"Constructed to Revolve": Interest in Henry James

This article argues the centrality of interest in James's narrative world. The significance of this notion, only sporadically and incompletely explored by critics, is here reconsidered through an integrated approach that is both theoretically informed and sensitive to the specific dynamics of literary history. The central thesis organizing the argument is that in James's fiction interest is inflected by a dialectical logic—the object of interest is never prior to its occurrence— a figural condition—interest is what lies (esse) between (inter) people—and a thematic structure stipulating routes—financial and sexual interest, aesthetic and spiritual disinterestedness—through which this aberrant trope is effectively actualized.