James's Modernist Concept of Fiction

Henry James is the founder of the theory of modern English fiction.More than forty years of his writing and literary criticism enabled him to bring the previously fragmentary criticism of English fiction to a new and higher level,and successfully build up a fairly comprehensive and relatively reliable theoretical system.This paper aims to discuss James's modernist concept of fiction.By examining his important critical essays and two masterpieces of his early and later period,the paper expounds his theories concerning form and content,psychological exploration,the conveying function of character and the art of point of view,in order to demonstrate the originality and creativity of his fictional concept.