Paru en 1898, ce roman est considéré comme l'un des chefs-d'œuvre de
Joseph Conrad. L'histoire ensorcelante d'un Nègre atteint de tuberculose qui use de sa maladie pour manipuler l'équipage d'un trois-mâts.
C’est seulement dans l’imagination des hommes
que chaque vérité trouve une existence réelle et indéniable.
L’imagination, et non l’invention,
est le maître suprême de l’art, comme de la vie.
Joseph Conrad,
Le Nègre du « Narcisse »
«
La tâche que je m’efforce d’accomplir
consiste par le seul pouvoir des mots écrits,
à vous faire entendre, à vous faire sentir
et, avant tout, à vous faire voir.
Cela et rien d’autre mais c’est immense».
Joseph Conrad, Le nègre du «Narcisse».
Joseph Conrad, un homme de la mer
1874 : De Marseille il part à la Martinique comme passager sur le Mont-blanc
1875 : Retour Marseille sur le Mont-Blanc comme novice
1876 : Départ pour la Martinique comme steward sur le Saint-Antoine
1878 : Embarquement sur le Mavis ( Anglais) pour Malte
il reste à faire du cabotage en angleterre avant d'embarquer comme matelot sur le Duke of Sutherland pour l'Australie
1880-1881 : 2ème lieutenant sur le Palestine vers Bangkok
1883 : Retour en angleterre embarquement sur le Riversdale comme lieutenant
1884 : Retour en angleterre ,il y passe ses examens maritimes
1885-1887 : Séjour en extrème orient
1888 : il va prendre le commandement d'un voilier l'Otago à Bangkok
1889 : Retour en Angleterre
1890-1993 : Il commande un vapeur sur le fleuve Congo durant 3 ans. Le S/S Roi des belges
1891 : retour en Angleterre embarquement comme second sur le Torrens pour Adelaide
1894 : Fin de sa carrière maritime
Lire le Nègre du Narcise
Catalogue Bnf pour "Le nègre du "Narcisse"
Le texte en anglais
And here is the Suppressed Preface
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should
carry its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined
as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to
the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one,
underlying its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in
its colours, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and
in the facts of life what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and
essential--their one illuminating and convincing quality--the very truth
of their existence. The artist, then, like the thinker or the scientist,
seeks the truth and makes his appeal. Impressed by the aspect of the
world the thinker plunges into ideas, the scientist into facts--whence,
presently, emerging they make their appeal to those qualities of our
being that fit us best for the hazardous enterprise of living. They
speak authoritatively to our common-sense, to our intelligence, to
our desire of peace or to our desire of unrest; not seldom to our
prejudices, sometimes to our fears, often to our egoism--but always
to our credulity. And their words are heard with reverence, for their
concern is with weighty matters: with the cultivation of our minds and
the proper care of our bodies, with the attainment of our ambitions,
with the perfection of the means and the glorification of our precious
aims.
It is otherwise with the artist.
Confronted by the same enigmatical spectacle the artist descends within
himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be
deserving and fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is
made to our less obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which,
because of the warlike conditions of existence, is necessarily kept
out of sight within the more resisting and hard qualities--like the
vulnerable body within a steel armour. His appeal is less loud, more
profound, less distinct, more stirring--and sooner forgotten. Yet its
effect endures forever. The changing wisdom of successive generations
discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist
appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to
that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition--and, therefore, more
permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder,
to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity,
and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all
creation--and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that
knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity
in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope,
in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all
humanity--the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.
It is only some such train of thought, or rather of feeling, that can
in a measure explain the aim of the attempt, made in the tale which
follows, to present an unrestful episode in the obscure lives of a few
individuals out of all the disregarded multitude of the bewildered, the
simple and the voiceless. For, if any part of truth dwells in the
belief confessed above, it becomes evident that there is not a place of
splendour or a dark corner of the earth that does not deserve, if only
a passing glance of wonder and pity. The motive then, may be held to
justify the matter of the work; but this preface, which is simply an
avowal of endeavour, cannot end here--for the avowal is not yet complete.
Fiction--if it at all aspires to be art--appeals to temperament. And in
truth it must be, like painting, like music, like all art, the appeal of
one temperament to all the other innumerable temperaments whose subtle
and resistless power endows passing events with their true meaning, and
creates the moral, the emotional atmosphere of the place and time. Such
an appeal to be effective must be an impression conveyed through the
senses; and, in fact, it cannot be made in any other way, because
temperament, whether individual or collective, is not amenable to
persuasion. All art, therefore, appeals primarily to the senses, and the
artistic aim when expressing itself in written words must also make its
appeal through the senses, if its highest desire is to reach the
secret spring of responsive emotions. It must strenuously aspire to the
plasticity of sculpture, to the colour of painting, and to the magic
suggestiveness of music--which is the art of arts. And it is only through
complete, unswerving devotion to the perfect blending of form and
substance; it is only through an unremitting never-discouraged care
for the shape and ring of sentences that an approach can be made to
plasticity, to colour, and that the light of magic suggestiveness may be
brought to play for an evanescent instant over the commonplace surface
of words: of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless
usage.
The sincere endeavour to accomplish that creative task, to go as far on
that road as his strength will carry him, to go undeterred by faltering,
weariness or reproach, is the only valid justification for the worker
in prose. And if his conscience is clear, his answer to those who in
the fulness of a wisdom which looks for immediate profit, demand
specifically to be edified, consoled, amused; who demand to be promptly
improved, or encouraged, or frightened, or shocked, or charmed, must
run thus:--My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the
written word to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to
make you see. That--and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you
shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation,
fear, charm--all you demand--and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for
which you have forgotten to ask. To snatch in a moment of courage,
from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life, is only the
beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is
to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued
fragment before all eyes in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show
its vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, its form,
and its colour, reveal the substance of its truth--disclose its inspiring
secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing
moment. In a single-minded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and
fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that
at last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth,
shall awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable
solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in
hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind
to the visible world. It is evident that he who, rightly or wrongly,
holds by the convictions expressed above cannot be faithful to any one
of the temporary formulas of his craft. The enduring part of them--the
truth which each only imperfectly veils--should abide with him as the
most precious of his possessions, but they all: Realism, Romanticism,
Naturalism, even the unofficial sentimentalism (which like the poor, is
exceedingly difficult to get rid of,) all these gods must, after a short
period of fellowship, abandon him--even on the very threshold of the
temple--to the stammerings of his conscience and to the outspoken
consciousness of the difficulties of his work. In that uneasy solitude
the supreme cry of Art for Art itself, loses the exciting ring of its
apparent immorality. It sounds far off. It has ceased to be a cry, and
is heard only as a whisper, often incomprehensible, but at times and
faintly encouraging.
Sometimes, stretched at ease in the shade of a roadside tree, we watch
the motions of a labourer in a distant field, and after a time, begin to
wonder languidly as to what the fellow may be at. We watch the movements
of his body, the waving of his arms, we see him bend down, stand up,
hesitate, begin again. It may add to the charm of an idle hour to be
told the purpose of his exertions. If we know he is trying to lift
a stone, to dig a ditch, to uproot a stump, we look with a more real
interest at his efforts; we are disposed to condone the jar of his
agitation upon the restfulness of the landscape; and even, if in a
brotherly frame of mind, we may bring ourselves to forgive his failure.
We understood his object, and, after all, the fellow has tried, and
perhaps he had not the strength--and perhaps he had not the knowledge. We
forgive, go on our way--and forget.
And so it is with the workman of art. Art is long and life is short,
and success is very far off. And thus, doubtful of strength to travel
so far, we talk a little about the aim--the aim of art, which, like life
itself, is inspiring, difficult--obscured by mists; it is not in the
clear logic of a triumphant conclusion; it is not in the unveiling of
one of those heartless secrets which are called the Laws of Nature. It
is not less great, but only more difficult.
To arrest, for the space of a breath, the hands busy about the work of
the earth, and compel men entranced by the sight of distant goals to
glance for a moment at the surrounding vision of form and colour, of
sunshine and shadows; to make them pause for a look, for a sigh, for a
smile--such is the aim, difficult and evanescent, and reserved only for a
very few to achieve. But sometimes, by the deserving and the fortunate,
even that task is accomplished. And when it is accomplished--behold!--all
the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile--and the
return to an eternal rest.
1897. J. C.
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