Henry James and the philosophy of literary pragmatism
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Henry James and the philosophy of literary pragmatism
Palgrave Macmillan, c2016
- : [softcover]
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-253) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book examines the interdisciplinary foundations of pragmatism
from a literary perspective, tracing the characters and settings that populate
the narratives of pragmatist thought in Henry James's work. Cultivated during a
postwar era of industrial change and economic growth, pragmatism emerged in the
late nineteenth century as the new shape of American intellectual identity.
Charles Peirce, William James, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. were close
friends who founded different branches of pragmatism while writing on a vast
array of topics. Skeptical about philosophy, William James's brother, Henry,
stood at the margins of this group, crafting his own version of pragmatism through
his novels and short stories. Gregory Phipps argues that James's fiction weaves
together the varied depictions of individuality, society, experience, and truth
found in the works of Peirce, Holmes, and William James. By doing so, James
brings to narrative life a defining moment in American intellectual and
material history.
Table of Contents
Table
of Contents
Introduction: Henry James and
Literary Pragmatism
Chapter 1: "A Sort of Loosely
Compacted Person": Charles Peirce's Protagonist and the Institutions of the
American Community
Chapter 2: Milly Theale and "The
Practical Question of Life": Anticipating
Doubts and Saving Beliefs in The Wings of
the Dove
Chapter 3: Cash Flow, Railways, and
Gunshots-for the Good: William James and the Dialectics of Emotion and Action
Chapter 4: Maggie Verver's "Vast
Modern Machineries and Facilities": The Art of Love and the Passion of Evil in The Golden Bowl
Chapter 5: "The Habit of the Public
Mind" in the Battlefields and Marketplaces: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s
Pragmatic Judge and His Fellow Combatants
Chapter 6: "The State of the
Account Between Society and Himself": Hyacinth Robinson's Soldier's Faith in The Princess Casamassima
Conclusion: The Cast of Characters
in Literary Pragmatism
Bibliography
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