholars, influenced by the theory of social analysis, they began to combine the

works and theory of James with gender, power, subjectivity etc.; as for the other group,

they were still engaged in the study of James’s point of view upon the form of the

novel (103). Frank N. Magill says, “four areas of emphasis have especially attracted

scholars in their attempts to isolate the essential contributions to the art of fiction with

which James can be credited: point of view, psychological realism, style, and the

connection of moral and aesthetic values ” （1435 ）. In this thesis we’ll apply the

formalistic approach to take care of James’s organicism theory and his concern on the

relationship between form and content. Mary Doyle Springer confirms, “James is a

conscious formalist” (266). It is noted that Henry James was much concerned with the

artistic form from the 80s. Then how is “form” expressed in his works of The

The Interrelationship between Environment, Character and Fate:An Organic Pattern in The

American and The Europeans

American and The Europeans? And what is the significance of this type of form? This

is just what this thesis gets interested in.

The American (1877) and The Europeans (1878) are published in the transitional

period only two or three years before the 80s. Leon Edel, a most renowned and

respected scholar and expert of James, has summed up the focuses of James’s works in

different phases of his life. “Through the publication of The Portrait of a Lady, in 1881,

James was chiefly interested in the now famous ‘international theme’, the learning

experiences and conflicts of Americans in Europe and Europeans in America (the

former situation being by far the most frequent)” (qtd. in Magill: 1440-1141).

According to Leon Edel’s division, The American and The Europeans are the works

finished in the first phase of James’s writing career. We do find what Leon Edel

mentions above is reflected in these two novels, that is, James’s interest in the

international subject, his learning experience, conflicts of Americans in Europe and

Europeans in America. Therefore, these topics won't be talked over and again in this

thesis. In fact, the inspiration of this thesis comes from the following quotation:

It must be pointed out that when combing and illustrating James’s

novelistic theory, the critics of various schools, though each had one’s own

emphasis, reached a consensus on James’s contribution to the novelistic

theory, that is, he not only helped to elevate the novel-writing profession

to the height of artistic creation, but also created a series of concepts and

terms entailed in turning the novelistic theory into a discipline (申103).

To prove and test what is said above, we may naturally turn to “The Art of Fiction”

which is very famous representative article of Mr. James’s thoughts on novelistic

criticism. This article challenges the traditional view on fiction. It is in this article that

James noticeably shows his attention on the techniques of producing a novel and his

philosophical thought on the relationship between form and content. As a matter of fact,

he applies those concerns into his creation of novels. The American and The Europeans

seem to be the right novels for us to carry out the research. They are the novels of

international theme which brings about prestige and brilliancy to James in American

literary history and makes him reach a summit in delineating and attending the

European-American culture and the Europeans and Americans. Just as the two titles

show, they convey the author’s understanding on and his standpoint towards the

Europeans and Americans as well as their culture. Although the focuses of these two

Chapter 1 Introduction

works are placed respectively on the Americans and the Europeans, yet the two works

complement each other. So we may postulate that there might be a pattern reflecting

James’s train of thought when he was composing these two works. If people are more

concerned with James’s contribution in such aspects as international theme,

psycho-realism, narrative techniques, moral concern and feminism and so on, here we

are much concerned with a new formalistic perspective to appreciate his works.

§1.2 Literature Review

Recent years, James’s scholars have conducted a wide and profound research in

such aspects as the international theme, narrative technique, ethic and morality, and so

on. The studies on the “international theme”, especially the analysis from the cultural

aspects have been drawing the scholars’ attention both at home and abroad. Alywen

Berland’s Cultural and Conduct in the Novels of Henry James discusses and analyzes

James’s way of handling the relationship between “European culture” and “American

morality” in his novels in great length; Brian Lee analyzes and discusses about James’s

novels from the viewpoint of cultural and consciousness in his published monograph

─Henry James’s Novels: a Study of Culture and Consciousness ; Dai Xianmei and Li

Jianbo, two Chinese scholars on James do research on James’s international theme, too.

Amongst, Dai Xianmei publishes an essay in Foreign Literature Review in 2000,

entitled “A Discussion on Henry James’s ideology on European-American Culture”

indicating James’s expectation for the blending of the European and American culture;

Li Jianbo publishes an essay in English-American Literary Studies, entitled “The

Construction and Deconstruction of the International Theme: The American and

Lolita” explaining in his article about how James constructs the international theme in

his novels. James spends most of his energy during his writing career in innovating and

reforming the narrative techniques of novels, which lays foundation for his important

and brilliant position today in literature. Shen Dan, a famous Chinese expert in

narratology, publishes her monograph A Study of Narratology of English and American

novels in which she spends a whole chapter talking about James’s narrative theory and

techniques profoundly and thoroughly, believing that James is the one who lays

foundation for the theory of modern fictions; apart from monographs, we may see still

more articles on this point. Frank N. Magill says, “This sort of advanced work in

The Interrelationship between Environment, Character and Fate:An Organic Pattern in The

American and The Europeans

viewpoint did two important things: it helped to prepare the way for the

stream-of-consciousness novel, and it deepened the psychological realism that was to

be James’s chief intellectual contribution to the novel form” (1436). As for the analysis

of James’s works from the feminist point of view, we may come across Donatella

Izzo’s book ─Portraying of the Lady: Technologies of Gender in the Short Stories of

Henry James. She carries out “a Foucauldian and narratological analysis to counter the

simplifications of political feminists who focused on the theme of women’s

victimization and of poststructuralists who have neglected women as historical subjects

in favor of ‘the feminine’ as a linguistic principle. Izzo is seeking out the middle

ground of gender and is constructing a framework for a range of tales which range

across nearly the whole of James’s career” (qtd. in Daugherty: 126). Frank N. Magill

argues, “Possible the greatest shift of critical emphasis in James scholarship has been

the increasing awareness of the moral thrust of his work” (1442). A Lacanian reading

with an ethical turn is Phyllis Van Slyck’s Trapping the Gaze: Objects of Desire in

James’s Early and Late Fiction. Phyllis Van Slyck says, “In the early tales the object

functions as a necessary ideal for a perceiver committed to his or her own vision, but in

the later fiction characters discover their personal deficiencies and the claims of other’s

subjectivity” (qtd. in Daugherty: 128). Of course, essays on James and his works are in

a diverse range and the studying perspectives are also various. So here we can’t

exhaust all the scholarships on James and his works, but we should proceed to study

further and discover more about the talents of such a great master and on his

contribution to literature. His works and theoretical essays are so vast, numerous and

complex and his literary accomplishments are so profound that the study on him and

his works is a long-run task.

The American (1877) and The Europeans (1878) are his earlier works which can be

called companions. Richard Grant White, a most renowned literary and musical critic

makes his comments on North American, a literary review, in 1879, saying “Mr.

James’s latest work in fiction of any importance is The Europeans, which is intended,

of course, as a companion piece to The American” (White 57). However, the

publication of these two books attracts more or less attention and receives various

critiques, good or bad. Especially, The Europeans is not very popular. “Henry James’s

The Europeans has often been overlooked in critical circles, perhaps due to the

author’s reluctance to include it in a collected edition of his works” (Kalupahana 119).

Chapter 1 Introduction

The following is some representative comments we have singled out. George

Saintsbury, a literary historian and reviewer, publishes his opinions about The

American on Academy in 1877: “The book is an odd one, for, though we cannot call it

a good book, there is no doubt whatever that it is worth a score of the books which we

are wont truly enough in a sense to call good” (Saintsbury 46); Opposite to the

comments above, there are some good words to The American saying “Of the story as

a whole it would be rash to express an opinion till it is completed; but it is safe to say

that it is by far the most important contribution to American fiction made for a long

time” (American Reviews 390). Similarly, about James’s The Europeans, the comments

are quite different too. On Scriber’s Monthly, January 1879, an anonymous article

comments, “Nevertheless, the story lacks a strong satisfactory close. It has weakness at

the end, as so many of this charming writer’s stories have. It will neither please the

main bulk of novel-readers, nor the fastidious few who demand to be stirred by an

author” (Europeans 62); Conversely, an anonymous article on Appleton’s Journal,

January 1879 holds a view: “The Europeans is truly described as ‘a sketch’─ events

and persons being outlined rather than analyzed, and large dependence being placed by

the author on the cooperation of the reader’s imagination with his own. Yet, in spite of

its slightness, The Europeans will be generally admitted, we think to contain Mr.

James’s best and most artistic work” (Europeans 63). By far, though people’s opinions

on these two books are quite at a difference, yet as the production of Mr. James, they

have good reasons to be studied, no matter good or bad. Maybe we can find some other

surprises in terms of their literary values.

Now let’s take a look at some related scholarships conducted on these two books

respectively. The overseas scholarships on them mainly appeared between the sixties

and the eighties in the twentieth century. Amongst them, the studies on The American

are basically about the discussion on the characters, ethnic representation, the problems

about its close, the genre, say, romance or realism. On its moral motifs, Oscar Cargill

wrote an article entitled “A Surge of Patriotic Indignation”, which discusses the

expression of James’s patriotism in The American; Irving Howe talks about the

millionaire image represented by Newman and its significance in his article named

“Henry James and the Millionaire”; James Tuttleton, a most famous specialist on

James, rereads people’s stereotyped idea on James’s European values embodied in The

American and delivers his own idea on that. The title of his article is “The

The Interrelationship between Environment, Character and Fate:An Organic Pattern in The

American and The Europeans

Superstitious Valuation of Europe”. At home, Fu Shuqin publishes an article named

“The Impassable ‘Wall’: On the Cultural Difference between Europe and America” on

the Journal of Yichun University, placing her focus on the cultural difference. The

studies on the analysis of the character include Leon Edel’s “A Portrait Rich in

National Ambiguities”, which talks about whether the national character represented

by Newman is genuine and typical. Richard Poirier delivers his analysis of the types of

characters and defined the genre of The American in his article entitled “The Comedy

of Fixed and Free Character”; Royal A. Gettman compares the two earlier and the later

version of The American showing the differences in such aspects as the style, character,

the plot in his article “Henry James’s Revision of The American”. Charles R. Anderson

publishes an article “Walls of Separation”, in which he points out James’s innovation

on the techniques to display the character of the figures in his novel. This essay

appreciates The American mainly from the aspect of his artistic techniques used in

writing and put forward three elements, namely, setting, image, and symbolism which

are used by James as the technique to illustrate the character of his figures and thus

indicates a new relationship between person, place and thing (Anderson 79). This essay

can be considered as a research from the formalistic point of view. Another formalistic

study of The American is Lin Bin, a Chinese scholar, analyzing the gothic elements

existing in this novel in terms of the design of the whole plots, as a result of which an

effect of defamiliarization is achieved. On gender study, an article in Henry James and

the Suspense of Masculinity written by Leland Person explains about a new type of

manhood imposed on Newman, the hero of The American, by James. In addition, there

are still some other short comments sporadically appearing in some journals of book

reviews, for instance, Scriber Monthly,Atlantic Monthly,and North American etc.

The research on The Europeans falls into similar categories as that on The

American, namely, moral studies, formalistic studies, and gender and race studies. In

the fourth chapter of his book Modern Literary Criticism, Robert Emmet Long

discusses about Hawthorn’s legacy on James who inherits Hawthorn’s romance motifs,

naming this article “The Europeans and Daisy Miller: Motifs Transfigured”. In his

article “James’s The European and the structure of Comedy”, J. A. Ward analyzes how

James achieves a comic effect by the technique of contrasting, again from a formalistic

perspective. On gender and race study, here we see a more recent essay on Canadian

Review of American Studies by Chamika Kalupahana, who in this essay entitled “Les

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摘要：

Chapter1Introduction1Chapter1Introduction§1.1HenryJamesandHistwonovelsHenryJames(1843-1916)isaprestigiouswriterinAmericanliteraryhistory.“Hehascreatedmorethan120worksinallhislife,amongwhichtherearenovelswithalengthof1millionswords,andthereareessays,plays,traveldiaries,autobiographiesandmemoirsetc.”（...

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