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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... involves a clear thesis : ' love ' is ' the lowest common denominator of the apprentice work [ ... ] of the inferior short novels [ ... ] of the weak portions of " Heart of Darkness , ” Lord Jim , and Nostromo ' . It also ' dominates ...
... involve a parallel concern with the complexities of the public world of politics in its most comprehensive sense . In like manner it is very hard to find in the fiction any investigation of such matters as imperialism and colonialism ...
... public sphere . This is not , I insist , merely the development of a literary metaphor : it involves tracing the interpenetration of patterns of private and public 10 Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad.
Jeremy Hawthorn. involves tracing the interpenetration of patterns of private and public life in the extra - literary ... involves a hero who is an only child and who has lost his mother at an early age . In this world the father nearly ...
... involves the daughter ( 267 ) . Meyer presents us with some telling mathematics : out of '31 stories [ ... ] the protagonist is emotionally involved with a woman in 25 ; in 17 of these he loses his life , in all but two instances ...
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 |