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Henry James was one of the great American literary critics, but James was better known as a novelist and short-story writer (Magill 750). In the nineteenth century James was considered to be an important and influential writer. James s writing career has been separated into three phases. The first phase of James s career was from 1875 to 1885. This phase begins with the story Madame de Mauves.
In this story James shows how different the American and European cultures are compared to one another. James also wrote The American during this phase and it was a great success. The American tells of a young American in the European society. Another of his successes of this first phase was Daisy Miller. In this story it tells of an American girl that disobeys European customs. James s greatest piece of literary work in this first phase was The Portrait of a Lady.
This literary work tells of American and European cultures that fail to unite their traditions with one another. James introduces a different style of writing called point of view and characterization in this phase. The outcome of this different writing style creates a new form of storytelling. The second phase of James s career was from 1885 to 1897.
In this second phase James loses the contact with the readers that he once possessed (Magill 772 - 73). The literary works of this phase dealt mainly with the English life proper (Magill 929). All the works in this second phase were failures in their day, but now these literary works are considered to be some of James s greatest works. Even though these literary works were failures of their day, they were the context of the modernist movement. Also in this second phase, James writes about authors unable to reach their readers. The second phase of James s career was a failure in both the financial and critical areas.
The third phase of James s career was from 1897 to 1916. This third phase is also called the major phase of James s career. During the third phase James writes The Spoils of Poynton. In this literary work James introduces drastic experiments in point of view, dramatic presentation of scene, and partial revelation of character. Also during this phase, James s most enduring work, The Turn of the Screw, was written (Magill 773). During the end of this phase, James devotes a few years to rewriting and revising his principal novels and tales for the highly regarded The New York Edition.
In this paper there was 26 volumes published in all (Magill 929). Most importantly the writings in this third phase shows the way for the 20 th century. Henry James s career was one of the longest and most productive among American authors. James was a master author at prose fiction from the start of his career. James has been considered by far the best American critic of the nineteenth century. Also, it has been said that James was probably the greatest fictional theorist ever to have written (Magill 751).
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Research essay sample on Point Of View Nineteenth Century
