Abstract
The ‘largeness of style’ (WDI, p. 208) that is everywhere the mark of the late Jamesian mode, becomes in The Wings of the Dove the ‘rich and obscure and portentous’ (Prefaces, p. 301) setting for a story built on deceit and carried on in the most polite of conversations. ‘Forms and ambiguities’, made ‘charming’ (Prefaces, p. 306) in the hands of such accomplished practitioners as Kate Croy and Aunt Maud, are given licence in the multiplicity of aspects James’s sentences here create, their processive structure, abstract subjects, embedded clauses and uncertainty of reference adding to the general sense of hovering, hidden meaning. Here a soap-opera melodrama, hinging on the exploitation of yet another American heiress, takes on dimension in the surround of James’s style it could never otherwise have had. And, writing at a rare time without impending serialisation to dictate his design, James, delighting in his ‘free hand’, produced a novel remarkably all of a piece, in its allusions and overlapping reference his most resonant.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
The curious thing about art speech is that it prevaricates so terribly.
(D. H. Lawrence, ‘The Spirit of Place’, 1924)
when we feel the surface, like the thick ice of the skater’s pond, bear without cracking the strongest pressure we throw on it.
(Preface to The Wings of the Dove)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1993 Mary Cross
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cross, M. (1993). To ‘Glory in a Gap’: The Wings of the Dove. In: Henry James. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22661-0_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22661-0_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-22663-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-22661-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)