Interest and Aesthetic Judgment in Henry James’s Late Novels

Interest is a constant concern of Henry James’s late career. Undertaking a close reading of the opening of The Wings of the Dove, this article suggests that “interest” and its related terms are simultaneously indices to the range of human motives embodied in late Jamesian interpersonal relations and problematically provisional in failing to determine a single central meaning. James’s formal strategies harness “interest” to transfer the labor of ethical judgement to the reader. By suturing together the experience of reading and represented experience, James intervenes in the structure of aesthetic judgement, resisting any clear division between life and art.