In Search of a Perfect Form and Style: Turgenev andConrad’s Emphasis on Visual Impression
PDF

Keywords

power of eyes
sensory and visual impression
facial expression
complicity of vision

How to Cite

Pudełko, B. (2013). In Search of a Perfect Form and Style: Turgenev andConrad’s Emphasis on Visual Impression. Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne, (4), 265–276. https://doi.org/10.14746/pss.2013.4.19

Abstract

The human face as a mask that can both hide and emphasise the main traits of human personality and  thoughts  was  used  by  Turgenev  and  Conrad.  In  the  society  depicted  in  such novels  as Under  Western  Eyes,  Virgin  Soil and  Smoke where  secrecy  and  hypocrisy  are a  universal condition  of  man,  face  reading  becomes  an  essential  factor.  The  references  to eyes as well as words and outside look indicate something about the characters concerned and can be considered as a means attributing a moral significance to physical appearance. As eyes are closely related to communication and knowledge, comments about the characters’ eyes implicate their knowledge and honesty with which they communicate with other people. 

https://doi.org/10.14746/pss.2013.4.19
PDF

References

Conrad J., Notes on Life and Letters, London 1921.

Conrad J., The Nigger of the „Narcissus”. Typhoon and Other Stories, Harmondsworth 1986.

ed. L. Edel, New York 1984.

Focault M., Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Harmondsworth 1977.

Garnett E., On the Eve, trans. C. Garnett, in: Ivan Turgenev and Britain, ed. P. Waddington, Oxford 1995.

James H. , Literary Criticism. Essays on Literature. American Writers. English Writers, ed. L. Edel, New York 1984.

James H., Literary Criticism. French Writers. Other European Writers. The Prefaces to the New York Edition,

James H., The art of fiction, „Longman's Magazine” 1884, no. 4.

Jean-Aubry G., Joseph Conrad. Life and Letters, London 1927, vol. 2.

Łotman J., Struktura tekstu literackiego, Warszawa 1984.

Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision, ed. D.M. Levin, Berkeley 1993.

Schapiro L. , Turgenev. His Life and Times, Oxford 1978.

The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, eds. F.R. Karl, L. Davies et al, Cambridge 1983–2008, vol. 3.

Turgenev I. , Virgin Soil, trans. C. Garnett, New York 2000.

Waddington P. , Some Silent Phases of Turgenev’s Critical Reception in Britain. Part I, 1853–1870; Part II, 1870–1883, in: Ivan Turgenev and Britain, ed. P. Waddington, Oxford 1995.