Delicate Pursuit
Discretion in Henry James and Edith Wharton
Studies in Major Literary Authors Series

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Language: English

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Delicate pursuit
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· 15.2x22.9 cm · Hardback

Delicate Pursuit explores the way in which Henry James and Edith Wharton treated subject matter that was considered controversial by American publishers at the turn of the century. In their treatment of risque topics, James and Wharton pursued discretion, the key concept of this study, in order to avoid censorship. Discretion marks not only the author's relationship to their subject matter but also the behavior of the characters in the fiction.
This study takes into particular account the influence of the French literary tradition on these two authors. At the crossroads of the new freedom of expression opened up by French realism and the persisting puritanical standards of their American audiences, James and Wharton sough safe ways to address adult sexuality, and the French theme of adulterous love in particular.

Introduction The Age of Discretion; Part 1 Censorship/Self-Censorship in James and Wharton; Chapter 1 Early James; Chapter 2 “The Old Maid” in the 1920s Marketplace; Part 2 French Classicism and the Discreet Imagination; Chapter 3 “Madame de Mauves” as James's La Princesse de Clèves; Chapter 4 Classical Heroines and Voyeurism in The Reef; Part 3 Displacements of the Adultery Plot; Chapter 5 Handling the “Adulterine Element” in The Ambassadors; Chapter 6 The Age of Innocence and the European Novel of Adultery; epilogue The End of the Age of Discretion;
Jessica Levine
This deeply personal account of emotion and vulnerability draws upon anecdotes related to individual works of art to present a chronicle of how people have shown emotion before works of art in the past.