Henry James is a writer and playwright of American origin, whose career spans more than half a century. English-speaking readers love him for their unique art style, but they know little in Russia.
Biography
Writer Henry James was born in New York. His youth fell on the years of the Civil War. The personality formation of the future writer took place under the influence of European culture, as his father often took him with him on trips. From childhood he read a lot and was an avid theatergoer. James absorbed the culture of Europe and the New World equally. That is what subsequently made him a writer, whose work is at the junction of two cultures: English and American.
Having matured, the American left the New World and settled in Cambridge. New trends and old Puritan traditions were strangely combined in English society, which always attracted the interest of the writer. Henry James studied law, but preferred a career in law. His first story was published during the years of important political and social events. But the policy of the writer was of little interest. The main goal of his work was to compare English society with American.
Personal life
Henry James spent his whole life alone. The only meaning of life was writing. His persistence did not stop even the lack of recognition from readers. The theme of the Civil War did not find a response neither in the writer's work, nor in his soul.
Europe
At thirty-two years, the writer left the United States. The older he got, the more uncomfortable he felt in American society. James decided to devote his life to prose and theory of literature. But he believed that it was impossible to lay a creative path where the desire to get rich is valued above all else. The writer created most of the works in Europe. Among them are the novels Roderick Hudson and Woman Portrait.
Psychological story
The novel “Daisy Miller” Henry James created, according to critics, under the influence of the work of Ivan Turgenev. Like the Russian classic, James was always interested in the problem of foreigners abroad. In the novel, the author tries to reveal the character of an American girl, so incomprehensible to a European person. The plot echoes Turgenev's Asya. It should be said that the plot coincidences are not accidental, since the Russian writer was one of James's favorite authors.
The main character of the Daisy Miller Henry Henry portrayed the innocent and direct. The author endowed it with typical, in his opinion, properties of an American character. Daisy's behavior resonates in stiff English society. Ignoring conventions, she makes acquaintance with the Italian, whose origin leaves much to be desired. Henry James leads the story in a detached manner, on behalf of a hero who is not directly related to the plot, but is rather an observer. The ending of the story is tragic. A young American dies of a serious illness.
The author created a multifaceted female image, which caused an ambiguous attitude of criticism. One of the publishers rejected the work, seeing in it a distorted image of an American lady.
"Female portrait"
An example of a subtle psychological style was the novel by Henry James "Woman's Portrait." The inner world of women was always extremely interested in him. The title of the work speaks for itself. In the novel, the author reveals a non-standard image for that time. Of course, the main character is smart and beautiful. But a distinctive feature of her character is independence. Isabella does not want to follow the obsolete traditions prevailing in the society to which she belongs, and chooses her own path in life. This plot may not seem new to the modern reader. But it should be borne in mind that it was created twenty years before the appearance of Dreiser's novel “Sister Kerry”. Therefore, it aroused great interest among English readers and bewilderment among Americans.
Turgenev
Henry James was one of the first English-language writers who at the end of the 19th century promoted Russian literature among their compatriots. Since Turgenev’s work occupied a special place in James’s life, he devoted two laudatory articles to the Russian classic. A few years later, the writers met and warm friendships developed between them.
The literary language of Henry James is rather complicated. Perhaps that is why his works were not widely popular outside the English-speaking audience. But even in England and the USA they forgot about him for many years. Recalled only in the forties of the XX century. Since that time, he began to be popular with both readers and literary theorists.
In his work, James actively experimented with the literary form and was able to create his own narrative system. New techniques, a variety of artistic images made him an author who aroused great interest among literary critics.