Comparisons Of James And Wharton In Theme And Technique

Henry James (1843-1916)and Edith Wharton(1862-1937)are both famous writers in American literary history, furthermore they are close friends. Admittedly, James enjoys much more fames and prestige than Wharton. However, almost each documents or comments about Wharton will appear the name James. She and James are frequently mentioned alongside among criticisms at home and abroad. Critics prefer to probe into their literary connection. There existed some radical comments in early foreign criticisms. For instance, an anonymous critic asserted that Wharton plagiarized from James in an influential magazine. Some one even labeled her as "the greatest pupil of the master". Also some comparatively mild comments appeared such as "a loyal disciple of James","Heiress of James" and many criticisms mentioned that her writing craftsmanship was inspired by James. However, among later criticisms, some voices defending Wharton’s uniqueness also appeared. Remarks about James’s influences on her or her imitations on James are in profusion, to name the few. However, how James influenced Wharton or which aspects could demonstrate the influences are still left untouched. There hardly exist systematic, scientific and convincing analyses to demonstrate the influences or the two writers’literary connections. Some critics took characters’similarities or moral’s identities of their respective novels as proofs to demonstrate influence and thus show deficiency of systematic and comprehensive researching methods. Based on such a researching tendency, the thesis aims to offer a comprehensive and profound perspective to survey the two writers’similarities. Two clues are generalized to analyze the two writers’similarities according to what are emphasized in their respective theory of fiction. One is themes, and the other is artistic techniques. In the sense of themes, the two writers’common concerns are extended as such smaller subtitles as emphasis on writers’own experiences, stress on morality and emphasis on psychology; as to artistic techniques, similarities are confined to the scenic system, narrating perspectives, concerns for dialogues and figures of speech. The above branches are the two writers’common concerns. For better and convincing elucidations, their respective works will be presented to reinforce the argued process. Thus a comparatively systematic, comprehensive and profound similarities analysis will be acquired.