Understanding Yourself

That Conrad's fiction was influenced by his reading of Schopenhauer has become almost a critical orthodoxy. Literary scholars laid the foundations by interpreting Conrad's fiction in the light of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Johnson (1971 p.45) wrote that "Much of Conrad's work" was "a tribute" to the influence of Schopenhauer's thought. Bonney (1980 p.9) said that an understanding of Schopenhauer's work was "necessary for any comprehensive response to Conrad's fiction" and Panagopoulos (1998 p.16) agrees. Wollaeger (1990 p.32) sees "important affinities" between Conrad's and Schopenhauer's writing on art. Madden (1999 p.42) sees Conrad as owing a "debt" to Schopenhauer while Edward Said claimed that the relationship was one of "veneration" on the novelist's part. (Mallios 2005 p.290) Philosophers frequently include Conrad in their lists of creative artists said to have been influenced by Schopenhauer; for example Jacquette (1996 pp.1-2), Magee (1997 p.413) and Neill (2008 p.179). Diffey (1996 p.229) and Young (2005 p.234) both quote Magee's list.