ABSTRACT
Joseph Conrad's first novel, Almayer's Folly, was published in 1895 and appeared at a time when literary fiction continued to be the pre-eminent art form in contemporary English culture. In 1898, the year that saw the publication of Conrad's Tales of Unrest and the year that he started to write Heart of Darkness, the authors find Shaw 'praying' that 'contemporary drama might be brought up to the level of contemporary fiction'. For the contemporaries of Conrad, however, the legacy of Shakespeare could be oppressive. Conrad's use of theatrical motifs and devices plays the notion of 'suspension of disbelief' as a metaphor for the operations of bourgeois society. The unlikely juxtapositions and subversions of genre and form that characterise so much of Conrad's use of the performing arts are particularly notable in his relationship with opera.
