Original scientific paper
"The Portrait", “The Wings" and James's Theory
Ivan Matković
Abstract
The article deals with the relationship between James's early
and later phase of writing and with the relationship between.
his aesthetic theory an-d his literary rpractice. By contrasting
the different narrative techniques employed in The Portrait of
a Lady and in The Wings of the Dove the article aims at
establishing which of these two novels 'is a "better" "novel. The
examination is accomplished through a brief analysis of the
point-of-view, narrative personna, plotting, sentence structure
and gsymbolic texture of both novels. The evidence supplied by
the analysis «is compared to James's own critical criteria in
order to establish to what extent his technique relates to his
aesthetic .theory and to what extent it correslponds to his ovmí
standards. This way one could determine whether there were
any deductions from the primary principles which became more important to James in his "major phase" off writing. The results of the analysis and the comparison demonstrate that The Wings of the Dove is a greater literary achievement, but that the aest-hetic criteria implicit in that choice were not the ones James valued the most. The differences in technique, and in the resulting quality stem out of James's willingness;to experiment and out of his endless battle against limitations in presenting experience.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
121818
URI
Publication date:
26.2.1980.
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