Professor Nussbaum on The Golden Bowl

Abstract

I SHOULD LIKE to express my gratitude to Professor Nussbaum in two respects. First, I should like to thank her for having given me an occasion for rereading once more The Golden Bowl. When I originally read the novel many years ago I was impressed, but at the same time somewhat bewildered, by the intricate and labyrinthine treatment it accords to what on the face of it appears to be a fairly straightforward if unusual story of human miscalculation and deception. For what, after all, does the story in essentials amount to? Maggie Verver marries an Italian prince, Amerigo; in doing so she is unaware that he has already had an affair with a friend of hers, Charlotte, and unaware, too, that shortly before the wedding he accompanied Charlotte in search of a wedding present for Maggie-it was then that they considered buying the flawed golden bowl from which the book takes its name. Subsequently she becomes concerned about the loneliness and vulnerability of her father and-still ignorant of the previous relationship with the Prince-helps to arrange his marriage to Charlotte. Not long afterward the Prince and Charlotte resume their affair, eventually arousing suspicions in Maggie which are finally confirmed by evidence of their earlier intimacy that reaches her accidentally through an incident involving the golden bowl. The latter part of the novel concerns Maggie's subtle and ultimately (it appears) successful attempt to deal with the situation in which she finds herself: her relationship with Amerigo is restoredor, rather, fulfilled-and her father and Charlotte leave England for America. This is the bare structure of James's strange but (at least as he presents it) by no means incredible tale. Nevertheless, this simple plot gives no indication of the richness and depth of the book itself: its range and sensitivity, its psychological and moral penetration, its dense texture and sharp attention to detail, and-not least-the curious inexhaustibility both of content and theme which give it the resonance that has often been justly ascribed to it. Professor Nussbaum's paper captures these qualities, and here I should like to acknowledge my second debt to her. For it seems to me that, in concentrating on one crucial aspect of the book, she has provided an exceedingly sharp, imaginative, and perceptive interpretation of the