The "Impossible" Miriam Rooth: Performance, Painting, and Spectatorship in The Tragic Muse

Abstract

The Tragic Muse embodies the problem of how arts other than the literary (primarily theatrical performance and portraiture) are conveyed in narrative, an aesthetic issue reflected chiefly in the elusive and contradictory aspects of actress Miriam Rooth. One reference to Miriam ("beautiful actual fictive impossible") reflects James's sense of contrary qualities that arise partly because she is portrayed only through spectatorship-- the altering observations of other characters. Miriam's histrionic temperament, and her varied acting roles, add to what is finally a problem of representation itself, particularly in regard to how visual and kinetic arts coexist in narrative, albeit "scenic," description.