Henry James’s Rhythms

Abstract: Taking its lead from George Saintsbury’s A History of English Prose Rhythm , this essay thinks through the ideals of principled irregularity and tactful inconspicuousness in James’s writing. Alert to how “rhythm’” escapes critical attention as well demands it, it outlines the vivifying capaciousness of the term across a range of James’s texts. Modifying the critical orthodoxy that conspicuous regularity is prose’s best kept secret, it analyses two passages from ‘The Beast in the Jungle’ and The Golden Bowl . Rhythm is not just a way of keeping a secret; it is central to James’s exploration of non-mendacious modes of concealment.