“A garden in the middle of the sea”: Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> and Transnational American Studies
Nicole Waller’s study of Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> examines how conventional literary studies’ approaches (those that depend on biography and character analysis) may tether James’s work to a set of values that reinscribe the hierarchies that his narrative s...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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eScholarship Publishing, University of California
2011-12-01
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| Series: | Journal of Transnational American Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://submit.escholarship.org/ojs/index.php/acgcc_jtas/article/view/11639 |
| _version_ | 1811276704155435008 |
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| author | Nicole Waller |
| author_facet | Nicole Waller |
| author_sort | Nicole Waller |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Nicole Waller’s study of Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> examines how conventional literary studies’ approaches (those that depend on biography and character analysis) may tether James’s work to a set of values that reinscribe the hierarchies that his narrative specifically sets adrift. Reviewing various newer paradigms in American Studies—the border, immigrant studies, the Black Atlantic, Native American encounters—Waller relies on a subset of transnational studies, Atlantic studies, to utilize the metaphors of circulation and exchange, of fluidity and drift, of space and dislocation, to argue for a reading of James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> as a dislocated response to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work <em>The House of the Seven Gables</em>. Reading <em>The Aspern Papers</em> closely against Hawthorne’s work, and comparing the European perspectives in both James’s and Hawthorne’s works, Waller suggests that in <em>The Aspern Papers</em> James affords a reading of the transnational experience as a generative gesture, where a Venetian “garden in the middle of the sea” may serve as an abode more fruitful (despite losses) and more productive than the fires to which Hawthorne condemns Italian villages in <em>The Marble Faun</em>. Waller’s interest in the fluid spaces between the works of James and Hawthorne is echoed by both transnational American Studies and the essay itself in the unnamed narrator’s instructions to the gondolier: “Go anywhere. . . .” |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T00:01:25Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6be5b59c095748f881883f19c8156bcb |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1940-0764 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T00:01:25Z |
| publishDate | 2011-12-01 |
| publisher | eScholarship Publishing, University of California |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Transnational American Studies |
| spelling | doaj.art-6be5b59c095748f881883f19c8156bcb2022-12-22T03:11:20ZengeScholarship Publishing, University of CaliforniaJournal of Transnational American Studies1940-07642011-12-0132“A garden in the middle of the sea”: Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> and Transnational American StudiesNicole WallerNicole Waller’s study of Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> examines how conventional literary studies’ approaches (those that depend on biography and character analysis) may tether James’s work to a set of values that reinscribe the hierarchies that his narrative specifically sets adrift. Reviewing various newer paradigms in American Studies—the border, immigrant studies, the Black Atlantic, Native American encounters—Waller relies on a subset of transnational studies, Atlantic studies, to utilize the metaphors of circulation and exchange, of fluidity and drift, of space and dislocation, to argue for a reading of James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> as a dislocated response to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work <em>The House of the Seven Gables</em>. Reading <em>The Aspern Papers</em> closely against Hawthorne’s work, and comparing the European perspectives in both James’s and Hawthorne’s works, Waller suggests that in <em>The Aspern Papers</em> James affords a reading of the transnational experience as a generative gesture, where a Venetian “garden in the middle of the sea” may serve as an abode more fruitful (despite losses) and more productive than the fires to which Hawthorne condemns Italian villages in <em>The Marble Faun</em>. Waller’s interest in the fluid spaces between the works of James and Hawthorne is echoed by both transnational American Studies and the essay itself in the unnamed narrator’s instructions to the gondolier: “Go anywhere. . . .”https://submit.escholarship.org/ojs/index.php/acgcc_jtas/article/view/11639Henry JamesTransnational American StudiesNathaniel Hawthorne |
| spellingShingle | Nicole Waller “A garden in the middle of the sea”: Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> and Transnational American Studies Journal of Transnational American Studies Henry James Transnational American Studies Nathaniel Hawthorne |
| title | “A garden in the middle of the sea”: Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> and Transnational American Studies |
| title_full | “A garden in the middle of the sea”: Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> and Transnational American Studies |
| title_fullStr | “A garden in the middle of the sea”: Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> and Transnational American Studies |
| title_full_unstemmed | “A garden in the middle of the sea”: Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> and Transnational American Studies |
| title_short | “A garden in the middle of the sea”: Henry James’s <em>The Aspern Papers</em> and Transnational American Studies |
| title_sort | a garden in the middle of the sea henry james s lt em gt the aspern papers lt em gt and transnational american studies |
| topic | Henry James Transnational American Studies Nathaniel Hawthorne |
| url | https://submit.escholarship.org/ojs/index.php/acgcc_jtas/article/view/11639 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT nicolewaller agardeninthemiddleoftheseahenryjamessltemgttheaspernpapersltemgtandtransnationalamericanstudies |