Conrad in His Historical Perspective

157 CONRAD IN HIS HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE By ZdzlsXaw Najder (Visiting Professor, Northern Illinois University, 1971-72) It is now over a hundred years since Conrad was born, seventy since he published his first novel, and over forty since he died. This lapse of time constitutes, I suppose, a distance sufficient to see him in a historical perspective. It allows us to ask, without excessive fear of having our picture blurred by the closeness of the object, what Is Conrad's place In the history of literature . This problem, as I see It, Involves three groups of questions - what were the traditions. Intellectual and artistic, which nursed Conrad's creative talent? What was the position of his work within the contemporary literary and spiritual trends and movements? and thirdly, who were his followers and what sort of inheritance has he left to them? Of course, within the scope of a brief essay, one can hope only to open a few vistas on the problem so boldly announced by Its title. Luckily, for us historians of literature, most writers. Including those of the first rank, fit more or less neatly Into some general pattern of artistic and Intellectual life of their time. Even when "exceptional," "outstanding," and "breaking new ground," they allow themselves to be arranged In groups and sequences. They loyally contribute to the "temper of the era" and make It possible to draw dividing lines between periods and to talk about typicality and representativeness. Occasionally, however, we encounter figures which are so peculiar, so aberrant, that It Is virtually impossible to fit them Into the general formula of their time. Conrad seems to be a fairly safe candidate for the first place among these freaks. He published his most Important books between the years 1897 and 1911. It was the time, when on the Continent Maeterlinck and Strlndberg, D'Annunzlo and France, Bourget and Chekhov, and also Andreiev, Bjb*rnson, Sudermann, Slenkiewlcz and Hauptmann reached the peak of their fame. Gorki, Thomas Mann and Glde were Just beginning their great careers. European Intellectuals were Idolizing Nietzsche and Bergson. In England Bennett, Galsworthy, Hardy, James, Kipling, Wells and Wilde were recognized as the leading writers. With the sole exception of Henry James, another expatriate and spiritual solitary, there Is not another name on this list which we could link with Conrad's to form a distinct "micro-group," Therefore It should not be surprising that the early critics of Conrad had great difficulties In classifying him and were almost compelled to resort to obviously superficial formulas, as for example "Kipling of the Malay Archipelago" or "writer of the sea and adventure." Evidently, he was not an epigone; but he was not one of the "normal" contemporaries either. Even Conrad himself, surely feeling not a little lost and lonely, towards the end of hi* life tended to succumb to the temptation of easy self-labelling and 158 described himself, against the evidence of his best work, as a promoter of simple and unquestioned ideals. Conrad's exceptionality as a writer was, of course, connected with the peculiarity of his biography. He was fluent In three languages, but wrote all his books In the language he learned last, at the age of twenty. Born Into a Polish gentry family In the Ukraine, at the age of four he had to accompany his parents to exile in Russia. Early orphaned, he never regularly attended any school. He left Poland at the age of seventeen, and for the next twenty years led the life of a sailor, beginning as a simple seaman and reaching the rank of a captain. He started to write his first book when he was already thirty-two, and published It six years later. When his sea-years were over, he settled In England; but even at the height of his creative power he would confess to a friend: "English Is still a foreign language to me, requiring an immense effort to handle."1 As Jocelyn Balnes, Albert J. Guerard and many other critics have pointed out, Conrad's Immediate literary predecessors were French: he was a diligent disciple of Flaubert and Maupassant. From Flaubert he took the Idea of the...