Crime and Punishment The most important things to read on this are ...

volume by Freud <strong>and</strong> Breuer, Studies on Hysteria (1895) is <strong>important</strong> background <strong>read</strong>ing: I
hesitate <strong>to</strong> recommend anything by Lacan, but his work provides an essential context.
<strong>The</strong> Turn of the Screw
Henry James's short s<strong>to</strong>ry (call it a novella) was first published as a serial in a magazine in
1898 <strong>and</strong> then issued in book-form. It was revised ten years later for Henry James's definitive
edition of his books, <strong>The</strong> New York edition, with a Preface added. <strong>The</strong> Nor<strong>to</strong>n Critical
Edition of the novella prints it <strong>to</strong>gether with some older criticism; but good modern criticism
of it includes
Shoshana Felman, in Writing <strong>and</strong> Madness 1985. This essay first appeared in 1982 in the
journal Yale French Studies.
Ned Lukacher, Primal Scenes
Peter G Beidler, - anthology of criticism of the text. 1995. This reprints only part of Felman's
essay.
Terry Heller, <strong>The</strong> Turn of the Screw: Bewildered Vision 1989
T.J. Lustig, Henry James <strong>and</strong> the Ghostly 1994. See Bibliography.
Jeremy Tambling: Henry Jmaes: Critical Issues 2000
For a comparison with Freud on hysteria, <strong>and</strong> Freud's treatment of "Dora," one of the famous
analyses of Freud, which has been much commented on, see Paula Marantz Cohen, essay in
the journal Criticism 28, 1986, 73-87.
On Alice James <strong>and</strong> the hysteria in <strong>The</strong> Turn of the Screw see Oscar Cargill, in Kimbaugh's
Nor<strong>to</strong>n edition. Cargill also suggested that Freud <strong>and</strong> Brauer's "Studies on Hysteria"
influenced James.
On Alice James, her Diaries, <strong>and</strong> her letters are both available in the library; so are
biographies of the James family; including William James (philosopher, psychologist), <strong>and</strong>
Henry James. See the biographies by R.W. B. Lewis, by F.O. Matthiessen <strong>and</strong> of James'
father, by Alfred Habegger.
On hysteria in the 19th century, see Elaine Showalter, <strong>The</strong> Female malady; 1985; <strong>and</strong> her
essay in S<strong>and</strong>er L. Gilman (ed.) Hysteria Beyond Freud. <strong>The</strong> material on 19th century
hysteria is vast: see my notes on Emily Dickinson.
Other places where you might look for material on <strong>The</strong> Turn of the Screw would be American
Literature <strong>and</strong> Nineteenth Century Literature. <strong>The</strong>se are solid journals. <strong>The</strong>re is much other
material on James in the American literature section, <strong>and</strong> you should look at this.
<strong>The</strong> best idea for an essay would be <strong>to</strong> ask whether you think the ghosts are "real" or a feature
of the governess's hysterical imagination. <strong>The</strong> view that they are not real was first out
forward by Edmund Wilson in an essay called "<strong>The</strong> Ambiguity of Henry James" , <strong>The</strong> Triple
Thinkers.
Don't forget the frame-narrative: the question why the s<strong>to</strong>ry is <strong>to</strong>ld by Douglas. This could
make a good basis for an essay. <strong>The</strong> novella is basically au<strong>to</strong>biographical in form, but does
the governess think of herself as anything but absolutely normal? Are the children normal?
Don't forget the comparison with Jane Eyre <strong>and</strong> the "madwoman in the attic."