Tutor: Geoff Doel | Canterbury campus
Joseph Conrad was born in Poland, but after a career in the Merchant Navy he achieved fame as a novelist and settled in England, renting many homes in Kent and finally living at Oswalds, Bishopsbourne, where he died in 1924. He is buried in Canterbury Cemetery, with an epitaph from Edmund Spenser, used in Conrad’s last novel, The Rover:
‘Sleep after toile, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life, greatly please’.
This day school explores Conrad’s unique ironic vision, which combines exploring old-fashioned, primitive virtues such as truth, honour and trust, with a modern awareness of psychology and political insight. In particular, we’ll explore his terrifying novella Heart of Darkness, involving exploitation of the Congo; The Secret Agent, a profoundly ironic look at terrorists in Edwardian London; and two of his superb short stories of nautical life with psychological insight, the ‘doppelganger’ The Secret Sharer and Typhoon.