Jane Austen (dla) Josepha Conrada
Jane Austen for Joseph Conrad

Summary/Abstract: The understanding of Jane Austen was for Joseph Conrad (probably) the condition of the understanding of the English soul as such. And, even if we roam around fascinating hypotheses, it is worth formulating them – mainly because they are a new key to the reading of the works of the author of Lord Jim. His problems with the literary heritage of Austen could be affected by different, numerous factors: 1) the growing popularity of Janeites; 2) the authority of, appreciating the author of Mansfield Park, Henry James; 3) the feeling of being lost of the Polish writer in the situation of the late novelist debut; 4) the literary tradition of the Ukrainian School in the Polish Romanticism, in which he was raised and he formed his personality. Conrad could make an attempt of dealing with, incomprehensible for himself, Austen in the 1910s, in the period of jubilees of the editions of her novels. In this spirit, it is worthy to read again such prose texts of Conrad, as: Zwycięstwo (1915) and Ocalenie (1920), but above all – the earliest from this group – Gra losu (1913).

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