Twinning Rider Haggard’s Ayesha and Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz

Johan Warodell

Twinning Rider Haggard’s Ayesha and Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz

Publication date: 12.01.2012

Yearbook of Conrad Studies, 2011, Vol. VI, pp. 57-68

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843941YC.11.006.0030

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Twinning Rider Haggard’s Ayesha and Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz

Abstract

Circumstantial evidence counts as hard fact in the attempt to understand what infl uenced Joseph Conrad’s works. Twenty-seven years ago Allan Hunter boldly argued that Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was, owing to many similar passages and phrases, strongly infl uenced by Rider Haggard’s She. To date, Hunter’s argument has been left unevaluated. This essay highlights similarities between the two antiheroes Kurtz and Ayesha in order to add circumstantial evidence to Hunter’s stated, but relatively unexplored view. This essay does not attempt to prove a direct infl uence, but hopes to show that engaging with this specifi c question of infl uence is worthwhile.

Keywords

solitude, madness, Congo, imperialism, Christianity, ivory

References

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Information

Information: Yearbook of Conrad Studies, 2011, Vol. VI, pp. 57-68

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4467/20843941YC.11.006.0030

Article type: Original article

Authors

Johan Warodell

Columbia University
United States of America

Published at: 12.01.2012

Article status: Open

Licence: None

Percentage share of authors:

Johan Warodell (Author) - 100%

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Publication languages:

English

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