|
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski; Berdychiv, Ukraine, 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924, Bishopsbourne, Kent, England) was a Polish author who wrote in English after settling in England.〔In a 14 February 1901 letter to his namesake Józef Korzeniowski, a librarian at Kraków's Jagiellonian University, Conrad wrote, partly in reference to some Poles' accusation that he had deserted the Polish cause by writing in English: "It is widely known that I am a Pole and that Józef Konrad are my () names, the latter being used by me as a surname so that foreign mouths should not distort my real surname — a distortion which I cannot stand. It does not seem to me that I have been unfaithful to my country by having proved to the English that a gentleman from the Ukraine can be as good a sailor as they, and has something to tell them in their own language." Zdzisław Najder, ''Joseph Conrad: A Life'', pp. 311-12.〕 He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English,〔(''Joseph Conrad'' ). Encyclopædia Britannica.〕 though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties, and always with a marked Polish accent. Before embarking on his writing career, he had a career sailing in the French, then the British merchant marine; of his 19-year merchant-marine career, only about half that time was spent actually at sea. Conrad wrote stories and novels, often with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe. He was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English〔Rudyard Kipling felt that "with a pen in his hand he was first amongst us" but that there was nothing English in Conrad's mentality: "When I am reading him, I always have the impression that I am reading an excellent translation of a foreign author." Cited in Jeffrey Meyers, ''Joseph Conrad: A Biography'', p. 209. Cf. Zdzisław Najder's similar observation: "He was... an English writer who grew up in other linguistic and cultural environments. His work can be seen as located in the borderland of ''auto-translation'' (added by Wikipedia )." Zdzisław Najder, ''Joseph Conrad: A Life'', 2007, p. IX.〕 tragic sensibility into English literature.〔("Poland." ) Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 August 2009〕 He is viewed as a precursor of modernist literature; his narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors up to the present. Many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, Conrad's stories and novels. Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad drew on his Polish heritage and on his personal experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world, while plumbing the depths of the human soul. ==French voyages== Arriving in Marseille in 1874, the not quite 17-year-old Joseph Conrad was to have been looked after by a Pole who sailed in French ships, but the sailor was temporarily away and ship pilots became Conrad's first instructors in sailing. He grew to love the Mediterranean, "the cradle of sailing."〔Najder, Z. (2007) ''Joseph Conrad: A Life''. Camden House. ISBN 978-1-57113-347-2.〕 Conrad, who became a professional sailor, never learned to swim.〔 After two months at Marseilles, on 15 December 1874 Conrad, just turned seventeen, began his first sea voyage — as a passenger in a small barque, the ''Mont-Blanc'', which reached Saint-Pierre, Martinique, in the Caribbean, on 6 February 1875. During the ship's return passage to Marseilles (31 March — 23 May) he may have been a crew member. His objectives for this maiden voyage were probably to promote his health and give him a closer look at sailors' work. A month later, on 25 June, he again left in the ''Mont-Blanc'', now as an apprentice, arriving at Saint-Pierre on 31 July. After visiting several other Caribbean ports, the ship returned to France, arriving on 23 December at Le Havre.〔 In 1875 Conrad spent seven months at sea. This did not seem to have stirred his enthusiasm for the seaman's profession. He gave himself six months' rest from the sea, socializing and spending in excess of the generous allowance that he received from his maternal uncle, Tadeusz Bobrowski. The uncle indulged his nephew's financial demands but sent him lengthy letters of reproof that included his usual criticisms of Conrad's improvident paternal line.〔 〔Bobrowski, in his letters to Conrad, repeatedly emphasized the contrast between the reasonable and responsible Bobrowskis and the Korzeniowskis, whom he characterized as dreamers and wastrels—in the process, whitewashing his own family, which did not lack its own madcaps and rogues. Najder, ''Joseph Conrad: a Life'', 2007, p. 191.〕 On 10 July 1876 Conrad sailed for the West Indies as a steward (at a salary of 35 francs, equivalent to one-fifth the allowance he received from his uncle) in the barque ''Saint-Antoine'', making Saint-Pierre on 18 August. The first mate was a 42-year-old Corsican, Dominique Cervoni, who would become a prototype for the title character of Conrad's ''Nostromo'': "In his eyes lurked a look of perfectly remorseless irony, as though he had been provided with an extremely experienced soul; and the slightest distension of his nostrils would give to his bronzed face a look of extraordinary boldness. This was the only play of feature of which he seemed capable, being a Southerner of a concentrated, deliberate type." The ''Saint-Antoine'', after visiting Martinique, St. Thomas and Haiti, returned on 15 February 1877 to Marseilles.〔 In his novel ''The Arrow of Gold'', Conrad alludes to smuggling "by sea of arms and ammunition to the Carlist detachments in the South (Spain )." This apparently involved Dominique Cervoni. Conrad's first biographer, Georges Jean-Aubry (1882–1950), built on this allusion a tale about Cervoni and Conrad smuggling arms to a Central American republic. The pre-eminent Conrad chronicler and scholar Zdzisław Najder (born 1930) is skeptical about the story and surmises that Conrad "might have heard... stories (gun-running ) from the experienced Cervoni."〔 In December 1877 it transpired that, as a foreigner and Russian subject, Conrad could not serve on French ships without permission from the Russian consul. And since Conrad was liable for military service in Russia, there was no chance of obtaining the consul's consent.〔 In consultation with his uncle, "it was decided that he should join the English Merchant Marine where there are no such formalities as in France.〔 Conrad later described, in his essay collection ''The Mirror of the Sea'' (1906) and his novel ''The Arrow of Gold'' (1919), having, during his stay in Marseilles, smuggled arms to Spain for the Carlist supporters of Carlos de Borbón y de Austria-Este, pretender to the Spanish throne. Najder finds this, for a variety of reasons, virtually impossible. If Conrad did participate in running contraband to Spain, it likely would have involved something other than weapons. But in the two books written three and four decades later, he embellished his memories, probably borrowing from past adventures of Marseilles friends. To admit that his illicit activities had been conducted for profit would have conflicted with the position that he wished to occupy in literature. And attempts to track down the reality behind his accounts are complicated by Conrad's habit of using some external characteristics, and often the names, of actual people but of furnishing them with different life histories (as in the cases of Almayer, Lingard, Jim, and Kurtz).〔 Najder writes: Another Marseilles legend concerns Conrad's great love affair. The story is described only in ''The Arrow of Gold'', a pseudo-autobiographical novel whose chronology is at odds with the documented dates in Conrad's life.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Joseph Conrad's career at sea」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|