ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

shapes the sense of suspense as well as Hyacinth’s internal tensions until the novel’s
ending, makes it the purest of possible middles: “The scene is, because of its absence,
the novel’s middle in a way that something coming at the end of the first part or the
beginning of the second never could be” (Puckett 84-85). In The Princess
Casamassima, James uses what Puckett calls the “absent middle” (85) to structure
plot and psyche. Crucially, this event is not an action—it is a word—a word that is
spoken by Hyacinth, but one that is not written in the novel. There is therefore in The
Princess Casamassima a priority of the spoken word over the written word, over
actions, and of the psychic work of judgment that both Hyacinth and the reader must
make.
By contrast, The Golden Bowl for most of Book First seems to be building to
the middle—the culminating action to which the plot has been building in the novel’s
first half. After Hyacinth’s vow, we wait for the moment at which he must act upon
his vow. Narrative momentum proceeds from the middle to the end. But in The
Golden Bowl, the plot of Book First reaches its culmination with an affair and the
breaking of two marriage vows. By this narrative logic, in The Golden Bowl, action
takes priority over spoken words. However, Charlotte and Amerigo’s rendezvous
does not actually take place during the novel’s absent middle. Instead, it takes place
in the space before the final two chapters of Part Second—or perhaps even during
those chapters. Before the final two chapters, Charlotte and Amerigo make their
plans. Lady Castledean has sent all her other guests away from Matcham, leaving
Charlotte and Amerigo behind as cover for her own affair. Charlotte, having
concluded that Castledean wishes to be left alone, has made arrangements at a nearby
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