Henry James's novels within and beyond the tradition of the Victorian bildungsroman

This study aims at discussing Victorian artist Henry James's literary practice within and beyond the framework of the Victorian Bildungsroman tradition in order to reveal the ways in which James's novels follow and at the same time depart from this literary phenomenon. The Art of Fiction by Henry James is the subject matter of this study alongside his famous novels Roderick Hudson and The Portrait of a Lady. The subject matter is discussed and elaborated first by introducing the adopted critical approaches in relation to the literary timeline in which fiction embarked on a long process of maturation. In this context, while asserting its distinguishing features from other types of fiction, it is analysed how the Victorian Bildungsroman flourished as a genre. Henry James's novels are approached through a comparative analysis in relation to the texts from the realist school (Charles Dickens's Great Expectations and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre) and from the non-realist school (Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean).