Henry James: The American Scene

This article is intended to provide an introduction to one of Henry James’s most complex and most widely discussed works, "The American Scene" (1907). After tracing the genesis and development of the book, and explaining the context out of which it emerged, the article analyzes both its form (which, for its intricate, innovative quality aligns it with James’s last three novels and, more in general, with emerging Modernism), and its major themes, including: the metropolis as a synecdoche of America, the skyscraper as a symbol of the growing dominance of commercialism, the hotel as the site of social promiscuousness, impermanence and publicity, the effects of mass immigration on American identity and the English language as a medium of artistic expression.