Antoni Malczewski was a Polish romantic poet, known for his only work, “a narrative poem of dire pessimism, Maria (1825). Wikipedia writes

Maria was also influential on later Polish poets, especially Adam Mickiewicz, and on writer Jospeh Conrad.

As Conrad was not a romantic writer I’m unable to digest that Antoni Malczewski’s work influenced him.

Knight wrote:Antoni Malczewski was a Polish romantic poet, known for his only work, “a narrative poem of dire pessimism, Maria (1825). Wikipedia writes

Maria was also influential on later Polish poets, especially Adam Mickiewicz, and on writer Jospeh Conrad.

As Conrad was not a romantic writer I’m unable to digest that Antoni Malczewski’s work influenced him.

If Malczewski's romanticism is characterized by pessimism, maybe extending to bringing out the darker side of human nature, you can see how the Wiki statement might be true. But without knowing anything about Maria, can't say for certain. Conrad's treatment of nature in Heart of Darkness is almost Gothic, which is allied to the Romantic, I think. He doesn't give us objective nature, but one very much colored by the mood of his narrator's mind.

I'm just speculating here, but I see Joseph Conrad was actually Polish - British, born as Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. Evidently the poem Maria by Antoni Malczewski was extremely prominent in Poland. Sounds like the poem has highly dramatic scenes of a father having his daughter in law killed, then his son seeks revenge but commits suicide instead after seeing a spectral sign from his wife. In 1903 there was even a competition to write an opera based on Maria, which was won by prominent Polish composer Roman Statkowski. That opera premiered in 1906. So it's likely that Conrad was a fan of the poem and the opera. I am not familiar enough with the poem or Conrad to figure out how this influenced him; perhaps Conrad says so in a letter archived somewhere.

Not sure why I went down this rabbit hole, but here's a link about the Statkowski opera.
https://culture.pl/en/event/roman-statk ... d-festival

Picking up on DWill's comment, I haven't read Heart of Darkness, but it has enough high drama to have been turned into an opera, plus of course Coppola's movie treatment, so perhaps that's where the influence lies.

Not being an artist, I don't understand how influence manifests itself in the work of the influenced. But I wouldn't doubt that often we don't recognize an influence because the writer transmutes it somehow. That's what he or she has to do, really, to be seen as original and not just derivative. There is an interesting literary idea called "the anxiety of influence," which is about the artist's need to become independent from the influence of a model she admires. Any artist builds on the work of earlier ones, but she won't be recognized as original without at least adding her own twist.

DWill wrote:Not being an artist, I don't understand how influence manifests itself in the work of the influenced. But I wouldn't doubt that often we don't recognize an influence because the writer transmutes it somehow. That's what he or she has to do, really, to be seen as original and not just derivative. There is an interesting literary idea called "the anxiety of influence," which is about the artist's need to become independent from the influence of a model she admires. Any artist builds on the work of earlier ones, but she won't be recognized as original without at least adding her own twist.

Yes, that’s a more matured and general form of my particular case question.