A Conversation Among Himselves:
Change and the Style of Henry
James
David L. Hoover
New York University
Style in Fiction Symposium (SIFS)
PALA International Symposium
11th March 2006, Lancaster University
The “Early” Style
Newman looked at her a moment; he saw that she was
pretty, but he was not in the least dazzled. He remembered
poor M. Nioche's solicitude for her ‘innocence,’ and he
laughed out again as his eyes met hers. Her face was the
oddest mixture of youth and maturity, and beneath her
candid brow her searching little smile seemed to contain a
world of ambiguous intentions. She was pretty enough,
certainly, to make her father nervous; but, as regards her
innocence, Newman felt ready on the spot to affirm that she
had never parted with it. She had simply never had any; she
had been looking at the world since she was ten years old,
and he would have been a wise man who could tell her any
secrets.
The American (1877 [1879 edition])
The “Late” Style
That brought back to Maisie--it was a roundabout way--the
beauty and antiquity of her connexion with the flower of
the Overmores as well as that lady's own grace and charm,
her peculiar prettiness and cleverness and even her
peculiar tribulations. A hundred things hummed at the back
of her head, but two of these were simple enough. Mrs.
Beale was by the way, after all, just her stepmother and her
relative. She was just--and partly for that very reason--Sir
Claude's greatest intimate (‘lady-intimate’ was Maisie's
term) so that what together they were on Mrs. Wix's
prescription to give up and break short off with was for
one of them his particular favourite and for the other her
father's wife.
What Maisie Knew (1897: NYE,1908)
Cluster Analysis—5 Authors—983 MFW
20 Novels (23 Editions) by Henry James
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Early (1871-81):
Watch and Ward, 1871*
Roderick Hudson, 1875
The American, 1877
Daisy Miller, 1878
The Europeans, 1878*
Confidence, 1880*
Washington Square, 1881*
The Portrait of a Lady, 1881
•
•
•
•
•
•
Late (1897-17):
The Spoils of Poynton, 1897
What Maisie Knew, 1897 (1908)
The Awkward Age, 1899
The Sacred Fount, 1901*
The Wings of the Dove, 1902
(1909)
• The Ambassadors, 1903 (1909)
• The Golden Bowl, 1904 (1909)
• The Ivory Tower, 1917
• Intermediate (1886-90):
•
• The Bostonians, 1886*
• The Princess Casamassima, •
1886
•
• The Reverberator, 1888 (1908)
•
• The Tragic Muse, 1890
Early (revised versions):
Daisy Miller, 1878 (1909)
The Portrait of a Lady, 1881
(1908)
The American, 1877 (1907)
Cluster Analysis of 23 Editions
Fifteen Novels by Charles Dickens
Eleven Novels by Willa Cather
Some Contractions in 3 Periods
Personal Pronouns in 3 Periods
Pronouns increasing, early < intermediate < late:
– her, herself, it, itself, their, them, us
Pronouns increasing, early < late:
– she, hers, him
Pronouns decreasing, late < intermediate < early:
– he, his, himself
169 Function Words in 3 Periods
Pattern
Expected
Late<Inter.<Early (waning)
28
Inter.<Late<Early
28
Late<Early<Inter.
28
Early<Late<Inter.
28
Inter.<Early<Late
28
Early<Inter.<Late (waxing)
28
Actual
27
12
13
19
23
75
Variable Speech Markers in 3 Periods
The 40 Most Variable Waxing and Waning Nouns
Waxing nouns:
doom, intervention,
nervousness, yearning,
detachment, diplomacy, plea,
clearness, seconds, gaiety,
possibility, relation, minute,
passage, reference, events,
approach, extent, spot, pressure,
effect, conditions, presence,
freedom, question, rate, ways,
possession, difference, danger,
difficulty, consequence, sign,
breath, vision, form, case,
relief, fear, minutes
Waning nouns:
enterprise, tresses, foreigners,
compliments, virtues, rapidity,
peculiarities, coquette,
physiognomy, talents, suitor,
dresses, advice, temper, Europe,
Italy, entertainment, forehead,
liberty, winter, circumstances,
dozen, satisfaction, city,
country, conversation, year,
family, heart, son, genius,
fortune, fellow, society,
pictures, years, glance, half,
evening, to-morrow
Waxing and Waning Nouns of Time
Waxing:
• seconds
• minute, minutes
• hours
Late > Early:
• hour
• second
Waning:
• year, years
• month, months
• week
• days
Early > Late:
• day
Waxing Families of Verbs
• breathe, breathed, breath, breathless
– (breathing late > early)
• protect, protected, protection
• produce, produced, producing, product
(production nearly constant)
• pull, pulled (pulling frequent early and late)
• require, requires, required (requiring late> early)
• smoke, smoked (smoking late > early)
• worry, worried (worrying early > late)
Waning Families of Verbs
• displease, displeased, displeasure (displeasing
early > late)
• murmur, murmuring, murmured
• spend, spending
• beg, begged
• gaze, gazing, gazed
• marry, marring, unmarried (married early > late)
• blush, blushing, blushed
• flattered, flattering (flatter early > late)
• irritate, irritating, irritated, irritation
• glance, glancing, glanced (glances early > late)
Waxing Families of Adjectives
• clear, clearer, clearest, cleared, clearness,
clearly
• sharp, sharpness, sharply (sharpened late >
early)
• odd, odder, oddest, oddly, oddity
• vivid, vividly, vividness
• awful, awfully (awfulness late only)
• straight, straightness (straightest late only;
straighter, straightway late > early)
Waxing and Waning –ly Adverbs
Waxing adverbs:
markedly, sociably, originally,
pleasantly, nobly,
comparatively, practically,
perceptibly, ruefully, gaily,
conspicuously, lucidly, goodhumouredly, visibly,
inevitably, luckily, previously,
fearfully, supremely, oddly,
perversely, cheerfully,
helplessly, fully, positively,
extraordinarily, mostly,
publicly, repeatedly, precisely,
thoughtfully, merely, awfully
Waning adverbs:
sternly, scantily, chiefly,
intently, angrily, severely,
tightly, hardly, terribly,
solemnly, softly, tolerably,
greatly, rarely, attentively,
badly, rapidly, seriously,
mentally, occasionally,
slowly, passionately,
coldly, strongly, usually,
singularly, differently,
generally, certainly,
abruptly, constantly,
gracefully, delightfully
Peculiar –ly Adverbs (Mainly Late)
(4) sighingly, (2) appointedly, assentingly,
diviningly, protectedly, reasoningly,
redeemingly, rejoicingly, savingly, (1)
advertisedly, affirmingly, applausively,
avoidingly, booklessly, coolingly, creepingly,
detectedly, inattackably, interruptingly,
neededly, obstructedly, peeringly, persuadedly,
protectingly, recordedly, relievingly,
revivingly, simplifyingly, smokingly,
spreadingly, sustainingly, swingingly,
unencouragingly, unlightedly, wailingly,
wavingly
Peculiar –ly Adverbs in Context
The fine old presence on the pillow had
faltered before expression; then it
appeared rather sighingly and finally to
give the question up.
The Ivory Tower (1917)
Peculiar –ly Adverbs in Context
“She might have been anything she
liked--except his wife.”
“But she wasn't,” said the Colonel very
smokingly.
The Golden Bowl (1904)
Fanny herself limited indeed, she minimised, her office;
you didn't need a jailor, she contended, for a domesticated
lamb tied up with pink ribbon. This wasn't an animal to be
controlled--it was an animal to be, at the most, educated. .
. . This left, goodness knew, plenty of different calls for
Maggie to meet--in a case in which so much pink ribbon,
as it might be symbolically named, was lavished on the
creature. What it all amounted to at any rate was that Mrs.
Assingham would be keeping him quiet now, while his
wife and his father-in-law carried out their own little
frugal picnic; quite moreover, doubtless, not much less
neededly in respect to the members of the circle that were
with them there than in respect to the pair they were
missing almost for the first time. The Golden Bowl (1904)