Horne, P;
(2020)
Why Henry James still matters.
Standpoint
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Abstract
For many of us, lockdown has meant an even more intense immersion in the media whirl of rolling news and politics, an addictive torrent of speculation, opinion and partial revelation, appealing to the prejudices of one side or another and manipulatively subjecting us to the temptations of “confirmation bias”. But we can also come to feel a revulsion from so fast-shifting, so unrewardingly strident a world, and seek a connection with wiser, more equivocal, durably nourishing voices—without wanting to retreat too much into old fixed categories, or become in T.S. Eliot’s phrase “assured of certain certainties”. Not everyone will find their much-needed haven in the work of Henry James, perhaps. But if we want a highly intelligent, deeply felt, psychologically astute, ironically self-questioning, magnificently eloquent body of work to challenge and repay a sustained effort of attention on our part—well, you couldn’t do better.
Type: | Article |
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Title: | Why Henry James still matters |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
Publisher version: | https://standpointmag.co.uk/why-henry-james-still-... |
Language: | English |
Additional information: | This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions. |
UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of English Lang and Literature |
URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10140696 |
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