| As a novelist, dramatist, and literary critic, Henry James(1843-1916) occupies an important position in American literary history. Of all James's literary works, the novels of the "international theme" dealing with the transatlantic conflict between American "innocence" and European "sophistication" are the most conspicuous and widely discussed. Cultural studies is used as the theoretical methodology in the present thesis, which attempts to explore the following issues: James's conception of culture, James's attitude towards American culture and Europeans culture and?James's solution to cultural conflicts.This thesis first of all concisely introduces James's literary career and makes a brief literary review of the Jamesian studies home and abroad, especially those on the novels of the "international theme". Since the international novels mainly concern the cultural phenomena in America and Europe, the thesis then introduces the relevant cultural criticism theories on the definition of culture, the function of culture, cultural conflict as well as the solution to cultural conflict.Then, the thesis traces several forces which help shape James's conception of "culture"-his particular growing-up experience, the large historical, social and cultural background and the influence of Mathew Arnold's philosophical ideas on culture. The author of the thesis believes that James does not put the two continents and cultures together just for comparison and contrast, but expresses his reflection over some elements of American culture such as materialism, individualism advocated by Emerson, etc., and his effort in establishing the national culture. The American "innocence" on the one hand means pure morality, while on the other hand means ignorance. And the European "sophistication" can refer to corruption, slyness as well as maturity and intelligence. Only the combination of the best of the two cultures-European intelligence, experience and American morality-is theideal culture that James longs for. Here, the writer does not agree to some critics' opinions that "culture equals civilization, and is high culture". She believes that James's notion of culture covers both high culture represented by art, history and literature and knowledge of life, esp. evil in life which is obtained through concrete social practices. However, this ideal of cultural fusion is not put forward at the very beginning of his literary creation. James's cultural outlook has undergone certain changes; it is dynamic rather than static. In his early works of the international theme, James sees more about the incompatible conflicts between two cultures. That attitude begins to change from The Portrait of a Lady on, in which he sees some possibility of cultural fusion, but it is in his last works that this ideal cultural fusion comes true. Accordingly, the writer of this thesis divides the international novels into three stages and claims that The Portrait of a Lady serves as a transitional point and should belong to the middle stage rather than the early stage thought by some critics.In the following parts, the writer does a textual study of three novels belonging to different stages respectively-Daisy Miller, The Portrait of a Lady and The Golden Bowl-in the light of some cultural criticism theories. In analyzing Daisy Miller, the writer views what Daisy experiences in Europe as the result of cultural conflicts according to the principle that "conflict occurs in cultural context" proposed by cultural critics. She further discusses the differences between two cultures and concludes that the tragedy is mainly due to the two parties' prejudice against each other resulted from "ethnocentrism". In analyzing The Portrait of a Lady, the writer thinks that James expresses his quest for ideal cultural fusion through the image of Isabel Archer. The marriage between Isabel and Osmond entails rich cultural meanings. It embodies Isabel's pursuit for high culture, longing for knowledge about life and shows her moral integrity. The frustration in...
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