Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw” in the Context of the Victorian “Dramatic Monologues” Tradition

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The work of Henry James is widely known for its abundance of original narrative techniques that enriched pre-modernist prose. The formation of the literary style of the Anglo-American writer falls on the period of late Victorianism (the last third of the 19th century), which explains the closeness of his artistic prose to the genre system of that era, including overlap with a special experimental genre of Victorian literature – “the dramatic monologue”. This Victorian genre has recently been rethought by literary scholars in line with neo-Victorian prose. The purpose of this article is to clarify ideas about the range of James’s narrative techniques against the background of the diversity of Victorian traditions, which provides new possibilities for the interpretation of his texts. The structural and stylistic correspondences between the Victorian “dramatic monologue” and the novella “The Turn of the Screw” (1898/1908) merit particular attention. The novella has not yet been examined in detail from this perspective, although it has never been deprived of the critics’ attention. Research interest also stems from the rhythmic text organization of the tale, remarkable in both prosaic and poetic literary context.