ABSTRACT:This article examines the high degree of parallelism and repetition that characterizes dialogue in Henry James's late fiction and considers both the function of such "consensual talk" in the context of James's novels and its implications for understandings of speech in the novel, more generally. Taking The Ambassadors (1903) as its primary case study, the article argues that dialogue's consensual structure is used to express a fantasy of reciprocity that is at once broadly attributable to the novel's speakers and to James himself, stung by the failure of his theatrical work and the lack of commercial uptake of The New York Edition. In particular, it draws on his 1905 lecture, "The Question of Our Speech," in which James conveys his aspirations that "conscious, imitative speech" could serve a unifying function in the social realm. Yet closer analysis of The Ambassadors reveals the extent to which James's theoretical ideals are at once dramatized and ultimately discredited in his fictional work. In the process, the article models a rhetorical approach to interpreting character dialogue, which treats it as an expressive affordance of the author as well as the character. In this way, it frames novelistic speech as less an instance of mimesis than poiesis and Jamesian dialogue as just one example of the ways fictional conversations get "made."

中文翻译：

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詹姆斯演讲的问题：《大使》中的共识性谈话

摘要：本文考察了亨利·詹姆斯晚期小说中对话的高度平行性和重复性特征，并考虑了这种“共识性谈话”在詹姆斯小说语境中的作用及其对小说中言语理解的影响，更一般地说. 以《大使》（1903）为主要案例研究，文章认为对话的共识结构被用来表达一种互惠的幻想，这种幻想同时广泛归因于小说的演讲者和詹姆斯本人，因为他的戏剧作品的失败而受到伤害以及纽约版缺乏商业化。特别是，它借鉴了他 1905 年的演讲“我们演讲的问题”，其中詹姆斯传达了他的愿望，即“有意识的模仿演讲” 可以在社会领域发挥统一的作用。然而，对大使们的进一步分析揭示了詹姆斯的理论理想在他的虚构作品中被戏剧化并最终被抹黑的程度。在这个过程中，文章模拟了一种解释人物对话的修辞方法，将其视为作者和人物的一种表达方式。以这种方式，它把小说式的演讲作为一种模仿，而不是模仿，而詹姆士式的对话只是虚构对话获得“制造”方式的一个例子。这篇文章模拟了一种解释角色对话的修辞方法，将其视为作者和角色的表达能力。以这种方式，它把小说式的演讲作为一种模仿，而不是模仿，而詹姆士式的对话只是虚构对话获得“制造”方式的一个例子。这篇文章模拟了一种解释角色对话的修辞方法，将其视为作者和角色的表达能力。通过这种方式，它把小说式的演讲作为一种模仿，而不是模仿，而詹姆士式的对话只是虚构对话获得“制造”方式的一个例子。