Henry James and his French Contemporaries
1941; Duke University Press; Volume: 13; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2921129
ISSN1527-2117
Autores Tópico(s)Short Stories in Global Literature
Resumo14ENRY JAMES made his first contact with France in I844. From this visit he retained only an impression of the Place Vendome; but since he was only one year old at this time, it is a memory which, if authentic, testifies to the early development of his remarkable powers of observation. He was in Europe again from i855 to I858, much of the time in Paris, and again in i859-60. After a ten-year interval in America, he returned in i869-70, and made a short stay in Paris in the latter year. The autumn of I872 was spent in the French capital, and in I875 he came with the intention of settling there, although in actual fact he remained only a little over a year. Subsequently London and Rye were his headquarters, but throughout his life he made frequent visits to France, especially to Paris.1 The fruit of these visits was a lifelong interest in French literature, an interest which left its mark on his own work. When he returned to America in i86o, at the age of seventeen, he eagerly devoured the successive issues of the Revue des Deux Mondes,Y wrote stories in imitation of Balzac,3 and translated short pieces by Merimee and Alfred de Musset.4 Between i866 and I876 he contributed articles to American periodicals on Alfred de Musset, Baudelaire, Balzac, Sand, Charles de Bernard and Gustave Flaubert, the brothers Goncourt, and Merimee. These articles, with the exception of that on the brothers Goncourt, were republished in book form in I878 as French Poets and Novelists. Ten years later the volume entitled Partial Portraits appeared, including articles on Alphonse Daudet and Guy de Maupassant. Essays in London and Elsewhere (I893)
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