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
Results 1-5 of 70
... readers few things are less erotic than melodrama . We can summarize another commonly held view of Conrad's fiction ... reader . Sometimes they are combined with conventionalized or clichéd depictions of the ' exotic ' as in An Outcast ...
... reader , and I have written about this elsewhere.1 ) I mention Conrad's treatment of female homosexuality in the character of Mrs Fyne , in Chance , only in passing . The treatment is worthy of note to the extent that it offers such ...
... reader : ' Il Conde ' The critical history of Joseph Conrad's tale ' Il Conde ' ( 1908 ) can conveniently serve to ... readers and critics in the years following the first publication of the tale , while the more knowing account is first ...
... reader of Hagopian's article has the odd sense of his continually sailing close to the rocks and reefs of the tale but merely grazing them and proceeding without any awareness of the scratches in his paintwork . For example , he draws ...
... readers : the Count is no innocent , ' proud man of fine feeling ' attempting to avoid the sordid . On the contrary , he ... reader , Il Conde represents the epitome of the proper gentleman , improbably correct in his social manners and ...
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 |