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Portrait of a Lady / Turn of the Screw : Henry James and Melodrama (Critics Debate)
Portrait of a Lady / Turn of the Screw Henry James and Melodrama - Critics Debate Author:David Kirby The equivocal endings of James' two masterpieces have occasioned a seemingly endless debate among critics and have led to both high praise and charges of ambivalence. — In this study, David Kirby begins by summarizing the century-long debate among James' readers, looking particularly at the various schools of literary criticism: source studies, t... more »extual criticism, technical and structural approaches, and New Critical as well as Post-New Critical readings.
In the second half of the book, Kirby offers the perspective of a genre critic, arguing that, though James himself probably would not have chosen the term, it may prove helpful to think of him as a writer of melodrama. In so doing, Kirby obsedrves that many of the attributes of James' fictions that permit them to be read as melodramas also lend themselves to deconstructive or reader-response interpretations, as well as making them "some of the most engaging novels ever written in any language."« less