Showing papers in "Journal of Literary Studies in 1986"
TL;DR: In this article, it is suggested that allegory is a prominent literary vehicle for political dissent in contemporary literature of dissent, as can be illustrated especially in J.M. Coetzee's novels.
Abstract: Summary It is suggested that allegory is a prominent literary vehicle for political dissent in contemporary literature of dissent, as can be illustrated especially in J.M. Coetzee's novels. This suggestion, however, requires a redefinition of our conventional sense of allegory's nature and purpose. Medieval and renaissance allegory is discussed as the background to the doubleness of the allegorical mode which emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Allegory has only recently been used for the purpose of explicit social and political criticism, as is indicated in a discussion of Coetzee's novels, as well as references to works of Buzzati, Kafka, Calvino, Borges, Donoso, Allende, Kundera and, within the South African context, Paton and Stockenstrom. It is ironic that allegory has become a mode particularly suited to the novelistic expression of fragmentation and injustice, and has become an effective medium of protest against the simplifications of absolute power.
13 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the authority of interpretation rests in the power vested in the various literary corporations, which in turn are dependent on institutionalized educational bodies protecting cultural interests.
Abstract: Summary The article sets out to describe various modes of rewriting such as interpretation, commentary and anthologyzing as instruments serving the stability of the literary system. Traditionally, interpretation and commentary were to remain true to the ‘Book’ and to prescribed hermeneutic procedures. Since the authority of the text is being discarded in modern pluralistic interpretative practices, it has become clear that authority of interpretation rests in the power, vested in the various literary corporations, which in their turn are dependent on institutionalized educational bodies protecting cultural interests. It is argued that systems theory allows for the description of the constraints determining rewriting. Defining the subordinate position of the literary expert to the powers regulating the system and drawing upon the tendency to self‐maintenance which characterizes systems, it is made clear why rewriting tends to censure and reduce the original text to the norms of a given time and audience. T...
6 citations
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4 citations
TL;DR: A discussion on three aspects in the development of allegory can be found in this paper, where the authors focus on three types of allegories: personified, parallel and vertical allegory.
Abstract: Summary This discussion focuses on three aspects in the development of allegory. As a result of its religious origin, the most important allegorical codes are travel and battle. The date of origin, however, is undeterminable. Fulgentius's use of the Aeneas as basic pattern for his sixth century Continentia Vergiliana marks a further milestone in the development of allegory. During the Middle Ages, Good and Evil in allegorical moralities are portrayed ethically and didactically by symbolic characters. Ethymologically, the prefix allos in the word allegory inverts the sense. The allegory thus says one thing which means something else (allos). Allegory is therefore primarily a modus operandi which is characterised by its infrastructure (root pattern, threshold text, the reaction of the recipient). Three types of allegory may be distinguished according to their manner of origin: personified, parallel and vertical allegory.
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define an area of narratological interest that has, until now, remained somewhat blurred ontologically, and propose indices in the text that alert the reader to the presence of an "immanent" voice.
Abstract: This article is an attempt to define an area of narratological interest that has, until now, remained somewhat blurred ontologically.
Although the focus is on so‐called ‘unreliable’ first person narration, it challenges, in essence, the concept of the implied author but, in doing so, seeks to amplify and explicate the mode of being of such a narratological concept rather than to jettison it altogether.
The postulation of indices in the text that alert the reader to the presence of an ‘immanent’ voice is meant to supplement the contributions made to the study of narrative by such analysts as Stanzel and Genette. What is often loosely referred to as the ‘ironic mode’ of the implied author can be seen with more clarity to be the mode of being of a complex activity that is grounded in an elusive, but no less tangible for all its ‘absence’, immanent narrative voice.
3 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the relationship that exists between formal and functional units of a text, and tried to show that some strategy of text segmentation can function as a device of text progression as it enables the concatenation of new segments.
Abstract: Summary This article explores the relationship that exists between the formal and functional units of a text, and attempts to show that some strategy of text segmentation can function as a device of text progression as it enables the concatenation of new segments. Within the framework of information structuring text segmentation is motivated by the need to change ‘Discourse Topics’ (DTs). If segmentation occurs where a new DT is presented to the text, the options available for the text are either to be segmented before or after the introduction of the new discourse segment. The article focusses on text segmentation after DT mention. Though the literary text is shown to conform to norms of text segmentation it is employed in an elaborate manner for poetic purposes. Deviant as it is, the literary text obeys cognitive and communicative postulates.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a typology of generalizations has been proposed in reply to the question, and two ideal types have been distinguished, namely the empirical conclusion and the theoretical presupposition, and the systematic relation between the typology and the basic components of the science of literature.
Abstract: Summary As scientific practice is impossible without generalization, and as testability is a distinctive feature of scientific communication, the question arises, on the one hand, concerning the nature, the function and the conditions for correct use of generalization in the science of literature, and on the other hand, concerning its relationship to the cycle of enquiry as the most acceptable research model. By way of logical analysis a typology of generalizations has been postulated in reply to the question, and two ideal types have been distinguished, namely the empirical conclusion and the theoretical presupposition. Also indicated, is the systematic relation between the typology and the basic components of the science of literature.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that too much emphasis has been placed on the origin of New Testament documents and that a narratological approach of some of them is of particular importance.
Abstract: Summary The article deals with narratology and the New Testament. A few introductory remarks explain the context of interpretation and the need for a narratological approach to certain New Testament writings. In two major sections the theme is developed from a literary‐historical perspective and applied to certain New Testament writings. It is argued that too much emphasis has been placed on the origin of New Testament documents and that a narratological approach of some of them is of particular importance. The gospels, Acts of the Apostles and the Revelation of John are discussed as narratives in the second part of the article.
2 citations
TL;DR: Barthes' S/Z as mentioned in this paper is interpreted as a rewriting of a text in order to foreground syntactical rather than semantical referential devices, showing realism to be the corrigible result of a semantic/referential organisation designed to deny its overdetermination by a syntactic order.
Abstract: Summary Often misread as a document of semiotics, Barthes’ S/Z rejects every concern with a generalisation of semantics in favour of a novel theory of syntax. This latter is construed as a rewriting of a text in order to foreground syntactical rather than semantical referential devices. The result is an implicit contrast between a manifest and a latent level of syntactic organisation, showing realism to be the corrigible result of a semantic/referential organisation designed to deny its overdetermination by a syntactic order. Barthes’ attempt to elucidate latent syntactic order is compared to identical procedures in the writers associated with the critique of metaphysics in the name of formal logic. Every attempt to deploy reading to the end of foregrounding latent syntactical devices is argued to be inescapably imbricated in an idealisation of the object language. The syntax thus elaborated is won at the expense of effacing the material coordinates of the signifier which it organises. An alternative mode...
1 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that structuralism functions as a critique, aiming to reveal the conditions of possibility of any given structure, and that the structuralist critique is not limited to theoretical activities, but applies also to the literary text.
Abstract: Summary This paper deals primarily with the accounts of structuralism postulated by Deleuze in the article ‘How Does One Recognise Structuralism?’ (1975) and by Barthes in the article ‘The Structuralist Activity’ (1972). An analysis of these articles shows that structuralism functions as a critique, aiming to reveal the conditions of possibility of any given structure. The term ‘structuralism’ when used in this sense is not limited to theoretical activities, but applies also to the literary text, when it aims to reveal its own conditions of possibility. An analysis of Barthes’ articles ‘Literature and Discontinuity’ and ‘The Metaphor of the Eye’ shows that the literary text spontaneously provides a structuralist‐critique of systems of signification.
1 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on Bertolucci's film, 1900, in an effort to demonstrate the significance of the motif of recurrence in its narrative, and argue that the film articulates a related post-modernist philosophical model of history which, on a metanarrative level, paradoxically constitutes a sceptical attitude towards precisely what Lyotard calls the Enlightenment version of justifying knowledge and socio political institutions with reference to the ideal of progress.
Abstract: Summary This article focuses on Bertolucci's film, 1900, in an effort to demonstrate the significance of the motif of recurrence in its narrative. Lyotard's description of the rhythmic structure of narrative provides the key to understanding this aspect of the film. It is also argued that the film articulates a related postmodernist philosophical model of history which, on a metanarrative level, paradoxically constitutes a sceptical attitude towards precisely what Lyotard calls a metanarrative ‐ here specifically the Enlightenment version of justifying knowledge and socio‐political institutions with reference to the ideal of progress. Attention is given to the question of the various contexts in which the term ‘post modern’ is encountered, and the debate on modernity versus postmodernity is indicated as furnishing the apposite theoretical space for the subsequent analysis of Bertolucci's film. Briefly, this analysis involves showing that, in the course of the (historical) events coveredby the narrative, t...
TL;DR: In this article, the most basic function of this speech act is that of identification, and the proper name has an identifying but not necessarily a descriptive function; the common noun, on the other hand, is not descriptive enough.
Abstract: Summary Names, naming and designation play an important part in in Henriette Grove's radio drama Ontmoeting by Dwaaldrif. The most basic function of this speech act is that of identification. The proper name has an identifying but not necessarily a descriptive function. The common noun, on the other hand, is not descriptive enough. Proper names are ‘labels’, although they can sometimes be applied descriptively. In this connection John Lyons’ analysis of the concepts reference and denotation is discussed in detail. Poetic designation entails finding a universal idea or ‘oerband’. Erbeveld comes to Leipoldt the poet to ask him to ‘name’ his ‘material’ properly. As to precisely how this should be done, the two of them differ sharply. For the poet things can be called into being by being named. For Erbeveld it is a matter of great importance that the right appellative should be used in connection with himself. He furthermore prescribes the tragedy as the literary genre in which his history must be dealt with....
TL;DR: In this paper, a post-structuralist reading of Shelley's "Epipsychidion" is presented to illustrate the poem's preoccupation with its own discursive mode.
Abstract: Summary In response to the criticism frequently levelled against contemporary literary theory, that it disregards and devalues the literary text, this article attempts to show how post‐structuralism can feasibly be employed, vis‐a‐vis Shelley's ‘Epipsychidion’, as a strategy of reading literary texts without detracting from their enjoyment. The article first examines a few key concepts and their ramifications that together constitute the theoretical field in terms of which a post‐structuralist reading can be engaged in. While the concepts examined ‐ difference, displacement, desire, and figuration ‐ are common to most post‐structuralist writers, the importance given to, as well as the particular use of, a given concept naturally varies considerably. Having staked out the theoretical field in a necessarily cursory manner, the article offers a reading of ‘Epipsychidion’ that attempts to illustrate the poem's preoccupation with its own discursive mode. The reading attempts to show that although the poem ende...
TL;DR: This article focused on the language of violence in the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz by the German author Alfred Doblin and the difficulties of translating these signs into the English language which has its own ritualised codes of action, ideologies and cultural associations as signs.
Abstract: Summary The article concentrates on the language of violence as the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz by the German author Alfred Doblin manifests it, and the difficulties of translating these signs into the English language which has its own ritualised codes of action, ideologies and cultural associations as signs. Traditional imagery in the form of metaphor or personification is more or less transferable, but next to this Doblin works with song motifs which by means of association underpin the signs of violence and aggression inherent in everyday language. These motifs are autonomous images of substantiated figurativeness, to which the other images and metaphors are referred. The associative fields are very specific manifestations of the historical experience structures of the German language, whereas similar codifications, conventionalisations and typifications inherent in the English language are linked to different functions and significations. As a result the problem arises for the translator that, before...
TL;DR: Schor and Snyman as discussed by the authors discuss the ideology of conduct in literature and the history of sexuality in the context of aesthetics and the feminine in their book "Aesthetics and the Feminine Imagination: Essays in Literature and the History of Sexual Expression".
Abstract: The ideology of conduct: Essays in literature and the history of sexuality Nancy Armstrong; Leonard Tennenhouse (eds.) 1987 London: Methuen. Reading in detail: Aesthetics and the feminine Naomi Schor 1987 New York: Methuen Dagblad Hennie Aucamp 1987 Pretoria: Haum‐Literer Teodoliet Henning Snyman 1987 Kaapstad: Dias‐uitgewers Why seers are not believers Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology Philip Rosen (ed) 1986 New York: Columbia University Press pp 549 R50,90.
TL;DR: This paper argued that Viljoen's assumption that identifying Derridean themes in a poem is to be equated with a deconstructive reading is more typical of Structuralism.
Abstract: Summary The article comments on an article by Hein Viljoen, ‘"Vakansiebrief"‐'n dekonstruksie‐/dekonstruktiewe lesing’ (JLS 1(4)). It argues that Viljoen, having postulated that it is in the nature of deconstructive reading that a poem can have no definitive meaning, undermines his own approach by adopting a fixed meaning for ‘Vakansiebrief. Using two possible seme‐analyses, the article offers an interpretation of the poem which differs radically from that which forms the basis of Viljoen's ‘Deconstructive’ reading. It continues to examine Viljoen's assumption that identifying ‘Derridean’ themes in a poem is to be equated with a deconstructive reading. Such an approach, it is suggested, is more typical of Structuralism. In conclusion the question is raised whether a method that can lead to such far‐fetched interpretation has any real value for literary analysis.