Henry James and the suspense of masculinity / Leland S. Person.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Person, Leland S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

James, Henry, 1843-1916--Knowledge and learning--Psychology.

James, Henry.

James, Henry, 1843-1916.

Psychology.

Psychological fiction, American--History and criticism.

Psychological fiction, American.

James, Henry, 1843-1916--Characters--Men.

Homosexuality and literature--United States.

Homosexuality and literature.

United States.

Masculinity in literature.

Sex role in literature.

Men in literature.

Sex in literature.

Physical Description:

206 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2003]

Summary:

Using insights from feminist studies, men's studies, and gay and queer studies, Leland S. Person examines Henry James's subversion of male identity and the challenges he poses to conventional constructs of heterosexual masculinity. Sexual and gender categories proliferated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Person argues that James exploited the taxonomic confusion of the times to experiment with alternative sexual and gender identities. In contrast to scholars who have tried to give a single label to James's sexuality, Person argues that establishing James's gender and sexual identity is less important than examining the novelist's shaping of male characters and his richly metaphorical language as an experiment in gender and sexual theorizing. Just as an author's creations can be animated by his or her own sexuality, Person contends, James's sexuality may be most usefully understood as something primarily aesthetic and textual. As Person shows in chapters devoted to some of the author's best-known novels -- Roderick Hudson, The American, The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians, The Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl -- James conducts a series of experiments in gender/sexual construction and deconstruction. He delights in positioning his male characters so that their gender and sexual orientations are reversed, ambiguous, and even multiple. Ultimately, he keeps male identity in suspense by pluralizing male subjectivity.

Contents:

Introduction: Henry James and the Plural Terms of Masculinity 1

1. Configuring Male Desire and Identity in Roderick Hudson 39

2. Nursing the Thunderbolt of Manhood in The American 65

3. Sheathing the Sword of Gentle Manhood in The Portrait of a Lady 86

4. Reconstructing Masculinity in The Bostonians 105

5. Deploying Homo-Aesthetic Desire in the Tales of Writers and Artists 124

6. The Paradox of Masochistic Manhood in The Golden Bowl 149.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [193]-202) and index.

ISBN:

0812237250

OCLC:

51518434