A Conversation Among Himselves: Change and the Style of Henry

James

Style in Fiction Symposium (SIFS)PALA International Symposium

11th March 2006, Lancaster University

David L. HooverNew York University

The “Early” StyleNewman looked at her a moment; he saw that she was pretty, but he was not in the least dazzled. He remembered poor M. Nioche's solicitude for her ‘innocence,’ and he laughed out again as his eyes met hers. Her face was the oddest mixture of youth and maturity, and beneath her candid brow her searching little smile seemed to contain a world of ambiguous intentions. She was pretty enough, certainly, to make her father nervous; but, as regards her innocence, Newman felt ready on the spot to affirm that she had never parted with it. She had simply never had any; she had been looking at the world since she was ten years old, and he would have been a wise man who could tell her any secrets. The American (1877 [1879 edition])

The “Late” StyleThat brought back to Maisie--it was a roundabout way--the beauty and antiquity of her connexion with the flower of the Overmores as well as that lady's own grace and charm, her peculiar prettiness and cleverness and even her peculiar tribulations. A hundred things hummed at the back of her head, but two of these were simple enough. Mrs. Beale was by the way, after all, just her stepmother and her relative. She was just--and partly for that very reason--Sir Claude's greatest intimate (‘lady-intimate’ was Maisie's term) so that what together they were on Mrs. Wix's prescription to give up and break short off with was for one of them his particular favourite and for the other her father's wife. What Maisie Knew (1897: NYE,1908)

Cluster Analysis—5 Authors—983 MFW

20 Novels (23 Editions) by Henry James• Early (1871-81):• Watch and Ward, 1871*• Roderick Hudson, 1875• The American, 1877• Daisy Miller, 1878• The Europeans, 1878*• Confidence, 1880*• Washington Square, 1881*• The Portrait of a Lady, 1881

• Intermediate (1886-90):• The Bostonians, 1886*• The Princess Casamassima,

1886• The Reverberator, 1888 (1908)• The Tragic Muse, 1890

• Late (1897-17):• The Spoils of Poynton, 1897• What Maisie Knew, 1897 (1908)• The Awkward Age, 1899• The Sacred Fount, 1901*• The Wings of the Dove, 1902

(1909)• The Ambassadors, 1903 (1909)• The Golden Bowl, 1904 (1909)• The Ivory Tower, 1917

• Early (revised versions):• Daisy Miller, 1878 (1909)• The Portrait of a Lady, 1881

(1908)• The American, 1877 (1907)

Cluster Analysis of 23 Editions

Fifteen Novels by Charles Dickens

Eleven Novels by Willa Cather

Some Contractions in 3 Periods

Personal Pronouns in 3 Periods

Pronouns increasing, early < intermediate < late:

– her, herself, it, itself, their, them, us

Pronouns increasing, early < late:

– she, hers, him

Pronouns decreasing, late < intermediate < early:

– he, his, himself

169 Function Words in 3 Periods

Pattern Expected Actual

Late<Inter.<Early (waning) 28 27

Inter.<Late<Early 28 12

Late<Early<Inter. 28 13

Early<Late<Inter. 28 19

Inter.<Early<Late 28 23

Early<Inter.<Late (waxing) 28 75

Variable Speech Markers in 3 Periods

The 40 Most Variable Waxing and Waning NounsWaxing nouns:

doom, intervention, nervousness, yearning, detachment, diplomacy, plea, clearness, seconds, gaiety, possibility, relation, minute, passage, reference, events, approach, extent, spot, pressure, effect, conditions, presence, freedom, question, rate, ways, possession, difference, danger, difficulty, consequence, sign, breath, vision, form, case, relief, fear, minutes

Waning nouns:

enterprise, tresses, foreigners, compliments, virtues, rapidity, peculiarities, coquette, physiognomy, talents, suitor, dresses, advice, temper, Europe, Italy, entertainment, forehead, liberty, winter, circumstances, dozen, satisfaction, city, country, conversation, year, family, heart, son, genius, fortune, fellow, society, pictures, years, glance, half, evening, to-morrow

Waxing and Waning Nouns of TimeWaxing:

• seconds

• minute, minutes

• hours

Late > Early:

• hour

• second

Waning:

• year, years

• month, months

• week

• days

Early > Late:

• day

Waxing Families of Verbs• breathe, breathed, breath, breathless

– (breathing late > early)

• protect, protected, protection

• produce, produced, producing, product (production nearly constant)

• pull, pulled (pulling frequent early and late)

• require, requires, required (requiring late> early)

• smoke, smoked (smoking late > early)

• worry, worried (worrying early > late)

Waning Families of Verbs• displease, displeased, displeasure (displeasing

early > late)• murmur, murmuring, murmured• spend, spending• beg, begged• gaze, gazing, gazed• marry, marring, unmarried (married early > late)• blush, blushing, blushed• flattered, flattering (flatter early > late)• irritate, irritating, irritated, irritation• glance, glancing, glanced (glances early > late)

Waxing Families of Adjectives

• clear, clearer, clearest, cleared, clearness, clearly

• sharp, sharpness, sharply (sharpened late > early)

• odd, odder, oddest, oddly, oddity

• vivid, vividly, vividness

• awful, awfully (awfulness late only)

• straight, straightness (straightest late only; straighter, straightway late > early)

Waxing and Waning –ly AdverbsWaxing adverbs:

markedly, sociably, originally, pleasantly, nobly, comparatively, practically, perceptibly, ruefully, gaily, conspicuously, lucidly, good-humouredly, visibly, inevitably, luckily, previously, fearfully, supremely, oddly, perversely, cheerfully, helplessly, fully, positively, extraordinarily, mostly, publicly, repeatedly, precisely, thoughtfully, merely, awfully

Waning adverbs:

sternly, scantily, chiefly, intently, angrily, severely, tightly, hardly, terribly, solemnly, softly, tolerably, greatly, rarely, attentively, badly, rapidly, seriously, mentally, occasionally, slowly, passionately, coldly, strongly, usually, singularly, differently, generally, certainly, abruptly, constantly, gracefully, delightfully

Peculiar –ly Adverbs (Mainly Late)(4) sighingly, (2) appointedly, assentingly, diviningly, protectedly, reasoningly, redeemingly, rejoicingly, savingly, (1) advertisedly, affirmingly, applausively, avoidingly, booklessly, coolingly, creepingly, detectedly, inattackably, interruptingly, neededly, obstructedly, peeringly, persuadedly, protectingly, recordedly, relievingly, revivingly, simplifyingly, smokingly, spreadingly, sustainingly, swingingly, unencouragingly, unlightedly, wailingly, wavingly

Peculiar –ly Adverbs in Context

The fine old presence on the pillow had faltered before expression; then it appeared rather sighingly and finally to give the question up.

The Ivory Tower (1917)

Peculiar –ly Adverbs in Context

“She might have been anything she liked--except his wife.”

“But she wasn't,” said the Colonel very smokingly.

The Golden Bowl (1904)

Fanny herself limited indeed, she minimised, her office; you didn't need a jailor, she contended, for a domesticated lamb tied up with pink ribbon. This wasn't an animal to be controlled--it was an animal to be, at the most, educated. . . . This left, goodness knew, plenty of different calls for Maggie to meet--in a case in which so much pink ribbon, as it might be symbolically named, was lavished on the creature. What it all amounted to at any rate was that Mrs. Assingham would be keeping him quiet now, while his wife and his father-in-law carried out their own little frugal picnic; quite moreover, doubtless, not much less neededly in respect to the members of the circle that were with them there than in respect to the pair they were missing almost for the first time. The Golden Bowl (1904)