Henry James and the Promise of Fiction

Download or read book Henry James and the Promise of Fiction written by Stuart Burrows and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-09 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the relation between the novel and ethical thought? Henry James and the Promise of Fiction argues that the answer to this question lies not in the content of a work of fiction but in its form. Stuart Burrows explores the relationship between James's ethical vision and his densely metaphorical style, his experiments with narrative time, and his radical reimagining of perspective. Each chapter takes as its starting point a different aspect of an issue at the heart of moral philosophy: the act of promising. Engaging with a range of moral philosophers and literary theorists, most notably David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Ricoeur, and Jacques Derrida, Henry James and the Promise of Fiction argues that James's formal experimentation represents a significant contribution to ethical thought in its own right.