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If we read the actual sentence I have massacred for my title, for instance, at the point in the novel from which James takes his phrase, we come upon another kind of knowledge entirely: But the text of the novel itself is more ambiguous, and is ambiguous precisely because of the strong and multiple valences of the word know. Well, perhaps not beyond any reach. Just beyond the reach we are likely to assign to it.

What Maisie Knew - Table Scene

But is that the right reach? But by the same token she can, as Tanner also suggests, deeply know all kinds of things without knowing the basic facts. Right at the end of the book the governess Mrs Wix gives Maisie a piece of information about the whereabouts of two of the errant adults. She still had room for wonder at what Maisie knew.

I hope my title, if viewed suspiciously enough, may help to suggest that to ask what Henry James knew is also to ask if his novels know the same things. I want to use a great novel by James to explore some of the working meanings of the notion of knowledge; and I want, at the same time, to use the notion of knowledge to open up a great novel in what I hope is a fresh way.

The novel is The Wings of the Dove , first published in Her observation of the irresponsible behaviour of almost all the adults she lives with eventually persuades her to rely on her most devoted friend—if the least superficially-attractive adult in her life—Mrs. The novel can be taken to be a criticism on societal infatuation and sexualisation toward childhood. Maisie becomes a malleable character onto whom all the adults project whatever they desire.

What Maisie Knew – review | Film | The Guardian

Wix, who might appear to be the most loving, projects onto Maisie the life of her dead child. The novel is also a thoroughgoing condemnation of parents and guardians abandoning their responsibilities to their children. James saw English society as becoming more corrupt and decadent, and What Maisie Knew is one of his harshest indictments of those who can't be bothered to live responsible lives. James leavens the sorry doings with a dose of dark humor.

For instance, the dumpy Mrs. Wix falls victim to an unintentionally humorous infatuation with the handsome Sir Claude. What Maisie Knew has attained a fairly strong critical position in the Jamesian canon. Edmund Wilson was one of many critics who admired both the book's technical proficiency and its judgment of a negligent and damaged society. Leavis , on the other hand, declared the book to be "perfection".

Moreover, in the film version, unlike the book, Maisie's foster parents prove deeply loving to her and to each other and highly dependable. Maisie thus finds a happy life with them, with the character of Mrs. Wix being virtually eliminated from the film's plot.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Philip Horne ed , Henry James: Fred Kaplan, Henry James: Bell, Henry James and the Past , London: Harvard University Press, Harold Bloom ed , Modern Critical Views: Henry James , Chelsea House Publishers, Donald Crowley and Richard A. Norton and Company, The Embroidery on the Canvas , Madison Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, Judith Fryer, The Faces of Eve: Oxford University Press, Roger Gard ed , Henry James: The Critical Heritage , London: Barbara Hardy, Henry James: A study of the short fiction , New York: Donatella Izzo, Portraying the Lady: Judith Woolf, Henry James: Ruth Yeazell ed , Henry James: A Collection of Critical Essays , Longmans, An elderly lady, ex-lover of the writer, seeks a husband for her daughter.

But the potential purchaser of the papers is a dedicated bachelor.

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Money is also at stake — but of course not discussed overtly. There is a refined battle of wills between them.

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Who will win in the end? As usual, James keeps the reader guessing. The novella is a masterpiece of subtle narration, with an ironic twist in its outcome. The Spoils of Poynton is a short novel which centres on the contents of a country house, and the question of who is the most desirable person to inherit it via marriage. The owner Mrs Gereth is being forced to leave her home to make way for her son and his greedy and uncultured fiancee.

But things do not go quite according to plan. There are some very witty social ironies, and a contest of wills which matches nouveau-riche greed against high principles.

What Maisie Knew (Annotated) by Henry Henry James (2016, Paperback)

But when she later dies in Rome the reader is invited to see the outcome as a powerful sense of a great lost potential. This novella is a great study in understatement and symbolic power. Henry James at Mantex Biographical notes, study guides, tutorials on the Complete Tales, book reviews. The Complete Works Sixty books in one