Topografia grzechu. Miasto nowoczesne jako studium zła na przykładzie powieści "Tajny agent" Josepha Conrada

Geography of the sin. Modern city as the study of evil in ‘The Secret Agent’ by Joseph Conrad

In the section: Geography of the sin. Modern city as the study of evil in The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad Karolina Załęska proposes to analyse in the literary perspective. The basic aim of the presented text is to present the relation between the urban space and poetics of the sin in the European literature of the end of nineteenth century and the beginnig of twentieth century. The introduction to such reflection is to concern how the urbanisation and the industrialisation in Great Britain took place and be continued. Also the social consequences of civilisation matters and emotions which were caused by the changes. Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent. A Simple Tale, is represented for these studies because british experience was the first, before all of the the other European countries. The novel gives the material not only to analyse technical measures thanks to which the new experiences were able to express but also to pose the general questions concerning development of the crime fiction and the detective story in the latter part of the ninetheenth century or concernig the consequences of british industrialisation and urbanisation. The analysis will be on two areas, both theoretical and practical. The part of the analysis will be also biographical context, possible to present thanks to the author who described the circumstances of writing the book and considered the philosophy of anarchistic movement. The precise recontruction of the plot is the counterweight to the wide historical and cultural context and its function is to allow to creating relations between presented problems and indyviduals heros and diegetic world of the novel. The general question of the text involves the reflection about epistemology and axiology of the modern city.