The master and the dean: The literary criticism and aesthetics of Henry James and William Dean Howells, 1859–1897
Abstract
While certain aspects of Henry James's and William Dean Howells's literary criticism have been carefully considered—James's “Prefaces” and Howells's Criticism and Fiction, for instance—no scholar has hitherto undertaken a comprehensive comparative study of their respective critical oeuvres. The present study analyzes the first two-thirds of each writer's career as a literary critic. Beginning with a thorough examination of the European and domestic sources that led James and Howells toward realism, I examine the developments and inter-relationships between the two writers, with special emphasis on their diverging aesthetic concerns and attitudes toward the market and audience; their attitudes concerning the moral value of fiction and the United States as a literary subject; and their various writings concerning each other. A rigorous, intertextual reading of their work as critics reveals both deeper rifts and more intimate similarities between the two writers than has been recognized by scholars.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Lamb, Purdue University.
Subject Area
American literature
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