Henry James and the claim of sociality

"Henry James and the Claim of Sociality" is a study of James's understanding of social forms as exemplified in his novels, short stories and travel writing. James illustrates in his works that the manifold conventions and institutions of society constitute the ontological ground of personal freedom and individual experience. His representation of social forms is based on a distinctive theory of ethical expressivism which criticizes the impersonal and asocial imagination of the self in Emersonian individualism. In The Portrait of a Lady , James demonstrates how the form of marriage shapes and substantiates Isabel Archer's moral spontaneity, which ultimately re-orients her dispositional alienation from the social world. In The Golden Bowl, through Maggie Verver's encounter with betrayal and adultery, James formulates a concept of personal desire which reveals human beings' inherent need for intimacy and relation---a representation of desire which is also a profound critique of the logic of possessive individualism in the age of high capitalism. In The Tragic Muse, James's ideal of sociality is written into his depiction of art as "a civic use of imagination" which represents the historical and cultural experiences of the community. In his tales about writing and literature, James elaborates a vision of literary sociality in the form of an "interpretative community," which is exemplified in the public dimension of the literary work and constituted by the public role of readership. In The American Scene, James argues that America's democratic society cannot thrive---and democracy's belief in freedom and individualism cannot be realized---without vibrant, innovative and shared forms of social life. In all his literary works, James demonstrates a profound and affirmative interest in individual freedom. Although James's works are penetrating critiques of the corruption of communal life in the age of capitalism, his socially immanent and phenomenological imagination of the self constantly urges readers to consider the individual's claim to freedom and experience not as posited against but as grounded within social forms and conventions.