Critical Approaches to Joseph Conrad

Agata Szczeszak-Brewer

Description

Critical Approaches to Joseph Conrad is a collection of essays directed to both new and experienced readers of Conrad. The book takes into account recent developments in literary theory, including the prominence of ecocriticism, ecopostcolonial approaches, and gender studies. Editor Agata Szczeszak-Brewer offers a comprehensive and comprehensible introduction to Conrad's most popular texts, also addressing the most recent academic debates as well as the conversations about narrative and genre in Conrad's canon.

Students and scholars of Conrad, twentieth-century literature, and modernism will appreciate the clear, accessible prose by nineteen internationally recognized contributors who approach Conrad in different ways, from postcolonial and ecocritical perspectives, through explorations of gender, to psychoanalysis, narrative theory, and political analysis. Beginning with a biographical introduction by Szczeszak-Brewer, the collection offers an essay outlining the cultural and historical contexts that influenced Conrad's fiction and an essay on reception of Conrad's work.

Following that, contributors provide critical approaches to Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, The Secret Sharer, and Under Western Eyes. In these sections scholars offer insights about complex issues in Conrad's fiction, ranging from the study of specific literary tools and narrative development in his books to the political theories in Conrad's portrayal of the threat of terrorism and violent revolutions.

Contributors
Mawuli Adjei
William Atkinson
Jonathan Elmore
Andrew Glazzard
Carola M. Kaplan
Anna Krauthammer
Jennifer Malia
Nisha Manocha
Robert McParland
Barry Morton
Ruth Nadelhaft
John G. Peters
Camelia Raghinaru
Thomas Jackson Rice
Agata Szczeszak-Brewer
Greg Winston

Sujets

• Comparative Literature
• Literary Criticism
• Ronald David Laing
• América
• Walter E. Kurtz
• Adventurism
• Duty and Desire
• The Realist
• A Book of Prefaces
• Ideas Have Consequences
• Counter-revolutionary
• G. A. Henty
• R. D. Laing
• George Gissing
• General officer
• Kleptocracy
• E. M. Forster
• Modernism
• Higher criticism
• General
• American
• Anthony Hope
• Edward Morgan Forster
• Adam Hochschild
• Mark Twain
• Joseph Conrad

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 31 août 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611175301
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Critical Approaches to Joseph Conrad
C RITICAL A PPROACHES TO J OSEPH C ONRAD

EDITED BY
Agata Szczeszak-Brewer
2015 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/ .
ISBN: 978-1-61117-529-5 (cloth) ISBN: 978-1-61117-530-1 (ebook)
Front cover illustration: elephant photograph shutterstock.com/Donovan van Staden
C ONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chronological List of Works by Joseph Conrad
Introduction
A GATA S ZCZESZAK -B REWER
P ART I
Conrad s Contexts
Joseph Conrad: Historical and Cultural Contexts
B ARRY M ORTON
Conrad s Critical Reception
J OHN G. P ETERS
P ART II
Critical Approaches to Heart of Darkness
The great demoralization of the land : Postcolonial Ecology in Heart of Darkness
G REG W INSTON
The Elephant in the Text: Toward a Post-Humanist Reading of Heart of Darkness
W ILLIAM A TKINSON
Conrad and Coppola: Rendering Empire Visible
J ONATHAN E LMORE
Reinventing the Congo through Western Eyes: Echoes of Joseph Conrad s Heart of Darkness in Michaela Wrong s In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz
M AWULI A DJEI
P ART III
Critical Approaches to Other Major Texts
The Imitable Joseph Conrad
N ISHA M ANOCHA
Maternal Return: Lord Jim s Spectral Narrative
C AROLA M. K APLAN
The Other Side of the Page in Typhoon
T HOMAS J ACKSON R ICE
Ideas Have Consequences: Women in the Compromised World of Nostromo
R UTH N ADELHAFT
History in Ruins: Reading Nostromo
C AMELIA R AGHINARU
A Simple Tale? The Writing and Rewriting of The Secret Agent
A NDREW G LAZZARD
The Secret Sharer : When the Other Is the Self
A NNA K RAUTHAMMER
Sensationalized Stories of Russian Revolutionary Terrorism in Under Western Eyes
J ENNIFER M ALIA
Chance and Betrayal in Under Western Eyes
R OBERT M C P ARLAND
Appendix: Sources for Further Reading
J OHN G. P ETERS
Notes
Works Cited
Contributors
Index
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
My special thanks go to John G. Peters and Gregory Britton for providing invaluable feedback on this project in its early stages and to Emiliano Aguilar and Ryan Horner for helping out with editing and indexing. I also appreciate the hospitality of the National Library of Ireland and the University of Gda sk during my sabbatical leave in Europe. All the contributors to this volume deserve applause for tireless work despite Hurricane Sandy s widespread destruction and several other life-changing events. Finally, I am deeply grateful to Josh and Kuba for their patience, love, and an occasional comic relief.
C HRONOLOGICAL L IST OF W ORKS BY J OSEPH C ONRAD
Fiction
Almayer s Folly , 1895
An Outcast of the Islands , 1896
The Nigger of the Narcissus, 1897
Tales of Unrest , 1898
Lord Jim , 1900
Youth, a Narrative; and
Two Other Stories , 1902
Typhoon and Other Stories , 1903
Nostromo , 1904
The Secret Agent , 1907
A Set of Six , 1908
Under Western Eyes , 1911
Twixt Land and Sea , 1912
Chance , 1914
Within the Tides , 1915
Victory , 1915
The Shadow-Line , 1917
The Arrow of Gold , 1919
The Rescue , 1920
The Rover , 1923
Tales of Hearsay , 1925
Collaborations
The Inheritors , 1901
Romance , 1903
The Nature of a Crime , 1909
Nonfiction
The Mirror of the Sea , 1906
Some Reminiscences (A Personal Record) , 1912
Notes on Life and Letters , 1921
Last Essays , 1926
Introduction
A GATA S ZCZESZAK -B REWER

I
Joseph Conrad does not go out of style. Despite the controversy surrounding Heart of Darkness and the debate about racism in Conrad s depiction of Africa, or maybe because of that dispute, Conrad occupies a prominent spot in literature curricula and scholarly conversations. Could his guardians, concerned about young Joseph s less-than-stellar school performance and his cigar habit, predict that this defiant son of a Polish revolutionary would become one of the most prominent authors in the British canon? That almost ninety years after his death, his fiction would still be debated, not only at professional conferences and in classrooms, but on the public radio? In 2009, National Public Radio aired Robert Siegel s interview with Chinua Achebe, one of Conrad s fiercest critics. Listening to Siegel s All Things Considered, I was struck by how contemporary and relevant Conrad s fiction, including the famous (or infamous?) novella, still is. Achebe insists in the interview that the language of description of the [African] people in Heart of Darkness is inappropriate. 1 At that time, I was pondering whether to include Heart of Darkness in my undergraduate course s reading list. I thought of other critics who still disagree with Achebe s claim. I thought of intense and engaged debates in my classroom on this very topic whenever I taught the novella. And I decided to include the book in my syllabus.
Aware that most of my undergraduate students would be reading Conrad for the first time, I wanted to give them resources outlining his life, the cultural and historical context of his fiction, and sample critical essays written in a comprehensible language and inviting first-time readers of Conrad to a conversation. It would be helpful, I thought, if those essays came from a diverse group of scholars, emphasizing not only Conrad s global reach, but also representing a wide range of responses to his texts. I managed to create a patchwork of critical materials in a makeshift course-work file. It was stunning, though, that among many high-quality companions to Conrad there was no single book that would give my students a collection of international voices speaking directly to them in clear prose. That is how this book was born. It contains an overview of the development of Conrad scholarship and a good number of case studies offering a wide and up-to-date range of approaches to his most popular fiction.
Conrad s texts inspire fascinating conversations about racism, political violence, terrorism, ecology, loyalty, honor, and many other topics. His books brilliantly merge adventure with thoughtful investigation of human motives and desires, but the writer s own life was so adventurous and complex that it would provide great material for an action-packed movie. And though I personally dislike voiceovers in movies, I can imagine the opening scene: young Conrad sitting over a sepia-colored map, his adult voice narrating: It was in 1868, when nine years old or thereabouts, that while looking at a map of Africa of the time and putting my finger on the blank space then representing the unsolved mystery of that continent, I said to myself, with absolute assurance and an amazing audacity which are no longer in my character: When I grow up I shall go there. And of course I thought no more about it until, after a quarter of a century or so, an opportunity offered to go there, as if the sin of childish audacity was to be visited on my mature head. 2 There was, of course, the Congo. Conrad s journey there inspired one of the most beautiful and debated texts in the English language.
Conrad was a man of contradictions. He was socially conservative, and he cherished tradition and honor; yet he rejected the Catholic faith, the religion of his ancestors and compatriots. He adored and respected several women in his life, including his mother and a Belgian-born novelist, Marguerite Poradowska (the wife of Conrad s distant cousin), and yet his texts sometimes reveal a condescending attitude toward his female characters. He was thoughtful and yet spontaneous and even rash; begging family and friends for money, though often generous to others. He was a Polish expatriate whose writing entered the English canon-yet his spoken English was marked by a strong Polish accent. In fact, during his visit to the United States late in his career-already as a widely published and popular Anglophone author-when he addressed workers at Doubleday s printing works, his listeners found his accent impenetrable, and the secretaries assigned to take down his every word in shorthand abandoned the task in despair. 3 Nevertheless, his foreign sounds and appearance didn t prevent him from entertaining some of the most prominent literary and cultural figures in his Capel House and in other locations, where he discussed literature, ethics, and politics with H. G. Wells, Henry James, R. B. Cunninghame Graham, John Galsworthy, Stephen Crane, Ford Madox Ford, and others. George Gissing summed up many of Conrad s contemporaries amazement: That a foreigner should write like this, is one of the miracles of literature. 4
II
Joseph Conrad is a pen name of J zef Teodor Konrad Na cz Korzeniowski, born in 1857 in Berdycz w-on a land once under the Polish rule, though at the time of Conrad s birth it had already been taken by Russia in what is known as the Great Partition of Poland. (It now belongs to Ukraine.) The son of a revolutionary, he recalls the oppressive shadow of the great Russian empire as a strong, formative presence in his childhood. 5 At that time, Poland existed only as a concept, not a political entity. Poland was synonymous with a culture, a history, a language and a geographical region, but not as an independent nation. 6 The name Konrad testifies to these political tensions, as a tribute to two Konrads in Polish Romantic literature, two patrio