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Story and idea in Conrad's <i>The Shadow-Line</i>

Ian Watt-2000-07-27-Cambridge University Press eBooks
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Reviewing Conrad's first masterpiece, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’, Arthur Symons, though an admirer, complained that it had ‘no idea behind it’; and since then this objection has been not uncommon. It was most memorably expressed by E. M. Forster, who reviewed Conrad's collected essays, and found that they, at least, suggested that ‘the secret casket of his genius contains a vapour rather than a jewel; and that we need not try to write him down philosophically, because there is, in this particular direction, nothing to write. No creed, in fact. Only opinions’.

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Reviewing Conrad's first masterpiece, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’, Arthur Symons, though an admirer, complained that it had ‘no idea behind it’; and since then this objection has been not uncommon. It was most memorably expressed by E. M. Forster, who reviewed Conrad's collected essays, and found that they, at least, suggested that ‘the secret casket of his genius contains a vapour rather than a jewel; and that we need not try to write him down philosophically, because there is, in this particular direction, nothing to write. No creed, in fact. Only opinions’.

Keywords

CreedNothingGeniusShadow (psychology)LiteratureArt historyPhilosophyArt

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