“The Taste of Life”

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-58
Author(s):  
Cynthia J. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Henry James ◽  
Edith Wharton ◽  
Affective Response ◽  
William Dean Howells ◽  
Extended Analysis ◽  
Experience Pain

This chapter begins with a comparative analysis of pain’s importance to three prominent nineteenth-century literary modes: sentimentalism, naturalism, and realism. It then turns to the distinctive aesthetic and ethical priorities of the high realism practiced by William Dean Howells, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. It concludes with an extended analysis of Howellsian realism as the first of several examples of the high realist aesthetic. From the outset of his career, Howells explored the idea that a more refined literary sensibility hinges on a subtle sensitivity to suffering of various kinds, emphasizing a view of the elevated individual as possessing a heightened ability not just to experience pain but to manage his or her own reactions to it in a sophisticated fashion. Even in his most socially engaged fiction, Howells evinces a preference for a troubled, ruminative, and restrained affective response to others’ suffering over reactions his works portray as rash, boorish, or at best ill-conceived.

Pain and the Aesthetics of US Literary Realism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia J. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Henry James ◽  
Mark Twain ◽  
William Dean Howells ◽  
Literary Realism ◽  
Physical Pain ◽  
Civilizing Process ◽  
Physical Suffering ◽  
Convergence And Divergence ◽  
Similarities And Differences

This book examines the cultural pursuit of a painless ideal as a neglected context for US literary realism. Advances in anesthesia in the final decades of the nineteenth century together with influential religious ideologies helped strengthen the equation of a comfortable existence insulated from physical suffering with the height of civilization. Theories of the civilizing process as intensifying sensitivity to suffering were often adduced to justify a revulsion from physical pain among the postbellum elite. Yet a sizeable portion of this elite rejected this comfort-seeking, pain-avoiding aesthetic as a regrettable consequence of over-civilization. Proponents of the strenuous cult instead identified pain and strife as essential ingredients of an invigorated life. The Ache of the Actual examines variants on a lesser known counter-sensibility integral to the writings of a number of influential literary realists. William Dean Howells, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, and Charles Chesnutt each delineated alternative definitions of a superior sensibility indebted to suffering rather than to either revulsion from or immersion in it. They resolved the binary contrast between pain-aversion on one side and pain-immersion on the other by endorsing an uncommon responsiveness to pain whose precise form depended on the ethical and aesthetic priorities of the writer in question. Focusing on these variations elucidates the similarities and differences within US literary realism while revealing areas of convergence and divergence between realism and other long-nineteenth-century literary modes, chief among them both sentimentalism and naturalism, that were similarly preoccupied with pain.

Authorship, Inscription, and ‘The Great American Interviewer’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Roach
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Henry James ◽  
William Dean Howells ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This chapter begins in the late nineteenth century and argues that the interviewer becomes a powerful foil for realist writers in this era of celebrity. The new figure of the interviewer raised difficult questions around processes of inscription, both mechanical and aesthetic, provoking anxieties around boundaries between public and private, bodies and machines, and about the credibility and authority of information communication via these networks. Drawing on the writings of Henry James and William Dean Howells, amongst others, this chapter demonstrates that the interviewer becomes bound up with debates about the limitations of the realist project and also comes to represent the excesses of optical scrutiny to which the realist author does not succumb. For Henry James in particular, interviewing becomes a crucial site for him to reflect on the embodied nature of communication in general.

Perpindahan dan Perubahan : Transportasi dalam Struktur Naratif Riwayat Perjalanan ke Amerika di Era Viktorian

Metahumaniora ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ari J. Adipurwawijdana
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Henry James ◽  
World View ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
Transportation Infrastructure ◽  
Material Base ◽  
Travel Narrative ◽  
Infrastructure System ◽  
The Subject

ABSTRAKRiwayat yang disajikan penulis Britania era Viktorian tentang perjalannnya ke Amerikamengasumsikan adanya sebuah jaringan prasarana transportasi. Sistem transportasiterkait dengan riwayat perjalanan (travel narrative) dalam tiga hal, yaitu (1) sebagaibasis material bagi perjalanan, (2) sebagai substruktur riwayat, dan (3) sebagai pokokpembicaraan dalam riwayat itu sendiri. Buku Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832)merupakan model bagi cara infrastruktur transportasi menentukan aspek naratologis,yaitu urutan dan perspektif dalam struktur naratif riwayat perjalanan. Karya tersebut jugamenyajikan transportasi sebagai pokok pembicaraan dalam teksnya itu sendiri walaupun tidaksejauh sebagaimana yang tampak pada The Amateur Emigrant (1895) karya Robert LouisStevenson. Dalam hal ini, The American Scene (1907) karya Henry James juga relevankarena, walaupun tidak secara gamblang membicarakan transportasi sebagai topik dantidak pula menampakkan ciri-ciri riwayat perjalanan, karya tersebut merepresentasicara wawasan Britania-Amerika trans-Atlantik dianggap sebagai sesuatu yang lumrah.Wawasan ini juga memandang menganggap perjalanan trans-Atlantik sebagai semacamperjalanan menembus waktu, yang menunjukkan ketidaknyaman para penulis Britaniaabad kesembilanbelas terhadap transformasi sosial ke masyrakat demokratis yangdirepresentasi secara metaforis oleh pemahaman mereka tentang Amerika.Kata kunci: catatan perjalanan Viktorian, transportasi, wisataABSTRACTNarratives presented by Victorian British writers about their travels to America assume theavailability of a transprtation infrastructure system. Such a system is related to the travelnarrative in three things, namely, (1) as a material base for travel, (2) as a narrative substructurehistory, and (3) as the subject-matter of the narratives. Fanny Trollope’s Domestic Mannerof the Americans (1832) is a model for the way transportation infrastructure determinesnarratological aspects, namely order and perspective in the structure of the travel narrative.The piece also presents transportation as a subject-matter in its text although it does notgo so far as do Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Amateur Emigrant (1895). In discussingtransportation Henry James’ The American Scene is also relevant because, despite it’s notexplicitly speaking of transportation as a topic nor does it show the convential characteristicsof the travel narrative, the work represents a British-American trans-Atlantic world viewas a given. This world view also considers trans-Atlantic travels as a kind of voyage acrosstime, implying the discomfort of nineteenth-century British writers concerning the socialtransition into a democratic society represented by America as a metaphor.Keywords: Victorian travel narrative, transportation, tourism

A comparative analysis of the Slovenian particles še and že against the background of the Russian language

2020 ◽  
pp. 324-345
Author(s):  
Mariya L. Kuleshоva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Time Axis ◽  
Temporal Modifiers ◽  
The Russian Language ◽  
Negative Form

The article compares the Slovenian particles še and že mainly with the Russian particles еще and уже. Unlike the Russian particle уже, the Slovenian particle že cannot be combined with the negative form of the verb: instead of it, the adverb več is used in such contexts. The most subtle differences between the Slovenian and Russian languages are found in the combinations of še and že with temporal modifiers, where the so-called “plot time” is characteristic of the Slovenian language. The event is interpreted as localized on the time axis, not from the perspective of the «speaker’s time», which is manifested in the possibility of using že in such contexts as umrl je že v devetnajstem stoletju (he died in the nineteenth century already). Moreover, že is not able to express the meaning ‘no earlier / no later than’, because the particle šele replaces it in this function. The author comes to the conclusion that Slovenian particles are more widely used as modal than their Russian equivalents. The particle še has numerous intensifying functions, correlating with the functions of Russian particles даже, еще и, и. The particle že can be used in the same way as two Russian words уже and уж. In contrast to уж, že does not always express displeasure and can add the meaning of a concession to the statement.

scholarly journals The preface as stage: the theatrical trope and the performance of authorial identities in the nineteenth century

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 265
Author(s):  
Geraldo Magela Cáffaro
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Charles Dickens ◽  
Nathaniel Hawthorne ◽  
Henry James

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2017v70n1p265Esse artigo explora referências ao teatro em prefácios de Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne e Henry James. Ênfase é dada à forma como esses autores empregam figuras como o mestre de cerimônias e o dramaturgo para alcançar seus públicos e projetar imagens autorais. As figuras em questão são historicizadas e discutidas sob a luz dos conceitos identificados pelos termos performativo e teatro de imagens, e o argumento proposto é o de que referências ao teatro revelam tensões entre a autoexposição e a autoproteção, assim como entre a afirmação da autoridade e sua subversão e fragmentação na escrita de prefácios no século XIX.

scholarly journals TAMIL NAAVALAR – PIRATHIPOTA AARAYCHI

2019 ◽  
pp. 459-466
Author(s):  
R. Abinaya
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Analysis

Ancient Tamil texts ascended to the nineteenth century edition. Subsequently, when there is a reprint or text to the book, there may be some changes to the book, depending on the value and need of a book. The changes that have been made continue to this day. Some of these changes make some mistakes in the version. False versions cause the author to misunderstand the material. For example, the syllables found in the versions that are considered to be one of these types of mistakes are "'yenri' is 'yinri', 'woozhi kalathir’ is ‘woozhi kaaaththu’, ‘yaahavum’ is ‘yaahiyum’, ‘vaaimaiyir’ is ‘vaaimaiyung’ ‘themmaiyung’ is ‘themmai’" They found the text in the Tamil novelist story explaining the proposed article. Moreover, the descriptive and comparative analysis have been used for this article.

The Portrait's Subject

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Blackwood
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Henry James ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Harriet Jacobs ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Visual Theory ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Thomas Eakins

Between the invention of photography in 1839 and the end of the nineteenth century, portraiture became one of the most popular and common art forms in the United States. In The Portrait's Subject, Sarah Blackwood tells a wide-ranging story about how images of human surfaces came to signal expressions of human depth during this era in paintings, photographs, and illustrations, as well as in literary and cultural representations of portrait making and viewing. Combining visual theory, literary close reading, and archival research, Blackwood examines portraiture's changing symbolic and aesthetic practices, from daguerreotype to X-ray. Portraiture, the book argues, was a provocative art form used by writers, artists, and early psychologists to imagine selfhood as hidden, deep, and in need of revelation, ideas that were then taken up by the developing discipline of psychology. The Portrait’s Subject reveals the underappreciated connections between portraiture's representations of the material human body and developing modern ideas about the human mind. It encouraged figures like Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thomas Eakins, Harriet Jacobs, and Henry James to reimagine how we might see inner life, offering a rich array of metaphors and aesthetic approaches that helped reconfigure the relationship between body and mind, exterior and interior. In the end, Blackwood shows how nineteenth-century psychological discourse developed as much through aesthetic fabulation as through scientific experimentation.

Advertisements and Ephemera

2020 ◽  
pp. 152-185
Author(s):  
Amanda Brickell Bellows
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This chapter examines the ways in which Russian and American businesses represented the histories of slavery, serfdom, and emancipation in late nineteenth-century advertisements. Images of African Americans and peasants appeared in posters, trade cards, and ephemera. A comparative analysis of these depictions illuminates businesses’ distinct marketing strategies and efforts to target specific consumer groups through portrayals of historically subjugated populations.

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