Henry James and the Supernatural

✍ Scribed by Anna Despotopoulou and Kimberly Reed (editors)

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 214
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Why was Henry James drawn to the supernatural and what narrative purpose did his repeated use of the ghostly fulfill? Covering a wide range of James’s fiction and non-fiction, distinguished James scholars deal with the complex ways in which James’s interest in the supernatural blends with his philosophical historical and cultural engagement.  This volume is the first compilation of essays on this topic and it offers new and exciting readings of the varied ways in which the ghost story’s generic conventions both articulate and interrogate the anxieties of turn-of-the-century Anglo-American culture.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgments......Page 8
Note on the Texts......Page 10
Contributors......Page 12
Abbreviations......Page 16
INTRODUCTION: “I see ghosts everywhere”......Page 18
Notes......Page 27
CHAPTER 1: “The complexion of ever so long ago”: Style and Henry James’s Ghosts......Page 30
Notes......Page 46
CHAPTER 2: Immensities of Perception and Yearning: The Haunting of Henry James’s Heroes......Page 52
Notes......Page 72
CHAPTER 3: Haunting the Churches: Henry James and the Sacred Space in “The Altar of the Dead”......Page 76
The Chamber of Consciousness......Page 80
James among the Churches......Page 84
Thickening the Conceptual......Page 87
Notes......Page 92
CHAPTER 4: Mysterious Tenants: Uncanny Women and the Private or Public Dilemma in the Supernatural Tales......Page 96
Notes......Page 110
CHAPTER 5: John Marcher’s Uncanny Unmanning in “The Beast in the Jungle”......Page 114
Notes......Page 126
CHAPTER 6: Homospectrality in Henry James’s Ghost Stories......Page 130
Why Do George and Paul De Grey Have to Die?......Page 134
Why Does Captain Diamond Become a Ghost?......Page 137
Why Is Edmund Orme Already Dead?......Page 140
Why Does Owen Wingrave Choose Death?......Page 143
Notes......Page 148
CHAPTER 7: Second Thoughts: “Queer ‘Maud-Evelyn’”......Page 154
Notes......Page 162
CHAPTER 8: Uncanny Doublings in “Owen Wingrave”......Page 166
Notes......Page 180
CHAPTER 9: The Afterlife of Figures......Page 182
Notes......Page 195
EPILOGUE: Ghost Writing......Page 200
Notes......Page 206
Index......Page 208