Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph ConradAwarded third place for The Adam Gillon Book Award in Conrad Studies 2009 The book presents a sustained critique of the interlinked (and contradictory) views that the fiction of Joseph Conrad is largely innocent of any interest in or concern with sexuality and the erotic, and that when Conrad does attempt to depict sexual desire or erotic excitement then this results in bad writing. Jeremy Hawthorn argues for a revision of the view that Conrad lacks understanding of and interest in sexuality. He argues that the comprehensiveness of Conrad's vision does not exclude a concern with the sexual and the erotic, and that this concern is not with the sexual and the erotic as separate spheres of human life, but as elements dialectically related to those matters public and political that have always been recognized as central to Conrad's fictional achievement. The book will open Conrad's fiction to readings enriched by the insights of critics and theorists associated with Gender Studies and Post-colonialism. |
From inside the book
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Page 11
... captain-narrator of 'The Secret Sharer', and the teacher of languages in Under Western Eyes. One of the simpler tasks that I have set myself in the pages that follow is just that of establishing how pervasive — how near-universal — the ...
... captain-narrator of 'The Secret Sharer', and the teacher of languages in Under Western Eyes. One of the simpler tasks that I have set myself in the pages that follow is just that of establishing how pervasive — how near-universal — the ...
Page 16
... narrator-captain's own sexuality and not another independent being to whom the captain can be sexually attracted. (The debt owed by this story to the tradition of the double or Doppelganger is crucial to its ability to present Leggatt ...
... narrator-captain's own sexuality and not another independent being to whom the captain can be sexually attracted. (The debt owed by this story to the tradition of the double or Doppelganger is crucial to its ability to present Leggatt ...
Page 18
... narrator. During the years of New Critical hegemony the innocent reading is developed in certain standard ways that ... captain must look into the mirror of his “secret sharer”)' — he is apparently totally unaware of the possibility that ...
... narrator. During the years of New Critical hegemony the innocent reading is developed in certain standard ways that ... captain must look into the mirror of his “secret sharer”)' — he is apparently totally unaware of the possibility that ...
Page 35
... narrator — unemployed now after signing off his ship — is talking to Captain Giles after tiffin in the Officers' Sailors' Home about a fellow-guest who is clearly suffering from a very bad hangover. Captain Giles explains that the man ...
... narrator — unemployed now after signing off his ship — is talking to Captain Giles after tiffin in the Officers' Sailors' Home about a fellow-guest who is clearly suffering from a very bad hangover. Captain Giles explains that the man ...
Page 36
... Captain Giles and the captain-narrator that I cite above from The Shadow—Line. It comes from Heart of Darkness, during the discussion between Marlow and the Russian Harlequin, who is talking of his encounters with Kurtz. 'We talked of ...
... Captain Giles and the captain-narrator that I cite above from The Shadow—Line. It comes from Heart of Darkness, during the discussion between Marlow and the Russian Harlequin, who is talking of his encounters with Kurtz. 'We talked of ...
Contents
1 | |
17 | |
2 The exotic and the erotic in An Outcast of the Islands and Heart of Darkness | 61 |
3 The erotics of cruelty in A Smile of Fortune The Planter of Malata The Secret Agent Victory and Freya of the Seven Isles ... | 77 |
4 Voyeurism in The ShadowLine and Under Western Eyes | 131 |
Conclusion and? | 153 |
Notes | 159 |
Bibliography | 166 |
Index | 173 |
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Common terms and phrases
11 Conde Aissa Alice Jacobus Alice’s Almayer Arrow of Gold associated attractive Author’s Note captain captain-narrator chapter characters confirms Conrad’s fiction Count Crippen critics depicted elements erotic European exotic face feeling Felicia female femininity fictional figure final find first Freya Haldin Harpham Heart of Darkness Heemskirk heterosexual Heyst hints homosexual impotence innocent involves Islands Jacobus’s James’s Jessie Jim’s Jones Joseph Conrad knowing Lena looking Lord Jim male man’s Marlow masculine masochistic Mauritius murder narrative narrator narrator-captain Nathalie Nostromo novella obsession Outcast Oxford passage passion Planter of Malata Ransome Ransome’s Razumov reader reading relationship Renouard reports Retinger Ricardo sadism and masochism sadistic scene Schomberg Secret Agent seems sense sexual desire Shadow-Line shared ship significant Smile of Fortune sort story suggests symbolic tale teacher of languages Venus in Furs Verloc voyeurism Western Eyes Willems Willems’s Winnie woman women word World’s Classics Edition writhing writing young