Is Mr. Kurtz still alive? Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darknessand popular culture
Is Mr. Kurtz still alive? Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darknessand popular culture

Summary/Abstract: Joseph Conrad’s artistic legacy is of vital importance not only to those involved in the creation of ‘high’ literature and culture, but also to the creators of pop culture, including writers of popular fiction. In this paper, I discuss the influence of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and its impact on films, theatre, music, video games and – above all else – literature. In particular, I examine different realizations of the so-called transtextual relations that exist between Heart of Darkness on the one hand and science fiction and fantasy novels such as Heart of Darkness by Paul Lawrence or Headhunter by Timothy Findley on the other. The main section of the paper is devoted to a discussion of Robert Silverberg’s Downward to the Earth, which would seem to be the best example of such a transposition. In each case, the connections between both literary works are complex, especially as far as the titles, characters and the represented world are concerned. In my conclusion, I show how Robert Silverberg’s transposition of Joseph Conrad’s novella has changed both texts and why Conrad is so important for popular fiction.

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