Type
Text
Type
Thesis
Advisor
Haralson, Eric | Pfeiffer, Douglas
Date
2014-12-01
Keywords
Modern literature | Henry James, narratology, theater, The Golden Bowl
Department
Department of English.
Language
en_US
Source
This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/11401/77579
Publisher
The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.
Format
application/pdf
Abstract
At the turn of the twentieth century, narrative presentation saw one of the most intense transitionary movements in literary history. The instructive, omniscient authorial narrator of Victorian literature slowly faced demise as an increasing turn towards subjective, stream-of-consciousness narration dominated the literary age of twentieth century modern realism. The critical and fictional work of Henry James, literary genius who wrote across the century line, persists in the presentation of a distinctive narrating body at the same time that it encourages and anticipates the incipient effacement of such a figure. In his final completed novel, The Golden Bowl, James' narrative choices can be seen as influenced by the changing ideals of narrative presentation with an eye towards his own personal admiration of the theater. The transition in theatrical presentation towards a more mimetic, realistic expression of human experience coincides with the similar movement in literature, and provides a compelling parallel to the work James and other modernists accomplished. Through a fully developed interpretation of the particular narrative moves James' narrator makes in The Golden Bowl and the pervasive influence of theatrical metaphors in both James' and his contemporaries' work, I will question if and how a modern narrator can exist in the modern idealized concept of narratorial effacement. | 46 pages
Recommended Citation
Pompeii, Rachael, "Is There Room for the Modern Narrator? A Study of Narrative Intrusion in Henry James' The Golden Bowl" (2014). Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions). 3379.
https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/stony-brook-theses-and-dissertations-collection/3379