Del i serien Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory

Joseph Conrad and Honor

Victory in Defeat

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

3 359 kr

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Joseph Conrad and Honor: Victory in Defeat explores the idea and themes of honor both explicit and implicit in Conrad’s life, letters and oeuvre, and its origins in Conrad’s Polish, French and English philosophical, historical and cultural contexts. Focusing on Conrad’s family history, his lives in Poland, England, at sea, and as a writer, the book also explores the idea of honor in Conrad’s novels and stories, with especial focus on the Napoléonic era tales (e.g., “The Duel”, “The Warrior’s Soul”, The Rover and Suspense), and from Conrad’s eastern experience (e.g., Almayer’s Folly and “Karain.” In Conrad's tradition true honor lies, not in material victory, but in the victory of spirit even in defeat.In this new monograph, author GW Stephen Brodsky shows that Conrad’s understanding of honor was shaped by the Polish szlachta (nobility) of clan and class, which emphasized conviction, courage, solidarity, and fidelity to duty. For Conrad, honor was not merely a personal virtue but a communal ethic, grounded in disinterested service to one’s class, nation, family, and faith. This ethos contrasted sharply with what he saw as the fraudulent and ego-driven codes of honor in other cultures, such as the French cult of military glory, the English obsession with conformity, and the aristocratic fixation on aesthetics over ethics.Conrad's convictions are shown to contrast markedly with the moral decay and semantic degradation of honor in his era, where such terms as "duty" and "fidelity" had lost their sacred significance. An apparent neglect of honor in most Conrad scholarship is addressed—particularly in Western criticism focused on Conrad's perceived alienation and guilt—by emphasizing the affirmative aspects of Conrad's art and his aristocratic vision through Polish and post-Glasnost perspectives.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2026-09-24
Mått152 x 229 x undefined mm
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieLiterary Criticism and Cultural Theory
Antal sidor270
FörlagTaylor & Francis Ltd
ISBN9781041357582

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GW Stephen Brodsky, CD, DPhil, DLitt, has been a career soldier, a professor of Literature and prodigious author. His books in military literature have included Gentlemen of the Blade, a social and literary history of the British Army; God’s Dodger, The Story of a World War II Frontline Chaplain; The King’s Bishop, the memoir of a corporal in Korean War; and other military literature. A specialist and elder statesman in Conrad studies, he is author of Joseph Conrad’s Polish Soul; Intimations of Joseph Conrad; and numerous articles appearing in published in Conradiana, The Conradian, Conrad: Eastern and Western Perspectives, The Yearbook of Conrad Studies (Jagiellonian University, Cracow), Modern Fiction Studies and Zwischen Ost und West: Joseph Conrad im europäischen Gespräch.

Prefatory Overview; Introduction; PART I: The Soul of Honor The Franco-Latin Spirit and Conrad's Ethos of Honor; Chapter 1 A Strong Obligation and Spurre Honor as Conrad's Francophile Legacy—Its History, Semantics and Philosophy; Chapter 2 Nothing but Honor Conrad's Honor—the szlachta past and fin de siècle present; Chapter 3 Indeede True Honor & Beaming Brightness France's Cult of Glory, Its Background and Consequences, the Vogue of French Aesthetic Honneur in Nineteenth-Century Life and Literature; PART II Fraudulent Cookery Conrad's Napoléonic Tales; Chapter 4 An Excellent Farce Conrad's Napoléonic Tales—The Dueling Code in Life and Literature; Chapter 5 I Swear It The Tyranny of the Word of Honor; Chapter 6 The Spirit of the Epoch Honor Perverted as a Lethal Ethos in "The Duel"; Chapter 7 Nowhere any honesty on earth Honor Debased in a Cynical Age in Suspense; PART IIIThe Honor to Belong Conrad's szlachta past—themes of nobility, belonging and fidelity; Chapter 8 A Chivalrous Tradition The critical tradition, the szlachta Cultural Legacy and the Quixotic Hero; Chapter 9 The Accent of Heroic Truth Nobility, Belonging and Fidelity in Conrad's Meditational Works and Folk Memory; Chapter 10 The Good Dog Honor's Inherited cultural contexts and their symbolic expression; Chapter 11 Courtly Solemnity Formative Influences on Conrad's Polish Notions of Personal honor; Chapter 12 Without Fear and Without Reproach Conrad's Prince Roman S– as Traditional Ideal of Patriotism as Honor; Chapter 13 Pole, Catholic, Gentleman The Nałęcz Korzeniowski Warrior Tradition and the Honor of Service; Chapter 14 Not Stupid For All That Military Honor and Conrad's Equestrian Tradition; PART IV Basically a Secular Ideal Conrad's Polish and English Ethos of Honor; Chapter 15 Men of Scrupulous Honor Honor and Conrad's Polish, English and Romance Aesthetic; Chapter 16 The Furrow of the Moon A Century's Loss of Honor, Conrad's Humor, and his English Hopes; Chapter 17 An Eminently Proper Thing English Moralists Conrad's adopted Philosophical Tradition of Honor; Chapter 18 Untroubled by Too Much English Honor's "Beastly Bourgeois" Extreme in Alvan Hervey; Chapter 19 The strong hand of Collective Conscience Genuine Honor and its paradigms of Culture and Class; Chapter 20 A Real or Fancied Stain "Karain: A Memory" and the Decline of Honor's Polish Ethos Epilogue Bibliography Index