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| Joseph Conrad |
They have been talking about Joseph Conrad, the Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language author of incredible novels like Lord Jim or Heart of Darkness.
Joseph Conrad, born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski (3 December 1857–3 August 1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language.
Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature.
Conrad wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of what he saw as an impassive, inscrutable universe.
Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature.
Conrad wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of what he saw as an impassive, inscrutable universe.
Conrad is considered an early modernist, though his works contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced numerous authors, and many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that Conrad's fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
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Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew, among other things, on his native Poland's national experiences and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world -including imperialism and colonialism- and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
Conrad was born on 3 December 1857 in Berdychiv, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire; the region had once been part of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. He was the only child of Apollo Korzeniowski -a writer, translator, political activist, and would-be revolutionary- and his wife Ewa Bobrowska. He was christened Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski after his maternal grandfather Józef, his paternal grandfather Teodor, and the heroes -both named Konrad- of two poems by Adam Mickiewicz, Dziady and Konrad Wallenrod, and was known to his family as Konrad, rather than Józef.
The young Conrad was placed in the care of Ewa's brother, Tadeusz Bobrowski. Conrad's poor health and his unsatisfactory schoolwork caused his uncle constant problems and no end of financial outlay.
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| Joseph Conrad |
In Marseilles Conrad had an intensive social life, often stretching his budget. A trace of these years can be found in the northern Corsica town of Luri, where there is a plaque to a Corsican merchant seaman, Dominique Cervoni, whom Conrad befriended. Cervoni became the inspiration for some of Conrad's characters, such as the title character of the 1904 novel Nostromo. Conrad visited Corsica with his wife in 1921, partly in search of connections with his long-dead friend and fellow merchant seaman.
In 1894, aged 36, Conrad reluctantly gave up the sea, partly because of poor health, partly due to unavailability of ships, and partly because he had become so fascinated with writing that he had decided on a literary career. His first novel, Almayer's Folly, set on the east coast of Borneo, was published in 1895.
Its appearance marked his first use of the pen name Joseph Conrad; Konrad was, of course, the third of his Polish given names, but his use of it -in the anglicised version, Conrad- may also have been an homage to the Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz's patriotic narrative poem, Konrad Wallenrod.
Its appearance marked his first use of the pen name Joseph Conrad; Konrad was, of course, the third of his Polish given names, but his use of it -in the anglicised version, Conrad- may also have been an homage to the Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz's patriotic narrative poem, Konrad Wallenrod.
While Conrad had only limited personal acquaintance with the peoples of Maritime Southeast Asia, the region looms large in his early work. According to Najder, Conrad, the exile and wanderer, was aware of a difficulty that he confessed more than once: the lack of a common cultural background with his Anglophone readers meant he could not compete with English-language authors writing about the English-speaking world.
At the same time, the choice of a non-English colonial setting freed him from an embarrassing division of loyalty: Almayer's Folly, and later An Outpost of Progress (1897, set in a Congo exploited by King Leopold II of Belgium) and Heart of Darkness (1899, likewise set in the Congo), contain bitter reflections on colonialism.
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| Joseph Conrad |
On 28 July 1914, the day war broke out between Austro-Hungary and Serbia, Conrad and the Retingers arrived in Kraków, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where Conrad visited childhood haunts.
On 3 August 1924, Conrad died at his house, Oswalds, in Bishopsbourne, Kent, England, probably of a heart attack. He was interred at Canterbury Cemetery, Canterbury, under a misspelled version of his original Polish name, as Joseph Teador Conrad Korzeniowski.
Conrad spoke his native Polish and the French language fluently from childhood and only acquired English in his twenties.
He chose, however, to write his fiction in his third language, English. He says in his preface to A Personal Record that writing in English was for him natural, and that the idea of his having made a deliberate choice between English and French, as some had suggested, was in error. He explained that, though he had been familiar with French from childhood, I would have been afraid to attempt expression in a language so perfectly 'crystallized'.
He chose, however, to write his fiction in his third language, English. He says in his preface to A Personal Record that writing in English was for him natural, and that the idea of his having made a deliberate choice between English and French, as some had suggested, was in error. He explained that, though he had been familiar with French from childhood, I would have been afraid to attempt expression in a language so perfectly 'crystallized'.
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Inevitably for a trilingual Polish–French–English-speaker, Conrad's writings occasionally show linguistic spillover: Franglais or Poglish, the inadvertent use of French or Polish vocabulary, grammar, or syntax in his English writings.
Conrad was a Russian subject, having been born in the Russian part of what had once been the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the father's death, Conrad's uncle Bobrowski had attempted to secure Austrian citizenship for him -to no avail, probably because Conrad had not received permission from Russian authorities to remain abroad permanently and had not been released from being a Russian subject.
Conrad could not return to Ukraine, in the Russian Empire- he would have been liable to many years' military service and, as the son of political exiles, to harassment.
Conrad could not return to Ukraine, in the Russian Empire- he would have been liable to many years' military service and, as the son of political exiles, to harassment.
Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression
in the garden of letters.
Joseph Conrad
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