"Master of Irony": Henry James, Transatlantic 'bildung' and the Critique of Aestheticism
Symbiosis 12.2
Author: Andrew Eastham
Pages: 25
'‘Master of Irony’: Henry James, Transatlantic Bildung and the Critique of Aestheticism' by Andrew Eastham, delves into the intricate relationship between Henry James's literary irony and his critique of Aestheticism. Originally published in Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, this essay explores how James’s transatlantic experiences shaped his ironic literary style and his critical perspective on the Aesthetic movement. Eastham examines key themes in James's work, such as cultural translation, performative identity, and the dialectical relationship between irony and aesthetic autonomy. This scholarly work is essential for readers interested in literary criticism, transatlantic studies, and the evolution of modernist literature.
Symbiosis 12.2
Author: Andrew Eastham
Pages: 25
'‘Master of Irony’: Henry James, Transatlantic Bildung and the Critique of Aestheticism' by Andrew Eastham, delves into the intricate relationship between Henry James's literary irony and his critique of Aestheticism. Originally published in Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, this essay explores how James’s transatlantic experiences shaped his ironic literary style and his critical perspective on the Aesthetic movement. Eastham examines key themes in James's work, such as cultural translation, performative identity, and the dialectical relationship between irony and aesthetic autonomy. This scholarly work is essential for readers interested in literary criticism, transatlantic studies, and the evolution of modernist literature.
Symbiosis 12.2
Author: Andrew Eastham
Pages: 25
'‘Master of Irony’: Henry James, Transatlantic Bildung and the Critique of Aestheticism' by Andrew Eastham, delves into the intricate relationship between Henry James's literary irony and his critique of Aestheticism. Originally published in Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, this essay explores how James’s transatlantic experiences shaped his ironic literary style and his critical perspective on the Aesthetic movement. Eastham examines key themes in James's work, such as cultural translation, performative identity, and the dialectical relationship between irony and aesthetic autonomy. This scholarly work is essential for readers interested in literary criticism, transatlantic studies, and the evolution of modernist literature.
 "The constitution of Henry James as ‘the Master’ has much to do with his particular achievement as a literary ironist. Irony determines literary authority as a model of detachment and control; a professionalized form of the aesthetic disinterest that was theoretically consolidated in Kantian and Romantic aesthetics. James’s career presents a geographic and cultural model for the acquisition of aesthetic detachment, where the American writer and traveller acquires the authority of irony by a process of transatlantic bildung. Becoming European, the acquisition of a cosmopolitan identity, is a process of refinement established through a particular kind of ironic performance which James himself epitomised. Yet in his fiction and criticism James himself was clearly troubled by the nature of irony, both in terms of personality and literary practice." |
