Talk:Joseph Conrad

Date of birth

Considering the contested nature of the place where Conrad was born, it isn't obvious whether his birth date was recording in the Gregorian or Julian calendar. If it was recorded in the Julian calendar, it isn't clear whether some of the sources we might use have translated it from Julian to Gregorian. If someone can find out, an appropriate footnote should be added to indicate which it is.

If it turns out to be Julian the Birth date and Death date and age templates should be removed because they emit false metadata for Julian dates.

Conrad's birth and death dates, as stated in "Joseph Conrad", are the same as those given in Zdzisław Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, translated by Halina Najder, Rochester, New York, Camden House, 2007, pp. XXI–XXII, which is sufficiently authoritative.

Nihil novi (talk) 08:53, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't answer the question. Does Najdler say whether 3 December 1857 is a Julian calendar date or a Gregorian calendar date? Jc3s5h (talk) 16:52, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Footnote, p. 12:

"Bobrowski's 'Document' gives the date and place of birth as 21 November (Old Style) 1857, at Berdyczów, at which place the child was christened with water... Conrad himself gave the date as 3 December; both that date and the fact of the previously performed private baptism are confirmed by an extract from the Żytomierz parish register, preserved in the Jagiellonian Library, Cracow... The formal christening was registered at Żytomierz in 1862; paradoxically, Conrad was not present at the ceremony!... 'A Song for the Day of Christening,' a poem written by Apollo for his son, bears the date 13 November (obviously Old Style) 1857, Berdyczów..."

I wonder whether the "21 November" quoted above ("Bobrowski's 'Document'") is an error and should actually have been "11 November".

Nihil novi (talk) 04:03, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

21 November to 3 December is 12 days. At the time, this was the number of days the Gregorian calendar was ahead of the Gregorian calendar, so 21 November 1857 Julian calendar was the same day as 3 December 1857 Gregorian calendar. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:19, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Just a note that we have to go by what reliable sources say. Discrepancies can be noted in the text or a footnote. Trying to interpret what his birth date "really" was is OR. - Donald Albury 17:37, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Notes

I feel that many of the notes can be better expressed in the main body of the article, and others can be trimmed down or deleted. Some are only tangentially related to Joseph Conrad (Note 10, Note 39), others are not related to Conrad at all (Note 9, Note 32), others are redundant because they are already mentioned elsewhere in the article (Note 14, Note 31, Note 33), and some are mere speculation (Note 25, Note 26). It would probably be for the best if some notes were edited for concision, especially Note 18, which is the longest note I've ever seen on Wikipedia. In my opinion, most notes in the lead summary would be better off as part of the article in 'Citizenship' (Note 1), 'Writing style' (Note 2, Note 3, Note 4), or in the case of Note 6, cited directly as it is merely a quote from a source. If a note contains vital information to a topic, then it should be in the main body of the article instead of being relegated to a note, where the reader might not see it. Constable31 (talk) 23:51, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Notes tend to be a sign of article ownership. Feel free to eliminate.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:23, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I have reviewed the 43 notes to the "Joseph Conrad" article and find that they all relate directly to the article's subject or to his Polish, French, British, or world milieus and help the reader better understand Conrad's life.

The information in most of the notes could not have been interpolated into the maintext without creating unwieldiness. But the information is all there for the interested reader, much as in the appendices of a print book.

The longest note, no. 18, is an extensive quotation from a letter by Conrad's mentor and benefactor, his uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski, describing in detail the circumstances of Conrad's 1878 suicide attempt – an attempt that throws interesting light on Conrad's personality.

In toto the article, as it stands, is probably the most comprehensive existing brief account of Conrad's life and works, affording a fairly complete picture that will not be found in any traditional paper encyclopedia.

Indeed Wikipedia, as an electronic encyclopedia, is not constrained by the severe limits of a traditional paper encyclopedia.

Readers not wishing to delve into certain aspects of the article's subject that are found in the notes are free not to do so. Those wishing to explore them are likewise free to do so.

Readers of this discussion will find, at the top of this talk page, an unsolicited review from a reader who evidently was not distressed by the number or character of the notes: "Wonderful article! I came to this article looking for facts, and then read the entire text out of pure enjoyment. A beautiful article which succeeds very well in conveying the contradictions of Conrad's person and the richness of his work. Thanks for the excellent piece!"

Nihil novi (talk) 02:48, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I would say that some notes can be interpolated into the main text without creating unwieldiness. Najder's quote in Note 2, for example, is already in the Language section of the article, so it wouldn't be a stretch to put Kipling's thoughts on Conrad along with the paragraphs discussing Conrad's use of English.

I disagree that every note helps the reader better understand Conrad's life. There are some notes that are redundant, and some which don't seem to add anything related to Conrad's biography. I fail to see how "X is the Roman numeral for Ten" (Note 9) adds meaningfully to the section on Conrad's early life, or how "Fidanza is an Italian expression for 'fidelity'" (Note 32) - a fact that is already included in the Nostromo article - adds meaningfully to a paragraph about how Conrad's characters often have lethal fates. Notes 28 and 31 convey basically the same information, Note 14's quote is mentioned in the body of the article, and there is an entire section dedicated to discussing the languages Conrad spoke, making Note 33 restate a fact that was expounded upon earlier in the article. The article is certainly a great article, very well-researched and very comprehensive, but its notes could be cleaned up and integrated more efficiently, in my view. Constable31 (talk) 11:02, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Note 2: The "Language" section does not cite the notable remarks by Kipling or Najder.

Note 9 explains that the Warsaw Citadel's Pavilion 10 was named, in Latin, "Pavilion X": a place infamous in Polish history for the imprisonment and/or execution of a who's who of Polish patriots and revolutionaries, including Joseph Conrad's father, Apollo Korzeniowski.

Note 32: The fact of Fidanza's surname, in Nostromo, meaning "fidelity" (or "trust") is indeed mentioned in the Wikipedia "Nostromo" article, but not in the Joseph Conrad article's "Themes and style" section's paragraph discussing the lethal fates of many of Conrad's characters.

Notes 28 and 31 both do quote Conrad's wife in reference to an incident of delirium suffered by Conrad, but in reference as well to another source for his story "Amy Foster".

Note 14: paragraph 3 from the bottom of the "Writer" section relates to Conrad's frustration at being regarded as "a romantic teller of exotic tales." The remark on "a whisper: 'Keep to the open sea'" is repeated in paragraph 2 of the "Themes and style" section, in the context of his "[knowing] little about everyday domestic relations in Britain."

Note 33 ("Conrad was a trilingual Pole: Polish-, French-, and English-speaking") reminds readers of this fact in the context of Edward Said remarking that Conrad "was a Pole and an Englishman..."

Some of the more compact notes' items of information might perhaps be integrated into the "Joseph Conrad" article's main text, but there is surely nothing to be gained by eliminating information that enhances understanding of Conrad's life and works.

Nihil novi (talk) 16:31, 28 March 2024 (UTC)