On "To Boldly Go" and Heart of Darkness

Notes on Linda J. Dryden's "To Boldly Go": Heart of Darkness and Popular Culture

-Heart of Darkness is a novella that has not yet been "closed" because the story is still relevant in the 21st Century.

-The story continues to be re birthed over and over again through parodies and references in popular culture.

-There is "a broader interdependence between popular culture and some of our most valued literary products."

-Without Heart of Darkness, either Apocalypse Now would never have been made, or it would have been a completely different film. Less powerful. Less enduring.

-Did Conrad's work continue to be popular because of its lasting literary merit? Or was it Coppola's Apocalypse Now that renewed interest in the novella?

-"In a sense, a kind of two-way process is enacted here whereby literature is influencing the more populist media of the cinema, which itself is reflecting that literature back at an audience who subsequently find a new relevance in a 'old masterpiece' "

-"High" culture, as it is called, seems to be seeping into popular culture which blurs the dividing line between the two.

-Star Trek uses the same themes and plot points that Heart of Darkness uses. Africans are replaced with alien species, however, both raise the same questions regarding race relations and colonialism.

-Popular culture cannot exist without "high" culture to draw upon.

-"The point is that without the elite products of our culture, such as literature, popular culture itself would be impoverished, lacking in cultural reference points on which to base its narratives."

-Heart of Darkness is apparently "one of the most frequently quoted texts within popular culture and media."

"It has become part of our cultural heritage."