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“The pious secret of how to wait for us”

The Adaptation of the Ruskinian Picturesque in Henry James’s Venetian Essays

Simone Francescato    Università Ca' Foscari Venezia    

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abstract

The essay examines the Venetian essays included in Henry James’s Italian Hours (1909) in relation to the aesthetic category of the picturesque, discussing textual revision and the ways in which the writer progressively returned to the concept, transformed it, and blatantly deployed it in a fashion that was consistent with John Ruskin’s own ultimate understanding of it in the last volumes of Modern Painters. The essay contends that it is indeed in the Venetian essays that one can find significant evidence of James’s enduring dialogue with Ruskin and his aesthetic theories. Far from emerging as a trite convention, the revived picturesque in James’s essays proves to be a valid means to understand the effects of modernization in Venice and to remind the reader of its eternal, but fragile, beauty.

Published
March 7, 2025
Accepted
Oct. 1, 2025
Submitted
Aug. 1, 2024
Language
EN

Keywords: Henry JamesVenicePicturesqueJohn Ruskin

Copyright: © 2024 Simone Francescato. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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