In my essay I argue that in order to understand to what extent his art is the result of his intellectual makeup we must combine both the formalist and the biographical critical approaches. I make visible in his life and works the problematics involved in preserving his particular worldview through an idealistic faith in the value of art. To this end, I examine the evidence of how the existential and artistic choices that guided the evolution of Conrad’s art were silently intertwined with an artistic project founded on two key statements: the affirmation in 1899 that he felt the need to “garder ma pensée intacte” and the reference to his “inner voice” (1908).
I order these choices in two sequences: the first one connects the key passages in the evolving narrative techniques that led from his famous 1897 programmatic declaration “My task… is to make you see” to Under Western Eyes. The second one traces a succession of texts and paratexts covering the period 1907-1920, when two fault lines – Slavic v. British and Russian v. Polish – that he was able to transform into materials for two masterpieces: A Personal Record and Under Western Eyes, emerged. Among these writings a key role is played by the articles on Poland he wrote during and after World War One, when he cast aside the cautions of a life preserved in silence, and finally spoke as a Pole to English and American audiences.