Title: Henry James's last romance
First published: 1997
Description: In this major new study of Henry James's classic text of cultural criticism, The American Scene, Beverly Haviland shows how James confronted the vexing problem of making sense of the past. In this record of his 1904-5 return to America and in his unfinished novels, The Sense of the Past and The Ivory Tower, he interpreted the social conflicts that seemed to be paralyzing relations between men and women, between black and white Americans, between "natives" and "aliens," between defenders of taste and censors of waste. Although James has been represented as conservative by liberal critics, it is just such simplifying oppositions that his method of interpretation works to transform.

Haviland's own metonymical method follows James's interpretative practice by bringing historical and theoretical readings of these texts into conversation with each other.
Subjects: Historiography, History, Knowledge, In literature, Literature and history, America, Culture in literature, James, henry, 1843-1916, Atlantic states, United states, historiography, United states, in literature, Knowledge and learning
Places: United States, Atlantic States
People: Henry James (1843-1916)
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: PS2127.H5 H38 1997