Polish Responses: Art and the Ethics of Collectivity

Abstract

Scholarly discussions of the reception of literary works tend to focus on hard facts and statistics. They often neglect the underlying cultural, racial, ideological, and political factors that determine readers’ responses to fictional works. The various studies dealing with the reception of Conrad’s fiction are no exception.¹ This chapter, which examines the reception of Conrad’s writing in Poland, aims to redress this balance. It lays emphasis on the overlooked cultural, ideological, and political factors that influenced Polish responses to Conrad’s writing. The overall objective is to trace how far the responses of Conrad’s Polish readers were determined by overpowering cultural and ideological constructs that leave little room, if any, for dialogical paradigms.