Echa romantyzmu polskiego w Korsarzu Josepha Conrada
The Echoes of Polish Romanticism in The Rover by Joseph Conrad

Author(s): Karol Samsel
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts, Essay|Book Review |Scientific Life
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: Joseph Conrad; The Rover; Polish Romanticism; (haunted) intertextuality; interfigurality; psychoanalysis; the anxiety of influence; Harold Bloom, Michael Riffaterre; Pan Tadeusz; Father Marek; The Silver Dream of Salomea
Summary/Abstract: The echoes of Polish Romanticism in The Rover resonate and – therefore – overlapin a system that is difficult to separate because of its intricate interweaving of intertextualdependences. The dominant accent of that Polish-Romantic intertextualityis probably Adam Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz, which would also seem to be essentialfor the private decisions of the writer (here meaning Conrad being haunted by thethought of returning to Poland). That is not all, however, for one can also detect echoesof a possible reminiscence of a reading of Juliusz Słowacki’s Father Marek and TheSilver Dream of Salomea, which here overlap with the Mickiewicz intertexts. Finally,the intertextual “flickering” of succeeding figures and places presented in The Rovercould here be described in terms of so-called “interfigurality” as well as the idea ofnumerous interfigural accumulations. At first sight, Arlette is Mickiewicz’s Zosia(just as Peyrol is Jacek Soplica, young Tadeusz—the Count etc.), but she has alsobeen endowed with elements of Słowacki’s Judith and Salomea, primarily becauseof the phrenesis of description used by Conrad. Similarly, Escampobar appears tobe reminiscent of Mickiewicz’s Soplicowo as well as Słowacki’s Bar and Stempowce.The Rover is a unique example of Polish-Romantic intertextuality in a Conradnovel, which would indicate (through many interfigural accumulations) the insufficiencyConrad’s command of the organisation of the novel’s universe. This specificcase should be re-read in the light of Riffaterre’s and Bloom’s research, above all inthe field of discovering further relations between intertextuality and psychoanalysisand that of deepening the theory of the anxiety of influence. The Polish-Romanticintertextuality which is visible in The Rover might be responsible for the unconsciouscrystalizing of an unfortunate analogy with the French Revolution as described byConrad, who indulges in recurrences of Polish-Romantic motives proceeding fromhis imaginarium, thus recalling prominent Romantic representations of the feudalborderland uprisings of the eighteenth century (the Koliivshchyna Rebellion andthe Confederation of Bar). In order to excuse Conrad as well as to motivate his unconsciousinsistence on unifying styles (which, being unconscious, should be calledan “inclination”), it is reasonable in one’s own analysis to keep close to that field ofresearch which is called haunted intertextuality.

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