The realist blueprint

Taking its cue from the preponderance of architectural imagery in Henry James’s Prefaces, and from the dynamic criticism of architecture in Fredric Jameson’s work, this essay speculates that formal affinities between architecture and literature can inspire a robust non-mimetic theory of literary realism. Rather than reference or documentary, the project of realism thereby appears as the production of possible social space, in accordance with limits of materiality and demands of structural integrity. Through the marvelous connections between James and Jameson, realism becomes thinkable as aesthetically intricate, socially astute, and even politically utopian.