Henry James and the Problem of Robert Browning (review)

The Henry James Review Fall, 1985 scenes of a character in isolation looking down at the world and meditating upon it, and then in interaction with others in it. Carefully described rooms in Chelsea, Bayswater, Venice, et al. serve as "complex metaphors for the self in its whole imprisoning envelope of material circumstances" in which the struggles—doomed from the start—of Kate and MiUy to escape die envelope are dramatized. There are, of course, two ladies here, but only one knight to rescue them, and herein lies the problem. Gribble offers a sympathetic view of the Lancelot of the novel, arguing that if Densher acts badly toward MiUy and at the end treats Kate brutally he stiU has learned something about bis own moral faUure and is attempting to redeem it. MiUy, too, is presented as a "rather more palpable and impressive presence" than critics often have judged, though this reader remains unconvinced that James did not himself sentimentalize her innocence and fine consciousness. There is much here, too, of the commercial language and metaphors of the novel, the language of "value" and bargaining relentlessly revealing the barely disguised mercenary motives behind so much of its action. In the end, however, James abandons Victorian convention—characters who discover their solipsism , then gain compensation in an expanded consciousness —for a much bleaker vision of human freedom, one Gribble sees as characteristically modern. Thesis books, like The Lady of Shalott, often follow procrustean programs, either stretching material to fit the theme or lopping off those features that might not confirm resemblance. Fortunately, Gribble has too much respect for the particularity of the texts she discusses to commit much violence in this manner. Obviously aware of recent trends in critical thought, she nevertheless maintains a rather steadfastly old-fashioned approach, relying upon sensitive close readings, wit, and (where relevant) insights borrowed from the critical literature (which she has studied well) and from other disciplines, e.g., psychology, biography, and history. In this method, and in her implied values, at her best she reminds this reader of Leavis at his best. In short, then, if The Lady of Shalott breaks little new ground, it is almost invariably sensible and sometimes stimulating. Does it succeed in identifying a key Victorian mythic structure? Perhaps not: but it does illuminate how noveUsts of both sexes used the conventional idealized figure of Victorian woman to explore not only the condition of the female sex but the human condition itself. F. S. Schwarzbach Louisiana State University Ross Posnock. Henry James and the Problem of Robert Browning. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1985. 198 pp. $24.00. Social masks, routinely manipulated, figure prominently in Robert Browning's dramatic monologues. How such theatricality in Browning's poetry, not to mention his public behavior, captured the imagination of Henry James and helped to shape his fiction is the subject of Ross Posnock 's Henry James and the Problem of Robert Browning. Posnock focuses primarily on the Browningesque elements in four works, "The Private Life," "The Lesson of the Master," The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl, and he argues convincingly what a number of people have suspected all along, namely that Browning's ' 'art of process, which creates a mimesis of mental activity, helps James inaugurate the modern novel of consciousness." That James was drawn to die poet whom Thomas Hardy called the ' 'hterary puzzle" of the nineteenth century comes as no surprise, especially since the two crossed paths frequently, had a number of mutual correspondents, and were even next-door neighbors for a while at DeVere Gardens . WhUe Browning and James may have been cordial dinner companions, they never became friends, and Posnock attributes the absence of intimacy between them to James's discomfort witii Browning's public behavior, which resembled , according to a number of witnesses, that of a fashionable London banker with few, if any, literary interests. Posnock suggests, and James's letters confirm, that the incongruity between Browning's personal conduct and his hterary performance led James to explore theatrical selves exhibiting what he himself called "the sharp rupture of an identity." Posnock asserts tiiat James saw in Browning's dinner party small talk the...