This article is about the Henry James short story; for James's autobiographical book with the same name see The Middle Years (book)

The Middle Years (book)

The Middle Years is an incomplete book of autobiography by Henry James, posthumously published in 1917. The book covers the early years of James' residence in Europe and his meetings with writers such as George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson, and James Russell Lowell.-Summary and themes:The seven chapters...

.

"The Middle Years" is a short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by Henry James

Henry James

Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....

, first published in Scribner's Magazine in 1893. It may be the most affecting and profound of James's stories about writers. The novelist in the tale speculates that he has spent his whole life learning how to write, so a second life would make sense, "to apply the lesson." Second lives aren't usually available, so the novelist says of himself and his fellow artists: "We work in the dark--we do what we can--we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

."

Plot summary

Dencombe, a novelist who has been seriously ill, is convalescing at the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 seaside town of Bournemouth

Bournemouth

Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...

. He is sitting near the water and reading his latest book entitled, of course, The Middle Years. A young physician named Dr. Hugh comes over to Dencombe and begins to talk about his admiration for the novel, though he doesn't realize that he's speaking to the book's author.

The weakened Dencombe suddenly loses consciousness. When he revives, he finds that Dr. Hugh has recognized him, and that the physician is also attending a wealthy woman referred to only as the countess. Over the next few days Dr. Hugh pays more attention to Dencombe than to the countess, and he is warned about this by the wealthy woman's companion, Miss Vernham.

A few days later Dencombe relapses. Dr. Hugh tells Dencombe that the countess has died and left him nothing in her will. Close to death Dencombe whispers to Dr. Hugh the eloquent words quoted above. The tale's final sentence tells how Dencombe's first and only chance at life and art has ended.

Major themes

Many of James's stories about writers show some evidence, usually smothered in ironic

Irony

Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...

 humor, of resentment that his own fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

 didn't reach a much larger audience. The Middle Years is free from such rather querulous regrets. Instead, the tale shows the artist's quest as something far more important than a search for popularity and material rewards.

The plot is so simple that it almost seems an afterthought. Dr. Hugh's devotion is genuine and touching, but it serves mainly to inspire Dencombe to his sad, wise reflections on a lifetime of artistic effort. Dencombe never will enjoy "an extension" of his life, "another go" at his art. But he comes to realize that his life's work is already enough for him to "possess his kingdom" and to die with a genuine sense of having achieved all he could.

Critical evaluation

Many critic

Critic

A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

s have noted how The Middle Years differs from James's other tales of writers and their troubles. As Frank Kermode

Frank Kermode

Sir John Frank Kermode was a highly regarded British literary critic best known for his seminal critical work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, published in 1967 ....

 said: "The Middle Years stands somewhat apart from the other stories of the literary life; the tone is darker, the ironies less vivid, the relationship between old and young more intimate and more understanding." This gentler approach, free from bitterness about James's own problems as an artist, has attracted sometimes hyperbolic praise. Edward Wagenknecht

Edward Wagenknecht

Edward Wagenknecht was an American literary critic and teacher, who specialized in 19th century American literature. He wrote and edited many books on literature and movies, and taught for many years at various universities, including the University of Chicago and Boston University...

, for instance, called it "by all means the most beautiful" of James' stories about writers, and said the tale made him want to cry rather than lecture.

In his own New York Edition

New York Edition

The New York Edition of Henry James' fiction was a 24-volume collection of the Anglo-American writer's novels, novellas and short stories, originally published in the U.S. and the UK in 1907-1909, with a photogravure frontispiece for each volume by Alvin Langdon Coburn...

preface to the story, James was justifiably proud of compressing his material into the short length magazine editors often demanded. The mature and unobtrusive technique of the tale masks the complexity of its treatment of the artist, doomed and triumphant, tragic and victorious.

External links

• Original magazine publication of The Middle Years (1893)
• New York Edition text of The Middle Years including the author's preface (1909)
• Note on the texts of The Middle Years at the Library of America
  Library of America
  The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature.- Overview and history :Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LoA has published over 200 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain to Philip...
  
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