Tidal Conrad (Literally)

Surface reading and similar developments in literary study advocate a turn away from symptomatic reading toward the superficial and self-evident. Arguing for the productivity of these approaches despite the contradictory language in which they have sometimes been formulated, this essay develops a related form of analysis: literal or denotative reading. Denotative reading does not reject deep or figurative interpretive possibilities. Rather, it insists they must be pursued in close connection with the facticity of fictional worlds, particularly in the case of maritime and other fiction deploying a specialized, technical lexicon. The essay treats Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) as an exemplary instance of such fiction, contending that its precise articulation of tidal currents, nautical maneuvers, and ship design signals the key role of “restraint” not only in this novella but throughout Conrad’s corpus.