Impressionism and Symbolism in Heart of Darkness

Abstract

The Preface to The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' is usually read as an impressionist document; but much of Conrad's critical position there is also consonant with that of the Symbolists — it is, for instance, very close to Verlaine's 'De la musique avant toute chose' (Art poétique)in making it the supreme aim of literary style to achieve 'the magic suggestiveness of music'. Conrad also wrote in a letter that in The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' he had tried 'to get through the veil of details at the essence of life' (27 January 1897);1 and this avowal of a transcendental perspective later recurs even more explicitly: 'How fine it could be…' Conrad wrote to Ford, 'if the idea had a substance and words a magic power, if the invisible could be snared into a shape.'2