"Slika [...] u srži svakog cilja": vizuelna retorika u romanima Amerikanac, Portret jedne ledi i Ambasadori Henrija Džejmsa

Abstract

Cilj istraživanja disertacije jeste potvrđivanje pretpostavke da slikarstvo ima veći znaĉaj u pripovednom opusu Henrija Džejmsa nego što je on isticao. Iako je u autopoetiĉkim, teorijskim i kritiĉkim tekstovima, tvrdio da se srž njegovog pripovednog postupka sastoji u pravilnoj smeni slike i drame, disertacije tvrdi da je Džejms zapravo dosledno sprovodio kredo da je slika uvek bila u srži svakog njegovog cilja. Osnovna tvrdnja ispitana je pažljivim ĉitanjem romana koji obeležavaju tri glavne faze Džejmsovog stvaralaštva, uz uporedno ĉitanje njegove nefikcionalne građe (autopoetiĉkih, teorijskih i kritiĉkih tekstova, autobiografije, pisama, dnevniĉkih beleški i putopisa). Primenjeni dijahronijski i komparativni pristup pruža jedinstvene uvide u osobenost odnosa književnosti i slikarstva u njegovom delu, istovremeno ukazujući na to da je dosadašnja obimna kritiĉarska praksa u ispitivanju odnosa slikarskog i pripovednog u Džejmsovom delu bila nedostatna. Dok su prethodna istraživanja odnosa slikarstva i Džejmsove proze bila usredsređena na ispitivanje njenih ekfrastiĉnih i piktorijalnih osobenosti, disertacija odnos slikarstva i izabranih Džejmsovih romana podvodi pod termin vizuelna retorika. Priznajući da je ekfrastiĉnost, u savremenom znaĉenju pojma ekfraza ali i u onom koji je imala u kontekstu antiĉke retorike, u izvesnoj meri, odlika Džejmsovog pripovednog postupka, kao i da je piktorijalizam, onako kako ga je odredio Džin Hagstrum a koristili drugi, svojstven njegovoj prozi, disertacija zakljuĉuje da pojam vizuelna retorika, za razliku od prethodno ponuđenih termina, naglašava retoriĉku svrhu Džejmsovih verbalnih slika. Uoĉavanje retoriĉke svrhe Džejmsove verbalne slike suštinski menja razumevanje složenog odnosa slikarskog i pripovednog u njegovom pripovednom opusu, onog koji mu je omogućio da ponudi odgovore na epistemološka pitanja.

This dissertation’s hypothesis is that the art of painting had a stronger influence on James’s fiction and narrative techniques than James himself postulated. In his own autopoetical, theoretical and critical writings, James claimed that the critical aim of his narrative technique was to equally alternate between picture and scene; this dissertation demonstrates that James fully and consistently embraced the credo that the picture had always been ‘in essence one’s aim’. This hypothesis is examined by close readings of James’s novels representing all three major periods of James’s opus, while simultaneously utilizing his nonfictional writings (autopoetical, theoretical, and critical texts; autobiographies; letters, notebooks, and travel logs). A diachronic comparative methodology is employed to emphasize the uniqueness of the relationship between the literary and the visual in James’s opus, as well as to demonstrate that, although vast in scope and volume, the existing critical literature on the subject of the aforementioned relationship is nevertheless lacking. Previous research on the relationship between painting and literature in James’s fiction focused on theoretical frameworks of pictorialism, on the one hand, and on ekphrasis, on the other. This dissertation analyses both, and introduces another which sets James’s liaison of the visual and the verbal inside the framework of visual rhetorics. Our analysis establishes that ekphrasis, both in its contemporary, as well as in its ancient rhetoric sense, does encompass certain tenets of James’s narrative techniques. Similar conclusion is drawn with regards to pictorialism, in the critical sense previously established by Jean Hagstrum, and consequently used by various other authors analyzing James’s novels. Our dissertation’s conclusion is that both of these theoretical frameworks are incomplete, and therefore lacking in the analytical description of James’s verbal pictures. The framework of visual rhetorics, in contrast to ekphrasis and pictorialism, comprehensively illuminates that James’s pictures have a distinct rhetorical purpose. Understanding the rhetorical purpose of James’s verbal pictures fundamentally transforms our understanding of the complexity of the ‘painted/narrated’ relationship in James’s narrative technique, a relationship wholly foundational to allowing James proposing answers to epistemological questions.