Transcription
[Music] Hello everybody. Welcome to this video on Henry James. I am reading from the second edition of our Encyclopedia of British Literature, where Henry James is given in very great detail. Henry James was born in 1843, and he was the brother of the very illustrious psychologist William James. Did you know their father was also a very major figure? He was friends with the transcendentalists, and Henry James grew into a very major novelist and short story writer of the Victorian period. He was born in New York, but he emigrated to England and spent many years in Europe. Finally, he wrote about the interaction between the Americans and the Europeans; that is a very important theme in his novels.
Probably you already know his brother William James talked about stream of consciousness in psychology. Henry James also employed something like stream of consciousness. Henry James employed interior monologue and what is called center of consciousness character. Now you're wondering, what is that center of consciousness? I will explain. You know, the character becomes the center of consciousness; his consciousness is the only thing that you see in the novel. Really, everything is filtered through the character's consciousness, so it is like a very severe stream of consciousness because you see nobody else's perspective—very high kind of psychological fiction. Henry James was a realist; he believed that the artist should have complete freedom in representing life, the complexity of life.
Did you know that Henry James was trained in language and literature? That is why Henry James experimented with language and characterization, and he laid the foundations of modernism. Henry James was an early modernist, like I already told you. Henry James wrote both short stories and novels, and these became very, very famous. He wrote over 200 essays also, and his novels were serialized in the major periodical. Can you guess which periodical in which Henry James's novels were serialized? It is the Atlantic Monthly. His works became pioneering works of realism and were influenced by French realists like Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, and also Henry Ibsen, who introduced realism into drama. Henry James was instrumental in getting Ibsen's plays ready for the English stage. Other realists like Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne—Hawthorne was a romantic, but there was realism also in him, a little bit—he combined realistic techniques. Realism became a movement later after Hawthorne, but you can see early realist techniques combined with romanticism in Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I was saying that Dickens and Hawthorne inspired Henry James, and Henry James used interior monologue, center of consciousness characters, and also unreliable narrators. Do you know what is an unreliable narrator? A narrator who is not in control of the narration or discourse. Sometimes that narrator will not know the complete story, or he will be biased; he will be speaking from a subjective perspective. Now all this is a feature of modernism; these are features of modernism. Did you know that Henry James's style is often compared to Impressionistic painting? Have you seen Impressionistic painting? You should Google search and look at Claude Monet's paintings. Claude Monet's paintings—they are not realistic; they are not like lifelike representations of reality. No, no, no; they are just impressions of the artist. You know, it is not a full realistic painting; it is like hazy use of lots of pastel colors. You don't know clearly what he is depicting; it is a subjective impression of the artist that Impressionistic painting depicts.
So we have had a good introduction to Henry James. Now Henry James, uh, depicted the complexity of life and reality through realism. He advocated that the artist should have freedom, in which I say the Art of Fiction is a very major essay that he wrote. He wrote a number of critical works, but The Art of Fiction is very major. Okay, are you now ready to talk about the important works of Henry James? All of you might know a number of novels already because they are very famous. The first serious attempt at a novel was The Adventures of Roderick Hudson. Sorry, it's a mistake; I will repeat. The first major novel by Henry James was Roderick Hudson. Roderick Hudson came in 1875. Wow, that's so early, long before modernism, isn't it? 1875, and it's a Künstlerroman. Now Künstlerroman is a modernist genre. What do you mean by Künstlerroman? It means the development of an artist, isn't it? A Bildungsroman about the development of an artist; it's called Künstlerroman. There are many Künstlerromane in modernism, like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—Künstlerroman it is. And the protagonist of Roderick Hudson is Roderick Hudson; he's an extremely talented sculptor. Okay, and Hudson, Roderick Hudson, Rowland Mallet, Christina Light—famous characters. Other novels—are you interested to know? The American, in 1877. The protagonist is Christopher Newman; obviously, he is an American, as you already know. Americans in Europe was the theme of Henry James, so Christopher Newman is an American traveling in Europe; that is in which novel? The American, 1877.
The very next year, Henry James came up with a major novel, that is Daisy Miller. This time the American protagonist is a woman, an American girl. Daisy Miller is in Europe; she is courted by English men like Winterbourne. Now in Henry James's novels, there is a comparison between American culture and European culture. European culture is very moral, very traditional, but very rigid. American culture is more light, and it is more liberal. So Daisy is a stereotype of an American girl, and Daisy's values are conflicting with the European values, which are more sophisticated. Did you get that? Daisy Miller. If you get to read the novel, you should read it because it is very important. In 1881 came a very major novel, The Portrait of a Lady. There is a story by Khushwant Singh, Portrait of a Lady; there is a poem by—do you know a poem by T.S. Eliot? T.S. Eliot also wrote a Portrait of a Lady. Now this is a novel, perhaps the most famous novel, one of the early novels of Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady. The lady in the title is Isabel Archer. Isabel Archer is an American girl, and she is again coming to Europe and England, like in all other novels, and she is very independent. She does not want to get married; she wants to retain her freedom. But one lady called Madame Merle, she inspires and encourages Isabella to marry Gilbert Osmond. Who is Gilbert Osmond? You're wondering. Gilbert Osmond is a connoisseur of art; he is not a very rich man, but he is interested in art; he has a lot of taste about art, etc. Uh, Isabel at this time has got an inheritance, and she has got immense wealth, all right, and Isabella gets married to Gilbert Osmond, or it turns out to be a mistake because Gilbert is cold and dictatorial; he does not understand his wife. Isabel loses her independence. The couple are now living in Rome, and the marriage becomes like a virtual prison for her. At this time, Gilbert already has a daughter, Pansy. People are thinking that he's a widower; he was before he married Isabel, and this is a daughter from his early marriage, and Isabel gets very much attached to Pansy. Now a lot of Europe has been seen. Okay, it's a very important novel, very realistic novel. From Italy they now arrive in England. Isabel arrives in England; she arrives in England, and she is going to take care of her cousin Ralph, who is dying. And then before leaving to Italy, before coming to England, something had happened. Can you imagine what happened? She came to know the reality of Pansy. Oh my god. Pansy is the illegitimate daughter of Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond. Madame was manipulating Isabella, getting her to marry Gilbert so that she will take care of their illegitimate daughter. Isabel is so shocked; she, she's so hurt, and at the end she goes back, but she doesn't know really what to do. Should she go back and live with Gilbert? Oh, should she just take Pansy away and go and live separately? The novel has an alternate ending; it has an ambivalent ending; it is not a clear ending. This ambiguous ending is very famous, and that is what makes this novel a very major modernist novel, The Portrait of a Lady, with its ambivalent ending. Now the character of Isabel is very important; she is a strong woman who takes upon herself the responsibility for her actions; she does not blame anybody, and the situation of Isabel is analyzed from moral, ethical, psychological angles. One important aspect of modernism is that there is a focus on, there is a zooming in on the character; the character's psyche is important; the society, external action is not so important, all right. The character's psyche is zoomed in; that is important in The Portrait of a Lady.
Another novel that we'll talk about is What Maisie Knew. That novel came in 1897. Wow, that is much later now because Portrait of a Lady was 1881. Guys, let me remind you, while you're studying along with your preparation of the plot and analysis, always pay attention to the chronology so that you will have no difficulty when they ask you chronology questions, all right. So What Maisie Knew is about a girl, Maisie; her upbringing. She is brought up by a nurse; her parents are rather irresponsible; her parents, uh, are not with her all the time; they divorce and they remarry, and what choice is Maisie making? Maisie is choosing to live with her nurse; that is the story of What Maisie Knew. So like in modernism, in Henry James's novels, there are people making their own choices; they are responsible for their actions; they come to their own understanding of what happiness is. Now 1898 came a very famous Gothic short story of Henry James. You got to tell me this because this is the most famous short story by Henry James, and in Netflix you might have watched an adaptation of this Henry James famous Gothic short story. Type in the chat box; I'm waiting. Tick, tick, one, tick, tick, tock, tick, tock, three. Did you write The Turn of the Screw? Haven't you heard of it? The Turn of the Screw is a ghost novella; it is very frightening. I'm going to tell you a frightening story; make sure you stay put in your seats, okay? The New Critics praised this story because it's ambivalent; I will tell you why. There is a governess; she is looking after two children, Miles and Flora; they are the two children. This governess is talking about the previous governors of these children, and she is telling us, uh, the story of the family, and it's really frightening. In the time of the previous governors, who is no more, uh, this unnamed governess is telling us in her manuscript, in the time of the previous governors who is no more, there was an employee in the house called Peter Quint. Peter Quint; he had control over all the people in the households; he even had sexual relations with many of them, and it looks like he even sexually molested Miles as well as other members of the households. Who am I talking about? Peter Quint. And then what happened? Something seriously wrong happened. Isabel, sorry, uh, Jaisal, the the governess and Peter Quint all are now dead; Miles and Flora are alive, of course. One day Miles is expelled from his school for some unknown reason; we don't know what happened; he's expelled from school; maybe the ghost created some problems; we don't know; there's a ghost yet, and Miles in a room is sitting and going to tell our governess what happened when the ghost of Peter Quint appears at the window, and Miles dies. Oh my god. Miles just dies, and we don't know what the ghost has done. And then at the end of the story, it appears like the governess who is telling us the story is out of her mind. Is it all a fib of her imagination? Did really something happen, or is our narrator mad? Oh, that is the—no short story, The Turn of the Screw. The story is highly ambiguous; it makes, uh, it questions, it makes fun of reality; it questions reality. Is there something called reality, or is it just our impressions, the impressions of the minds? Are we all mad? What is sanity? What is reality? It is presented as highly unstable. Wow, that is some story, isn't it? 19th century is over now; 20th century. 1902 came the short story The Wing of the Dove. Though I made a mistake, The Wings of the Dove. The Wings of the Dove; it is the story of an American heiress, Milly Theale, and the American heiress is, uh, having an incurable disease; she is dying, but she still has a huge impact on the people around her; that is the story of The Wings of the Dove. And then one of the later novels, 1903, very famous with an unreliable narrator, Lambert Strether. Tell me which is the novel with the unreliable narrator Lambert Strether. It is the novel The Ambassadors. In The Ambassadors, it's a dark comedy. Okay, dark comedy. Later novel. Strether is working in a journal, okay, in New York, and the owner of the journal is a woman, Mrs. Newsome. She is an extremely rich widow, and Lambert Strether has a lot of troubles in the past; he has memories that he is suffering from that he is trying to come to terms with, and he is married; he is engaged to Mrs. Newsome, his boss, who is older than him. Mrs. Newsome has an adult son, Chad, Chad Newsome, who is in Paris, and Chad Newsome is involved with some wealthy women of Paris and Madame de Vionnet—that is the name, de Vionnet—and her daughter; they are exquisitely beautiful women who are upper class and engaged in art, and Chad Newsome is having some relationship with them. Mrs. Newsome wants Lambert Strether to go to Paris, bring back Chad, and Lambert Strether is a frustrated man struggling with his past as well as his present, and Lambert Strether is dead—sorry, dead tired, uh, he's tired like a dog; he's dead tired like a dog, and that is—I'm quoting—tired like a dog, and, um, dog-tired actually, that is the phrase in the novel, dog-tired. And when he goes to Paris, his life changes—whose life? Lambert Strether's life. He goes to Paris, sees Chad; she's married—married, uh, woman, the lady—and he understands that Chad is living a more fulfilling life than Lambert himself. This life with beauty, love, art—this is so amazing, and Lambert Strether forgets his mission. Did you know what he did? He asks Chad to just stay in Paris and live his life; do not come back to Mrs. Newsome. Oh my god; he's doing exactly the opposite of what he came to do, at the risk of his job and at the risk of his marriage with a wealthy woman. Lambert Strether is ready to forego all this because in Paris he comes to realize what life is, who he is, what is valuable in life, and all the stories sound amazing, but the trick is the, uh, narrator is an unreliable narrator; he is not telling us, uh, the complete—actually this is third-person narrative from Lambert Strether's point of view, but we see only Lambert Strether's point of view here; Lambert Strether's story only we see here, and we can't completely understand whether it's objective or not. That ambiguity in the novel is what makes it modernist, very, very important.
Now Henry James is also the famous writer of some autobiographies. Remember, guys, in UGC NET and other exams, non-fiction, autobiographies, etc., are very important. A Small Boy and Others, Notes of a Son and Brother, etc., are very important. As I told you, The Art of Fiction is a major critical essay by Henry James. Do you know against whom, in reply to whom, did Henry James write The Art of Fiction? It is in reply to Walter Besant, another critic, and Henry James talks about his version of realism here. And another critical work that Henry James wrote is The Art of the Novel, and that is a collection of critical prefaces. That book is a collection of critical prefaces, and Henry James had a friend, Percy Lubbock. Percy Lubbock is the author of The Craft of Fiction. Percy Lubbock wrote The Craft of Fiction, another critical work. So did you like this discussion on Henry James? Listen to me, guys. This video is a very, uh, perfect, I would say, map of how to study an author. What are the major things that are important in his or her work? What is the—what are the themes of his major works, etc.? So the basic things we have got here. These videos of everyday at six, Videopedia, are meant to give you a solid foundation for self-learning. Read these authors and works; read about them; make detailed notes. If you want some notes to start with, you can buy our Encyclopedia of British Literature in three volumes. I'm not saying you should definitely buy; if you don't buy, it's okay. But the advantage of buying this is that this book in three volumes, that is, is the result of like 20 years of work that I have personally done, a, in, in association with a team, a large team of people who worked with us. So, so much notes in point-point form already there in this book. Based on this, if you do some extra reading and if you add more points to this, it will be an amazing resource that you develop for studying and passing the exam of not only NET and SET, but every exam in English literature. So we have a research-based perspective; this is the result of our research; we are sharing it with you. You can do your research, and your self-learning will make you a great scholar, and you will have an amazing career. That is why I am doing this Videopedia for you and trying to give you that little push that you need to go all the way to be assistant professors, professors, heads of departments, vice chancellors. Wow, I'll be so proud to know you're doing well in your career. So all the best; happy reading. Bye-bye.