Professions of Taste Henry James, British Aestheticism, and Commodity Culture [Paperback]

The author traces Henry James's career-long encounter with the tradition of British aestheticism and places both in the context of the late nineteenth century's professionalization and commodification of literary life. This well-written study sheds much new light on the sphere of experience and expertise, 'the aesthetic,' that was created in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Our understanding of the way Pre-Raphaelite concerns fertilized the aestheticist breeding grounds of Anglo-American modernism takes a leap forward with Freedman's Professions of Taste, an ambitiously theorized, handsomely written, and enlightening book. An important and innovative book. . . .Professions of Tastereopens the question of later James in a new fashion and with a new perspective. A richer geneaology of modernism, and indeed postmodernism, begins to take shape, in which both the problematics of British aestheticism and James's relations with it play an important role. Professions of Tasteis a work that Henry James might have read with pleasure. It is beautifully written, crafted in the highest spirit of critical enterprise.