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Joseph Conrad - his writing style | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| krog Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6040 days ago 146 posts - 152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Latin | Message 1 of 3 27 February 2009 at 10:36am | IP Logged |
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Can anyone who knows Polish tell me if that language had any influence on the way Joseph Conrad used English? I had a look on Wikipedia and it seems he may have been brought up knowing French at least (not quite clear), but first learned English at 21.
I ask because I remember when I read Almayer's Folly in particular, my brain seemed to need to do a lot of work; but I wouldn't say his writing style (seen quite apart from his high level of literary genius) is necessarily particularly 'difficult', or complex per se, and apart from that I was 'well into' that particular volume. I note that that book was his first publication, and that's the one I remember torturing my brain the most - it's been a long time since I read anything of his, but I think the later short-stories at least let themselves be read a bit more easily. Did he carry over anything from Polish into English? Maybe some unusual turns of phrase instead of well-worn English clichés, that would force you to put a bit more brain-work in? I certainly didn't consciously notice anything at the time, and (so-to-say) if I didn't know he was Polish, I wouldn't know he was Polish, I would just assume he was English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6142 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 2 of 3 27 February 2009 at 11:53am | IP Logged |
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This is an interesting question, and I think the answer is yes, as mentioned by this book description below.
Mary Morzinski. The Linguistic Influence of Polish on Joseph Conrad's Style. East European Monographs, 1994. "This linguistic analysis of Conrad's style focuses on the influence of his native Polish. The difference between the periphrastic tense and modal system of English verb forms and Polish morphological representation of aspect as a primary verbal category can cause difficulties when a native speaker of Polish shifts to English. A detailed analysis of Conrad's style indicates that some of his more noticeable non-native-sounding syntactic choices reflect the semantics inherent in the morphology of Polish aspect. Readers have often noted Conrad's unusual choice and placement of adverbs, particularly those indicating frequency and duration. Morzinski attempts to show that Conrad was attempting to express the features of Polish aspect by pressing the equivalent adverbial lexical items into his sentences, causing an otherwise native-like fluency to take on the non-native characteristic recognized as foreign flavor in his style." 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| furyou_gaijin Senior Member Japan Joined 6377 days ago 540 posts - 631 votes Speaks: Latin* | Message 3 of 3 27 February 2009 at 1:44pm | IP Logged |
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One of my professors used to say that Nabokov's English style was greatly influenced by Russian. Can't point out
any specific examples now, though. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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