Henry James "The Art of Fiction" Edith Wharton- "Souls Belated"

Henry James - " The Art of Fiction" Edith Wharton-" Souls Belated"

Through out reading "The Art of Fiction" I had difficulty figuring out every direction James turned. In his essay he spoke a lot about Mr. Walter Besant. He took Besant’s views and altered them with his own. As James states on page 554 “ a novel is a novel”. In his eyes he finds writing an art. James uses this comparison to art very thoroughly through out his essay. He compares the art of writing to painting. This is used to show how a painters lines have to be defined to tell the story of what happened or what is going to capture the moment. He compares this to writing because he believes a writer expresses what happened in great detail to appeal to the readers, and to tell the complete story. James believes this great art is revealed and expressed through experiment, curiosity and points.
James expresses how in England most felt fiction to be “wicked”, but that belief has since died. Besant also expressed that if someone were to write about fiction they should some how apologize in their writing for it. James very much disagrees with this statement it seemed. He does although agree with Besant at some point about how although an article may be fiction, it should feel some what real, as in characters should seem life like, as well as area’s during time.
. Along with one can speak best from ones own taste, as long as they show reality which James finds to be the supreme virtue of a novel.
Along with all of the other facts that James states and determines if he agree with Besant or disagrees he states that a good fiction should contain facts, or look for something. For example it should have a question that in return has an answer at the end. He also feels that criticism of material is a main result of writing. All novels will be criticized by readers, and set as either good or bad, but it is each persons interests that sets them apart.
Now to the question of how the two articles are related. “The Art of Fiction” , and “Souls Belated” actually do have quite a bit in common. As James stated through out most of his essay he felt that a good fictional story should be real like, and humanistic. Wharton expresses this through out her entire story. There were no mysterious creatures lurking from odd places. It was set in real places, and it showed the real life feeling of people, real people.
Oddly I found they both also made reference to a needle and thread. James’s version of a needle and thread expressed how a good fiction is written with both a needle and thread, it cannot be with out one of the two, because it strings things together. (or at least that’s how I took it ) Wharton used this sort of reference in her story written out. Through out Wharton’s story, many things related well with James’s views of a good fiction because for another reason, there was a question through out ,( or well I should say many questions) and eventually as the characters searched they found answers to them.
In conclusion in many other ways other than the ones I have stated, James and Wharton share the same views, although Whartons’ aren’t stated from her point of view, you may see through her writing this is how she believes a fiction should be written. To me the story did not even seem fiction, but that is exactly how James felt it should be with the art of fiction. Through this he may classify Wharton as a great artist of its kind.