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Article: Elizabeth Bowen: a woman of wisdom. (The English Novel in the Twentieth Century, part 6)
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- June 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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It has been said too often that Elizabeth Bowen's literary style was strongly influenced by the writing of Henry James. This is a false assumption because when she was working on her first stories she had not read James or Maupassant or Katherine Mansfield with whom she has also been compared. The fact that Elizabeth Bowen invented her own genre of writing has been confirmed by her school friend, Joan Druce, who said that her recognisable style, often assumed to be a 'mannered' later development, was very much hers since her girlhood and that Elizabeth's style was 'simply herself'.
Elizabeth Bowen's style never really changed significantly. Although her themes ...