Henry James and the language of experience / Digitally printed version.

Summary: Publisher Summary 1 In Henry James and the Language of Experience, Collin Meissner examines the political dimension to the representation of experience as it unfolds throughout James's work. Meissner argues that, for James. experience was a private and public event, a dialectical process that registered and expressed his consciousness of the external world. Adapting recent work in hermeneutics and phenomonology, Meissner shows how James's understanding of the process of consciousness is not simply an aspect of literary form: it is in fact inherently political, as it requires an active engagement with the full conlplexity of social reality. For James, the civic value of art resided in this interactive process, one in which the reader becomes aware of the aesthetic experience as immediate and engaged. This wide-ranging study combines literary theory and close readings of James's work to argue for a redefinition of the aesthetic as it operates in James's work.   Publisher Summary 2 Collin Meissner examines the political dimension to the representation of experience as it unfolds throughout James' work. For James, experience was a dialectical process that registered and expressed his consciousness of the external world. Meissner shows how James' understanding of the process of consciousness is not simply an aspect of literary form but inherently political, requiring an active engagment with the full complexity of social reality. The civic value of art resided in an interactive process in which the reader becomes aware of the aesthetic experience as immediate and engaged.   Publisher Summary 3 Explores Henry James's attitude to the everyday fact of experience, and its relevance for his aesthetic.