Book contents
- Scale, Crisis, and the Modern Novel
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
- Scale, Crisis, and the Modern Novel
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Rescaling Romance
- Chapter 2 Infinitesimal Lives
- Chapter 3 Joseph Conrad and the Scalability of Empire
- Chapter 4 Virginia Woolf and the Problem of Generations
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Chapter 3 - Joseph Conrad and the Scalability of Empire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2023
Book contents
- Scale, Crisis, and the Modern Novel
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
- Scale, Crisis, and the Modern Novel
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Rescaling Romance
- Chapter 2 Infinitesimal Lives
- Chapter 3 Joseph Conrad and the Scalability of Empire
- Chapter 4 Virginia Woolf and the Problem of Generations
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Summary
In the preceding chapters, I have examined how authors writing at the turn of the twentieth century utilized the representational capacities of romance and melodrama to narrate empirically observable realities on scales that seemed incompatible with the forms of daily lived experience articulated in realist novels. Here I argue that Joseph Conrad pursued a related strategy by repurposing horror (a genre steeped, as we will see, in both “fantastic” and horrific depictions of the colonies) and substituting its imaginary terrors with actual atrocities.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Scale, Crisis, and the Modern NovelExtreme Measures, pp. 87 - 112Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023