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Madame Merle of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (1880-81) represents the paradox of authorship: she functions at once as the most prolific creator in the novel and the character most aggressively rendered invisible by the social relations she helps produce. When Madame Merle
was neither writing, nor painting, nor touching the piano, she was usually employed upon wonderful tasks of rich embroidery, cushions, curtains, decorations for the chimney-piece; an art in which her bold, free invention was as noted as the agility of her needle. She was never idle . . .1
James devotes nearly the entire chapter 19 of The Portrait of a Lady to elaborating her "fecund" artistry, the "multiplicity" of her aesthetic interests, and her "loquacious and confidential" discourses with Isabel, the consummate object of her artfulness. The performativity, range, nature, and effect of Madame Merle's artistry - from her piano playing to her "innumerable letters" to her wildly effective orchestration of Isabel Archer's marriage to Gilbert Osmond - correspond to James's portrait of one of his favorite authors: French novelist George Sand. According to James, Madame Sand exhibits "a greater fecundity, considering the quality of her work, than any writer of our day."2 What's more, her "great quality from the first was the multiplicity of her interests."3 Imbedded in the richly metaphorical accretion of Madame Merle's character are signs of James's perspective on female authorship, the gender of artistic creation, and nearly everything he had to say about the controversial, crossdressing George Sand.
How can we pursue connections such as these without reductively equating Madame Merle with George Sand? Reaching beyond the simple gesture of equivalence requires exploring the dynamics among James, his critical conception of Sand, and his characterization of Madame Merle. It means addressing how the elements of fiction emerge out of a critical act. As James's implicit analysis of Sand's literature and lifestyle, Madame Merle becomes a rhetorical proxy through which he works out his fascination with Sand and his evolving definition of literary mastery. Madame Merle functions as a surrogate author. Through her characterization, James tries on the experience of a nineteenth-century woman writer at the same time as he novelizes a theory of mastery that circumscribes the female artist. The result is an implicit...