A particular view: aspects of form in the novels of Henry Green

Staveley, Annette (1973) A particular view: aspects of form in the novels of Henry Green. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

It is customary to talk of a novelist's development as though man's aesthetic powers grew naturally alongside his physical. As it is easy to arrange a man's life into the tidy compartments of youth, maturity and old age, it is tempting to assign the aesthetic processes to the similar categories of 'early, middle and late'. This allows for an accompanying critical judgement that middle is better than early and that late is best of all. -- The subject of this study, Henry Green, is a novelist who can not be confined by this kind of critical labelling. His nine novels each evince a consistency of skill and vision that is as finely controlled in his first novel, Blindness, as in his final one, Doting. This is not to say that his novels all conform to the same pattern. Indeed, there is little similarity among his novels, either in characterization or form. Given the distinct nature of each novel it is remarkable that there is such a consistency in his artistic accomplishment. -- This study is an attempt to show how each of Green's novels are conscious and disciplined works that, when read closely, present a particular view of life. In a study of the various forms that a writer uses there is always the danger that "La passion frénètique de l'art est un chancre qui dévore le reste" and it is hoped that an investigation of Henry Green's artistic skills will not disavow the compassionate sensibility that is also at work in his novels.

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