Henry James and the ‘unprovoked harsh note’ of experience

This essay discusses the aural dimension in The Ambassadors within the broader framework of the novel's representation of the sensorial domain and of affect as the body's capacity to be touched and transformed by encounters. By examining the manifestations of the aural in the text as a correlate of or metaphoric substitute for the haptic and tracing its manifold literal, metaphorical, and conceptual connections with other perceptual and cognitive realms, the essay argues that the sonic recapitulates the novel's exploration of the subversive force of affect and simultaneously points to its epistemological limits.