The Cosmopolitan World of Henry James: An Intertextual Study by Adeline Tintner (review)

232 CanadianReviewof American StudiB.f became solidlyRepublican, in the 1950s.From 1972through 1984,evezy state in the region voted Republican and only in the 1992 election did the Democrats again make a decent showing. Regions, as well as nations, are not noted for their gratitude . The 1990smay be, as the 1930swere, a time for the reshaping of American priorities . Some problems, like unemployment, are still with us, albeit in different form. The analyses of the experts that Sautter treats are not particularly relevant for today's unemployed, many of whom are not even counted by the indices that the Progressive and New Dealers created. Today we see environmental problems in a different light.Ickes's PWA dammed rivers to end one set of environmental problems , but, in doing so created others to which New Dealers were oblivious. These are matters which future historians of the New Deal will have to examine. RogerDaniels University of Cincinnati •••••• Adeline Tintner. The CosmopolitanWorld of HenryJames: An Intertextual Study. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991. Pp. xv + 328. Adeline Tintner is a phenomenon in Jamesian studies. A private scholar with a devouring interest in the life and works of the Master, she has devoted painstaking years of research to all the things that stand behind James's works-The Museum World, The Pop World, TheBook World, as well as assiduously assembling the title of the books that James actually owned, in TheLibraryof HenryJames. fu this latest extraordinary volume, she has reconstructed in detail how James used the works of European writers and composers to enrich his own fiction-most notably Ouida, Bourget, Feuillet, Daudet, Barres, Anatole France, D'Annunzio, Goethe, Hoffman, Schnitzler, Wilde, Wagner, and Verdi-and to achieve that cosmopolitanism that was the hallmark of his mature art. Often, morally and politically, James was miles removed from these sources, and yet he was still able to adapt plots, themes, images, and symbols from them for his own use. Moreover, as Tintner has shown, there was often a reciprocal relationship-a kind of inter-intertextuality-between some of these writers and Henry James-especially between him and Bourget and Wilde. In her introduction, Tmtner contends that "a European is always of French, German , Italian, or some other nationality. Only an American can want or hope to be BookReviews 233 European without belonging to a specific nationality." James is her example here, but ~hiscould equally be said of James's young contemporary Hemy Harland, editor of The Yellow Book, as well as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and some other American writers and artists. This freedom from national prejudices allowed them to roam without constraint over the whole field of European literature-and immeasurably broaden the scope of literature written in English. It has to be stated at the outset that the exclusively sexual situations-mostly concealed or adulterous attachments-relied upon by cosmopolitan writers were morally and aesthetically repugnant to James. In his article "The Present Literary Situation in France," written in 1899,he deplored this overriding concern in French fiction. Yet, in his late fiction, he was able to convert this concern into powerful moral fables, as in The Ambassadors, The Wings of A Dove, The Golden Bowl, and a number of short stories. Tintner's researches have uncovered many links between James's works and European writings-many of them obscure and trivial.Among them is a debt to Maurice Barres revealed in one phrase-the Sea of Azof-which appears in The Tum of the Screw.On this phrase, Tintner builds an ingenious case for the influence of Barres's novel Les Deracines, which is about the corruption of some high school students, initiallyby the teachings of one of their professors, and subsequently by the fleshpots of Paris. The longest chapter in this book is devoted to the relationship between James and Bourget. On the face of it, this was an unlikely conjunction. Bourget was ultraconservative , racist, and anti-Semitic, and his mostly mediocre stories were almost all devoted to erotic relationships. Yet Bourget was a gifted conversationalist, an indefatigable traveller, and an omnivorous reader. He was also devoted to James, who warmlyreciprocated his friendship. James drew on Bourget's work...