Joseph Conrad and the Intersection of Narrative, Epistemology, and Cosmology

John G. Peters

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781041276517
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040879627
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This volume presents a comprehensive collection of critical essays on Joseph Conrad's works, developed over three decades of scholarly engagement. While addressing diverse aspects of Conrad's oeuvre, these studies are unified by a consistent methodological approach and thematic focus that distinguishes this collection from existing scholarship. Methodologically, this work employs an inductive hermeneutical framework that diverges from predominantly deductive approaches in contemporary literary criticism. Rather than looking through a predetermined theoretical constructs, these analyses proceed from close examination of specific textual elements to derive broader interpretive conclusions, allowing for more nuanced readings of Conrad's complex narrative strategies. Thematically, the essays concentrate on three interconnected dimensions: narrative methodology, worldview, and epistemological concerns—elements constituting the foundational architecture of Conrad's fictional universe. The collection demonstrates how these aspects function as an integrated system of meaning-making within his works. The volume includes a substantial introduction elucidating the relationship between epistemology, cosmology, and narratology in Conrad's fiction. This framework reveals how Conrad's understanding of human knowledge's nature and limits finds expression through his distinctive narrative techniques, while his cosmological vision manifests in fundamental questions of what can and cannot be known within the Conradian cosmos.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Stein’s Collections: Order and Chaos in Lord Jim
• 2 The Opaque and the Clear: The White Fog Incident in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
• 3 Mirrors and Monies: Constructing and De-Constructing Revolution in Mariano Azuela’s Los de abajo and Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo
• 4 Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the World of Western Women
• 5 Joseph Conrad’s Literary Response to the First World War
• 6 “Let That Marlow Talk”: Chance and the Narrative Problem of Marlow
• 7 Point of View in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the Ultimate Uncertainty of Knowledge
• 8 Joseph Conrad and the Epistemology of Space
• 9 The Space of Russia in Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes
• 10 Environmental Imperialism in Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo
• 11 “Meet the New Boss/Same as the Old Boss”: The Politics of Replication and Conrad’s Politics of Humanity
• 12 “I Know That the Sunlight Can Be Made to Lie”: Light and Dark in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Revisited
• 13 Free Will or Determinism in Conrad’s Cosmos
• Conclusion
• Works Cited
• Index