Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski: The Creator as Seafarer (excerpts)
Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski: The Creator as Seafarer (excerpts)

Summary/Abstract: This article consists of excerpts from two chapters of Margreta Grigorova’s monograph entitled Joseph Conrad – the Creator as Seafarer. The titles of the chapters are: “The Captain and the Sea” and “Locating Heart of Darkness. A Journey to the Centre of Africa. The Belgian Congo in Conrad’s Works.” These chapters focus on the figure of the captain in Conrad’s works and on one of its particular manifestations in Heart of Darkness. The figure of the captain provides crucial insights into Conrad’s work. It shapes his narratives biographically and is at the core of their creative design. Conrad’s dream of captainship dominates both his real-life and creative quests. It is related both to the romantic heroism of sailing and to the sober responsibility and art of ship navigation. The triumph of this dream represents one of the force lines that draw Conrad’s readers to his works. The “heart” of “darkness” represents one of the emblematic topoi in his work. Confronting the empirical manifestations of “darkness” and its metaphysical significance is a salient feature of Conrad’s fiction, but it acquires its innermost and universal meaning in the eponymous novella, which demonstrates the culmination of his creative eloquence. It is a work that invites the critical reader to undergo a remarkable hermeneutic journey into a world which is under the gravity force of powerful insights and word gestures

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