Henry James's Conscious Muse: Design for a "Theatrical Case" in The Tragic Muse

In chapter 7 of The Tragic Muse, as young Miriam Rooth awaits her audition before Madame Carré and the others who have assembled for the occasion, she is frightened and tearful. The guests attempt to encourage her, but when the brief performance is over, it has "not precisely been a triumph." Nonetheless Peter Sherringham muses over Miriam's appearance and qualities, an activity that will continue for him through much of the novel: "She wore a black dress, which fell in straight folds; her face, under her mobile brows, was pale and regular, with a strange, strong, tragic beauty. 'I don't know what's in her,' he said to himself; 'nothing, it would seem, from her persistent vacancy. But such a face as that, such a head, is a fortune!'"

As Miriam readies herself to perform, her eyes are "splendid and cold"; and her countenance, "austere and terrible," prompts a quick comment from Peter to his friend Nick Dormer:

"You must paint her just like that."
"Like that?"
"As the Tragic Muse." (TM 101-02)

Nick does not ask for clarification, nor does Peter elaborate. With no explanation of what the latter's allusion may signify, one might assume that the reference--"tragic muse"--is simply meant to be understood between the characters.

When the term is employed again, in chapter 24, the implicit familiarity remains, in this instance between Nick and Gabriel Nash, who had arranged for the recitation with Madame Carré:

"Do you remember the Tragic Muse?" Nash pursued, explicatively.

"The Tragic Muse?"

"That girl in Paris, whom we heard at the old actress's and whom we afterwards met at the charming entertainment given by your cousin (isn't he?) the secretary of embassy."

"Oh, Peter's girl: of course I remember her."

"Don't call her Peter's; call her rather mine," Nash said, with good-humored dissuasiveness. "I invented her, I introduced her, I revealed her."

"I thought on the contrary you ridiculed and repudiated her." (314)

In this instance, the "Tragic Muse" is quite specifically Miriam Rooth. The expression is applied to her alone, although once again there is no explanation of the term or its use in this context. In reference to Miriam's developing notoriety, Nash observes: "The Tragic Muse is the great modern personage. Haven't you heard people speak of her, haven't you been taken to see her" (315)?

Here, despite the continuing absence of direct explication, the discussion of a "muse" includes the intimation that such a figure might be possessed or "invented" by another party. Here, too, is evidence of an opposition that is accentuated by James through much of the novel: the sponsorship of Miriam ("Peter's girl") by Sherringham versus the skepticism of Gabriel Nash. As I will argue, this very polarity is part of the basis for an elaborate debate that James creates concerning not only Miriam's presence and histrionic qualities but the theatrical art that she comes to represent. I will suggest, moreover, that the intricacy of this debate is connected directly to James's deliberate fashioning of his own theatrical muse.

At the close of chapter 24 (the scene in which Peter arrives at Nick's studio in order to view Miriam's portrait, but finds Biddy working there instead of Nick) Peter's departure is described as follows: "And Sherringham went away immediately, leaving the girl alone with the Tragic Muse and feeling again, with a quickened rush, a sense of the beauty of Miriam, as well as a new comprehension of the talent of Nick" (376). Now the "Tragic Muse" is no longer Miriam the individual character but Miriam represented in paint--possessed of "beauty" even in her corporeal absence. The identity of the "Tragic Muse" has been made aesthetically versatile by this point in the narrative, abstracted from a theatrical "incarnation" that is...