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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
Knowledge works as a tool of power. Hence it is plain that it increases with every increase of power.
– Nietzsche, The Will to PowerThe Republic will now be in republican hands (till now it has been managed altogether by conservatives) and we shall see how it will behave. I hope for the best. I see none but ardent monarchists and hear everything vile said about the Republic but I incline to believe in it, nevertheless.
– Henry James to Alice James, February 22, 1876HENRY James's The American incorporates so many conventions of the novel and the romance in such a bewildering manner that critics have been understandably preoccupied with assessing the formal consequences. The “international theme” has remained just that – a theme that helps critics organize the otherwise disparate parts of a work that begins realistically, only to end with a flurry of melodramatic events. Yet, the political and historical aspects of the international theme were of considerable importance to Henry James as he began work on The American in the winter of 1875–6. Having ventured to become recognized as an international writer, James was personally concerned with exploring the national constraints that he would have to overcome.
Choosing to live in Europe, James was attempting to overcome the narrow provincialism that he imagined had limited Hawthorne's achievement. By the same token, James did not want to surrender those American qualities he considered necessary for the development of a truly international outlook.
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