William Dean Howells and the Economic Novel: Heteronomy and Autonomy - Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3 Accéder directement au contenu
Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2020

William Dean Howells and the Economic Novel: Heteronomy and Autonomy

Résumé

In 1861, Howells was appointed consul to Venice. He lived in Italy for four years, an experience he describes in Italian Journeys. In this book, Howells describes his surprise when he noted the discrepancy between the costly elegance of the Genoese and their modest means. "But I […] look at many in this crowd with the eyes of the economist, and wonder how people practicing even so great denial can contrive to make so much display on their little means,how those clerks of public offices […] can dress with such peerless gorgeousness" (1867, p. 35). After Venice, Howells returned to New England, becoming a successful editor and novelist, thus fulfilling the aim he had set himself: "Alas for me! I am proud, vain, and poor. I want to make money, and be rich and grand. […] I want to succeed, yet I am of too indolent a nature to begin," as he wrote his sister in 1857 (Howells 1928, p. 14). This statement is ambivalent, expressing both a yearning for material success and an implicit wariness about it, as if the aim he had set himself did not express a genuinely personal goal. The aim of this chapter is to show that Howells's economic vision informs his fiction, through the study of four novels, The Lady of the Aroostook, A Modern Instance, The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Hazard of New Fortunes, with especial focus on the first and third ones. The contention of this chapter is that Howells's complex economic vision pervades his fiction. Howells's initially optimistic discourse on capitalism led him to an impasse by alienating the realist writer from the representation of social reality. This impasse can be interpreted as the result of heteronomya discourse which invests an external ideology, in this case capitalism, with authority. Ultimately, Howells succeeded in redefining his vision and aesthetic, which led to A Hazard of New Fortunes, his most "vital" fiction. The novel illustrates a quest for autonomy, understood not in terms of disengagement from social issues, but in the sense defined by Cornelius Castoriadis, that is to say, the attempt to institute one's own norms.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
William Dean Howells and the Economic Novel.pdf (229.02 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
Licence : CC BY - Paternité

Dates et versions

hal-04264597 , version 1 (30-10-2023)

Identifiants

Citer

Guillaume Tanguy. William Dean Howells and the Economic Novel: Heteronomy and Autonomy. The Fictions of American Capitalism, Springer International Publishing, pp.179-193, 2020, ⟨10.1007/978-3-030-36564-6_9⟩. ⟨hal-04264597⟩

Collections

UNIV-MONTP3 EMMA
10 Consultations
3 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More