The Portrait of a Lady와 On the Eve의 比較硏究

• 발행기관: 호서대학교 사회과학연구소
• 저자명: 咸連珍
• 간행물 정보: 『사회과학연구』제7집 제1호, 41~54쪽, 전체 14쪽
• 주제분류: 사회과학 > 행정학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 1988.12.31

영문 초록

As a criterion of the study of parallels, J.T. Shaw s indication should be kept in mind. He says that when one studies parallels in this sense he nevertheless should consider the possibility of direct relationships. James had the greatest affinity with Turgenev, both in his psychological turn of mind and the aristocracy of his temperament. Henry saluted Turgenev as “the first novelist of the day.” In addition, some of what James learned from Turgenev is recorded in his preface to The Portrait of a Lady, where he recalls Turgenev telling him how he usually began composition with a single character, a stray disposable figure. James also admired the poetic aura surrounding Turgenev’s heroines and what he called their “moral beauty”. Both writers were profound psychologists and conscious stylists, and neither was particularly interested in general idea. According to James, Turgenev belonged to a limited class of very careful writers notable for their narrow observation:to describe him in the fewest terms, he is a stroy-teller who has taken notes. James admired most in Turgenev, the ability to endow some of his characters with such vitality that they seem to take the plot into their own hands, or rather, to continue to live beyond its exigencies. James was especially charmed with Turgenev s heroines, with their purity, strength of will, and power to resist. They reminded him of New England women in their virginal “angularity.” Whereas Lisa (A Nest of Noblemen) embodied the purity that James thought lacking in French fiction, Elene represented passion. Elene rejects three fairly conventional suitors to marry a Bulgarian patriot. Such “spontaneity” and “independence”, James said, were “quite akin to the English ideal of maiden loveliness.” Here, I found many similarities between the heroine in The Portrait of a Lady (Isabel Archer) and Elena in On The Eve. Apparently Turgenev s idea of structure greatly impressed James;decades later, in his preface to The Portrait of a Lady, he wrote that the author s technique set a precedent for his own use of Isabel as “center”, and equally, for his seeming inattention to “architecture::. Therefore, it can be said that Turgenev anticipated James’s theory and practice. Turgenev was one of James s most important literary models;not only did he devote primary attention to character, but he developed a technique organically realted to his theme. Indeed, James’s oriticism of Turgenev, more than of any other writer, reveals that he shared the taste of his time.