Adapting to the Stage

The American novelist and playwright, Henry James, was drawn to the theatre and the shifting conventions of drama throughout his writing career. This study demonstrates that from the 1890s onwards James concentrated on adapting his novels and stories to and from the stage, and increasingly employed metaphors that spoke of novel-writing in terms of playwriting. Christopher Greenwood argues that these metaphors helped James to conceive of himself as an artist who composed characters...
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The American novelist and playwright, Henry James, was drawn to the theatre and the shifting conventions of drama throughout his writing career. This study demonstrates that from the 1890s onwards James concentrated on adapting his novels and stories to and from the stage, and increasingly employed metaphors that spoke of novel-writing in terms of playwriting. Christopher Greenwood argues that these metaphors helped James to conceive of himself as an artist who composed characters dramatically and visually, and in so doing sets his novels significantly apart from those of his contemporaries.In the introduction to the first part of this book, Greenwood examines James's career within the context of contemporary European and North American theatre, providing an appraisal of what James gained from contemporary theatre, his position in that milieu, and what he brought to it. Part II of the book focuses on two novels: The Other House and The Spoils of Poynton, both of which illustrate the ways in which James used the mechanism of contemporary theatre to communicate a character's personality. Discussion of these two works is used to throw light on similar concerns that develop in James's later writing. The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl and The Ambassadors become immediately more comprehensible through Greenwood's explanation that key aspects of their style are a function of James's reflections upon writing for the stage.