Nost/algia as a Mode of Reflection in the Autobiographical Narratives of Joseph Conrad and Henry James

Within the past decades, nostalgia has become a misleadingly familiar concept. Whereas popular nostalgia connotes an idealised memory of the past, nost/algia implies a novelty of approach by focusing on the distinction between ‘nostos’ (the return) and ‘algos’ (the pain). Discussed with a reference to the pastoral and the Odyssey , the present study examines certain ‘complex’ deployments of the mode as applied in several autobiographical narratives of two ex-patriate writers, Joseph Conrad and H