Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad

Description

Awarded third place for The Adam Gillon Book Award in Conrad Studies 2009 The book presents a sustained critique of the interlinked (and contradictory) views that the fiction of Joseph Conrad is largely innocent of any interest in or concern with sexuality and the erotic, and that when Conrad does attempt to depict sexual desire or erotic excitement then this results in bad writing. Jeremy Hawthorn argues for a revision of the view that Conrad lacks understanding of and interest in sexuality. He argues that the comprehensiveness of Conrad's vision does not exclude a concern with the sexual and the erotic, and that this concern is not with the sexual and the erotic as separate spheres of human life, but as elements dialectically related to those matters public and political that have always been recognized as central to Conrad's fictional achievement. The book will open Conrad's fiction to readings enriched by the insights of critics and theorists associated with Gender Studies and Post-colonialism.

Jeremy Hawthorn is Emeritus Professor of British Literature at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. He has published many books and articles on fiction and on literary theory.

"Reading Sexuality and the Erotic is itself akin to a sexual experience - in that, once we have read it we can never read Conrad innocently again ... [The book] is an engaging and edifying read, a combination of historical detail and textual analysis that is not only enriching but might also produce an occasional blush." - Partial Answers "Hawthorn's inimitable style...allies pedagogical talent with powerful critical insight...We must thank Jeremy Hawthorn for this new acheivement: he has succeeded in making us read Conrad both more intimately and more knowingly."- Josiane Paccaud-Huguet, Universite Lumiere-Lyon 2 in Conradiana