Denegacyjne i intertekstualne implikacje Uśmiechu losu Josepha Conrada-Korzeniowskiego
A Denegative and Intertextual Implications of Jospeh Conrad’s “A Smile of Fortune”

Author(s): Grażyna Maria Teresa Branny
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts, Essay|Book Review |Scientific Life
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: Joseph Conrad; “A Smile of Fortune;” denegation; intertextuality; incest
Summary/Abstract: The present article is a part of a larger project on Conrad’s less known short fiction, thearea of his writing which is largely undervalued, and even deprecated at times. Thepaper’s aim is to enhance the appreciation of “A Smile of Fortune,” by drawing attentionto its “inner texture” as representative of Conrad’s “art of expression,” especiallyin view of the writer’s own belief in the supremacy of form over content as well as“suggestiveness” over “explicitness” in his fiction. To achieve this aim “close reading,”intertextual, comparative and denegative approaches to Conrad’s story have beenadopted, especially in relation to Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! and Light in Augustas well as Bernard Malamud’s short story The Magic Barrel and Herman Melville’snovel Moby Dick. The intertextual and comparative reading of A Smile of Fortunewith Faulkner’s novels as a point of reference, reveals the workings in Conrad’s storyof a modernist device of denegation, of which evidently Conrad seems to have beena precursor rather than Faulkner. Conrad’s use of denegation in his tale reveals thenew implications of the story’s ending side by side with the theme of incest at its core.

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