타자의 미학: 헨리 제임스의 글쓰기와 여성성 = The Aesthetics of the Other: Henry James`s Writing and Femininity

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

That Henry James`s literary achievement consists in large part in his superb portrayal of women is not a recent discovery There has been a long tradition in which James`s writing was immediately associated with the notion of femininity, in terms of his art and his biography alike. In this essay, I examine cultural and political implications of such an association, and re-evaluate the critical practice that unquestioningly defines James as feminine on the ground of the otherness that James was thought to share with women at the end of the nineteenth century. I also question the feminist value in James`s own view of American women through a critical reading of his essays and prefaces, in order to identify and explain the ambivalence that persistently marks his writings about women, and thus to position James, the Master, and his work more correctly within our cognitive map of Amencan literary canon. As his essays and prefaces reveal, James conceives of woman as a medium of culture and civilization. For him, woman is often an aesthetic object but not a political agent. However, the complexity of James`s dealings with woman in his writing derives from the fact that the feminine, in the process of his representation of woman, is never a passive material that is completely subordinated to the authority of the author. James`s authority as the Master, in this sense, originates from his own awareness, and enjoyment, of the ever-dynamic, dialogical relationship between the reality of the feminine and his art of representing it. This is probably why James succeeds, despite his highly ambiguous attitude towards women, in creating strong women characters who struggle, with such fine consciousness, against the cultural, social, and economic conditions of the late nineteenth century that confine and restrict their lives The aesthetic that shapes James`s art of novel, therefore, may be named the Aesthetic of the Other, for it comes from his desire to relate to the feminine Other through his art as a means to understand, and reconcile with, his position as a masculine Other in his own society.