Heart of Darkness

"Herz der Finsternis" beschreibt die letzte Reise Joseph Conrads, die er ins Innere Afrikas unternahm, ein Abenteuer, das ums Haar tödlich ausgegangen wäre.
"Es ist der Bericht eines im wachen Leben erlittenen Albs, den Conrad nur mit Glück und für sein restliches Leben angeschlagen überstand." Urs Widmer

Informationen zum Autor Joseph Conrad was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. In 1874 Conrad travelled to Marseilles, where he served in French merchant vessels before joining a British ship in 1878 as an apprentice. In 1886 he obtained British nationality. Eight years later he left the sea to devote himself to writing, publishing his first novel, Almayer's Folly , in 1895. The following year he settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such modern classics as Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes . He continued to write until his death in 1924. Klappentext Joseph Conrad's enduring portrait of the ugliness of colonialism. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Heart of Darkness is the thrilling tale of Marlow, a seaman and wanderer recounting his physical and psychological journey in search of the infamous ivory trader Kurtz. Traveling upriver into the heart of the African continent, he gradually becomes obsessed by this enigmatic, wraith-like figure. Marlow's discovery of how Kurtz has gained his position of power over the local people involves him in a radical questioning, not only of his own nature and values, but of those that underpin Western civilization itself. This edition also includes Conrad's Congo Diary, a glossary, and an introduction discussing the author's experiences of Africa, critical responses, and the novel's symbolic complexities. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Introduction Mention the name of Joseph Conrad and the answering response will commonly invoke his celebrated African novella of 1899, 'Heart of Darkness'. If the work has acquired an iconic status comparable to that of Edvard Munch's painting The Scream (1893), its title has by contrast become something of a tired cliché in being so repeatedly used by newspaper headline-makers. Conrad, who modestly hoped that the work might have a continuing 'vibration', would have been astonished by these contemporary reverberations. The story's emergence as a twentieth-century 'classic' forms a first stage in the history of its remarkable after-life. A key moment arrived with T. S. Eliot's use of a fragment from 'Heart of Darkness' as an epigraph to his poem, 'The Hollow Men' (1925). Eliot's epigraph signals a temporary kinship and establishes a bridge between two works, but it also probably signifies a more intangible sense of indebtedness -- to Conrad as an important founder-member of a tradition of British Modernist writing. The story's major re-discovery dates from the 1950s when its apocalyptic symbolism and existentialist uncertainty seem to have entered the collective consciousness of a generation who lived through the Second World War or were coming to terms with its legacy. As one critic of the time put it, the story had become 'a Pilgrim's Progress for our pessimistic and psychologizing age' (Guerard, p. 33). Its more recent impact has been equally dramatic, if more controversial. Now standing at the centre of a wider contemporary debate about race, imperialism and feminism, its æsthetic dimensions and experimental character have almost been left behind. It has acquired the character of an awkward problem-novel, a standard text in the classroom and -- for better or worse -- a litmus-test for a variety of theoretical preoccupations. As a modern quest parable translated into many languages, it has si...

Klappentext

Joseph Conrad's enduring portrait of the ugliness of colonialism. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read

Heart of Darkness is the thrilling tale of Marlow, a seaman and wanderer recounting his physical and psychological journey in search of the infamous ivory trader Kurtz. Traveling upriver into the heart of the African continent, he gradually becomes obsessed by this enigmatic, wraith-like figure. Marlow's discovery of how Kurtz has gained his position of power over the local people involves him in a radical questioning, not only of his own nature and values, but of those that underpin Western civilization itself. This edition also includes Conrad's Congo Diary, a glossary, and an introduction discussing the author's experiences of Africa, critical responses, and the novel's symbolic complexities.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Zusammenfassung
Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, recounts his physical and psychological journey in search of the infamous ivory trader Kurtz: dying, insane, and guilty of unspeakable atrocities. Travelling upriver to the heart of the African continent, he gradually becomes obsessed by this enigmatic, wraith-like figure.

Leseprobe
Introduction

Mention the name of Joseph Conrad and the answering response will commonly invoke his celebrated African novella of 1899, ‘Heart of Darkness’. If the work has acquired an iconic status comparable to that of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream (1893), its title has by contrast become something of a tired cliché in being so repeatedly used by newspaper headline-makers. Conrad, who modestly hoped that the work might have a continuing ‘vibration’, would have been astonished by these contemporary reverberations.

The story’s emergence as a twentieth-century ‘classic’ forms a first stage in the history of its remarkable after-life. A key moment arrived with T. S. Eliot’s use of a fragment from ‘Heart of Darkness’ as an epigraph to his poem, ‘The Hollow Men’ (1925). Eliot’s epigraph signals a temporary kinship and establishes a bridge between two works, but it also probably signifies a more intangible sense of indebtedness -- to Conrad as an important founder-member of a tradition of British Modernist writing.

The story’s major re-discovery dates from the 1950s when its apocalyptic symbolism and existentialist uncertainty seem to have entered the collective consciousness of a generation who lived through the Second World War or were coming to terms with its legacy. As one critic of the time put it, the story had become ‘a Pilgrim’s Progress for our pessimistic and psychologizing age’ (Guerard, p. 33). Its more recent impact has been equally dramatic, if more controversial. Now standing at the centre of a wider contemporary debate about race, imperialism and feminism, its æsthetic dimensions and experimental character have almost been left behind. It has acquired the character of an awkward problem-novel, a standard text in the classroom and -- for better or worse -- a litmus-test for a variety of theoretical preoccupations. As a modern quest parable …