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The Continuum of Consciousness

Aesthetic Experience and Visual Art in Henry James’s Novels

by Jennifer Eimers (Author)
©2013 Monographs IX, 117 Pages
Series: American University Studies , Volume 198

Summary

The Continuum of Consciousness: Aesthetic Experience and Visual Art in Henry James’s Novels examines the transformative experience of art in James’s fiction. In a 1915 letter to H. G. Wells, James declares, «It is art that makes life.» This book traces the rich implications of this claim. For James, viewing art transformed the self. Many of his contemporaries, including his famous older brother, William, were deeply interested in the study of perception and individual consciousness. James’s fictional use of art reflects these philosophical discussions. Although much valuable scholarship has been devoted to visual art in James’s fiction, the guiding role it often plays in his characters’ experiences receives fuller exploration in this book. A prolonged look at visual art and consciousness through the lens of nineteenth-century British aestheticism reveals intriguing connections and character responses. By highlighting and analyzing his representations of aesthetic consciousness in four novels at specific moments (such as Basil Ransom’s and Verena Tarrant’s contrasting responses to Harvard’s Memorial Hall in The Bostonians and Milly Theale’s identification with a Bronzino painting in The Wings of the Dove), this book ultimately explores the idea that for James art represents «every conscious human activity», as Wells replied to James.

Details

Pages
IX, 117
Year
2013
ISBN (PDF)
9781453911327
ISBN (Hardcover)
9781433122897
DOI
10.3726/978-1-4539-1132-7
Language
English
Publication date
2013 (November)
Keywords
fiction perception human activity
Published
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2013. 117 pp.

Biographical notes

Jennifer Eimers (Author)

Jennifer Eimers earned her PhD in English from the University of Georgia, where she specialized in nineteenth-century American literature. She received her MA in English from Creighton University and her BA in English from Grand View University. She is Assistant Professor of English at Missouri Valley College. Her scholarship has been published in The Henry James Review, Searching for America: Essays on American Art and Architecture (2007), and A Companion to Henry James (2008).

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Title: The Continuum of Consciousness
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130 pages