4 ms·

I wonder how the 'psychological novel' which was supposed to be invented in James' The Portrait of a Lady (1880) (according to the article) is distinct from, e.

I wonder how the 'psychological novel' which was supposed to be invented in James' The Portrait of a Lady (1880) (according to the article) is distinct from, e.g., Crime and Punishment (1866) (or Notes from Underground, though I guess that was a novella so it doesn't count). Is Portrait of a Lady more psychologically focused, or is the way it treats the psychological content somehow different?

voidhorse 9y ago
I was thinking the same as soon as I read the article subheading. I can certainly grant the title "Novels [especially English novels] were never the same after Henry James" but Dostoyevsky definitely "pioneered" what one would typically call 'psychological' literature. I actually have several of Banville's (the author of this piece) own novels sitting in my backlog. A few skims confirm his work is quite interested in psychology as the novel can render it (all his work that I have is in first person), so it's not too surprising he'd focus on that aspect of James's writing. I'd wager James's central contribution to literature was his intense craftsman's devotion and concern for the construction of the novel as an aesthetic object and his firm conviction literature could be an artform and not merely the stuff of adventure tales and parables--his literary criticism and prefaces to his own works are perhaps even more important to the development of literature than his stories.
- tmalsburg2 9y ago
  Dostoyevsky was a master of the genre but there were many others at the time, e.g. Flaubert (Madame Bovary, 1857). Plus, we can hardly stick the label pioneer/inventor of psychological novel on either James or Dostoyevsky when there are works such as Madame de La Fayette's La Princesse de Clèves (1678).
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    Madame Bovary immediately sprung to mind as well. I find that there are plenty of similarities regarding the psychological depiction and psychological narrative of the characters between Madame Bovary and Portrait of a Lady.

voidhorse 9y ago

I was thinking the same as soon as I read the article subheading. I can certainly grant the title "Novels [especially English novels] were never the same after Henry James" but Dostoyevsky definitely "pioneered" what one would typically call 'psychological' literature. I actually have several of Banville's (the author of this piece) own novels sitting in my backlog. A few skims confirm his work is quite interested in psychology as the novel can render it (all his work that I have is in first person), so it's not too surprising he'd focus on that aspect of James's writing. I'd wager James's central contribution to literature was his intense craftsman's devotion and concern for the construction of the novel as an aesthetic object and his firm conviction literature could be an artform and not merely the stuff of adventure tales and parables--his literary criticism and prefaces to his own works are perhaps even more important to the development of literature than his stories.

tmalsburg2 9y ago
Dostoyevsky was a master of the genre but there were many others at the time, e.g. Flaubert (Madame Bovary, 1857). Plus, we can hardly stick the label pioneer/inventor of psychological novel on either James or Dostoyevsky when there are works such as Madame de La Fayette's La Princesse de Clèves (1678).
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  Madame Bovary immediately sprung to mind as well. I find that there are plenty of similarities regarding the psychological depiction and psychological narrative of the characters between Madame Bovary and Portrait of a Lady.