Showing papers in "Journal of Literary Studies in 1989"
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that Coetzee's notion of narrativity necessitates an analysis of the interarticulation between contemporary theoretical discourses and narrative practice, since calculated construction seems to inform his re-writing and recontextualization of romantic tales of adventure.
Abstract: Summary It is argued in this paper that Coetzee's notion of narrativity necessitates an analysis of the interarticulation between contemporary theoretical discourses and narrative practice. Since calculated construction seems to inform his re‐writing and re‐contextualization of romantic tales of adventure, Genette's structuralist model is used as a framework for tracing Coetzee's unique exploitation of postmodernist narrative strategies via the segmentation of his text into four different parts.
8 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address the question of why the notion of the nation is being rejected as a framework and method of cultural studies in Western Europe, while it has come to serve as a rallying point in cultural activism in South Africa.
Abstract: Summary This article addresses itself to the question as to why the notion of the nation is being rejected as framework and method of cultural studies in Western Europe, while it has come to serve as a rallying point in cultural activism in South Africa. While acknowledging that international capitalism does not spell the end of the nation (as imperialist and anti‐imperialist re‐territorialisation), this article questions the simplistic equation of national culture/resistance culture/revolutionary culture which is defined in (negative) correspondence to what is conceived of as “dominant culture”. The article concludes by citing a warning by Fanon against nationalist myths which extol the hegemony of a neo‐colonial bourgeoisie.
7 citations
TL;DR: Coetzee as discussed by the authors presented a reading of the novel Foe as allegory, with the figure of Susan Barton representing certain positions in feminist discourse, Cruso representing postcolonial discourse from the position of the colonizer, and Friday's muteness representing the impossibility of a pure, original discourse on the part of colonized.
Abstract: Summary This paper is a condensed version of the final chapter of The Novels of J.M. Coetzee: Lacanian Allegories. It was to have been presented at the seminar on Foe in March 1988, prior to the publication of the book in July 1988. It offers a reading of the novel, Foe, as allegory, with the figure of Susan Barton representing certain positions in feminist discourse, Cruso representing postcolonial discourse from the position of the colonizer, and Friday's muteness representing the impossibility of a pure, original discourse on the part of the colonized. Feminist, postcolonial and postmodern discourses have in common the problem of speaking as Other, of representing the self as Other to various dominant discourses. In Foe Coetzee would appear to borrow strategies for figuring radical Otherness from both feminist and postcolonial discourse, while exploring the contradictions inherent in these strategies. Postmodernism offers strategies of intervention and evasion necessary to white South African writers, ...
6 citations
TL;DR: In this article, two possible readings of Coetzee's Foe are juxtaposed, the first stemming from a Freudo-marxist tradition and the second from certain aspects of Foucault's work.
Abstract: Summary What does it mean to narrate? More specifically, what does literary narration entail? These are the questions which are tentatively broached in this article. In order to do so, two possible readings of Coetzee's Foe are juxtaposed, the first stemming from a Freudo‐marxist tradition and the second from certain aspects of Foucault's work. The article attempts to show that an understanding of the circulation of narratives necessitates a shift from an analysis of the Symbolic, to an analysis of the mechanisms of power production in narrative discourse. The subject‐object‐body relation then appears as the nexus of the questions of narrativisation, of power and of resistance to power.
6 citations
TL;DR: This article put Achebe's reading of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, in which he accuses the author of being a NAZI type of racist, guilty of the dehumanization of Africa and the setting of men against each other.
Abstract: Summary In its oppositional discourse postmodernism emphasises, among other things, the need for an incisive critique of the excesses to which an unqualified belief in reason has led. This need opens up a space for responses to literature such as Chinua Achebe's reading of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, in which he accuses the author of being a NAZI type of racist, guilty of the dehumanization of Africa and the setting of men against each other. Achebe's “hard look at Conrad” is firstly placed within the postmodernistic framework of Said's theory of culture by means of an investigation of the complexity of the relationship between the text and the world in Conrad's novel; and then within the wider context of texts by non‐African writers, such as Doris Lessing, who have made different kinds of use of African space.
6 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the view of the text as intertext and the reading strategy that it implies indeed benefit the reader was investigated, and the theory was implemented practically with the description of two cases of intertextuality, viz. Multatuli's Wys my de plaats waar ik gezaaid heb and Leipoldt's “Wys my die plek waar ons saam gestaan het” as well as Hettie Smit's Sy kom met die sekelmaan and a series of poems
Abstract: Summary This article focuses on the problem of text relations. Various aspects of this extensive subject were investigated, and it was found that the view of the text as intertext and the reading strategy that it implies indeed benefit the reader. The theory was implemented practically with the description of two cases of intertextual‐ity, viz. Multatuli's Wys my de plaats waar ik gezaaid heb and Leipoldt's “Wys my die plek waar ons saam gestaan het” as well as Hettie Smit's Sy kom met die sekelmaan and a series of poems by Lina Spies from Digby vergenoeg. The article endeavours to indicate how existing interpretations can be destabilised by this reading strategy, since the reader is compelled to view all the texts which are involved in the intertextual network anew.
4 citations
TL;DR: In Foe, Coetzee achieves a synthesis of overt metanovelistic practice with engagement and engagement, two modes conventionally held to be antagonistic as mentioned in this paper, by means of various metafictional devices, establishing an equivalence between the relations of father/child, author/character, master/slave, reader/text and subject/object.
Abstract: Summary In this article it is argued that, in Foe, Coetzee achieves a synthesis of overt metanovelistic practice with engagement ‐ two modes conventionally held to be antagonistic. By means of various metafictional devices, Coetzee establishes an equivalence between the relations of father/child, author/character, master/slave, reader/text and subject/object ‐thus presenting a critique which exposes the linguistic base of various forms of political domination, and which politicizes both the act of writing and the act of reading.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the preferential status which the symbol has traditionally enjoyed in comparison with allegory, is symptomatic of a prejudice among critics who have collectively established a tradition of lit...
Abstract: Summary This article puts forward the argument that symbolism as poetic strategy should be approached in terms of its “historical effectiveness” in order to answer questions concerning the literary superiority which has traditionally been attributed to it in some circles. The work of Gadamer and Paul de Man, which focuses in different ways on the historically changing relationship between symbol and allegory serves as basis for the study. While Gadamer carefully outlines the route along which symbol and allegory reach a position of contrast with regard to each other towards the end of the eighteenth century, De Man problematizes the (romantic) valorization of the symbol (at the cost of allegory) by highlighting internal tensions in romantic poetry as well as in critical practice. This enables him to demonstrate that the preferential status which the symbol has traditionally enjoyed in comparison with allegory, is symptomatic of a prejudice among critics who have collectively established a tradition of lit...
3 citations
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that rhetoric rather than logic motivates philosophy, and a brief investigation of Nietzsche's "deconstruction" of language and knowledge is undertaken, together with an assessment of the hermeneutical implications of the deconstructionist approach.
Abstract: Summary In this paper an attempt is made to demonstrate the rhetorical thrust of philosophy. Contrary to the traditional assumption, it is argued that rhetoric rather than logic motivates philosophizing. The “irrationalism” of Gorgias, the Sophist, as well as rhetorical elements in Socratic thought, are considered in this regard. This particular form of irrationalism is construed as a liberation from the fetters of rationalistic illusion. Next, a brief investigation of Nietzsche's “deconstruction” of language and knowledge is undertaken. He is seen to operate in the same (sophistic) tradition. Then there is a section on the contemporary deconstructionist approach of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man who expose tropic activity within philosophical discourse itself. Finally, the interaction of Derrida and Heidegger is briefly examined, together with an assessment of the hermeneutical implications of the deconstructionist approach.
1 citations
TL;DR: In other worlds. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak as discussed by the authors, 1987. Essays in cultural politics. London and New York: Methuen and New Orleans:
Abstract: In other Worlds. Essays in cultural Politics. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: 1987. London and New York: Methuen
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an approach that allows for an investigation of literature and aesthetics without reducing the latter to the function of a simple mirror image, by drawing on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, and through his attentive reading of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida.
Abstract: Summary Michel Serres’ conception of the rapports between science and literature is exerting a decisive influence on French philosophy and literary criticism. Serres, by drawing on Merleau‐Ponty's phenomenology, and through his attentive reading of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida, addresses the question that French modern thought has left fallow: is there a viewpoint that, from within the precinct of epistemology, allows for an investigation of literature and aesthetics without reducing the latter to the function of a simple mirror‐image? Is there a way of entering into literature and language which leads back to scientific hypotheses? Is there a passage between scientific constructions and literary discourse? In other words is there a true interference between “truth” and “fiction"? This presentation of an author whose works are still largely unknown to the Anglophone theorists of literature in South Africa aims at clarifying some points of Michel Serres’ approach and at proposing an entrance into wha...
TL;DR: In this article, an intertextual approach to J.M. Coetzee's Foe through five French texts in the wake of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is presented.
Abstract: Summary This essay is an intertextual approach to J.M. Coetzee's Foe through five French texts in the wake of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. A discussion of the departures from Defoe's text in the dating and location of the island adventure as a topos establishes that the French narrative texts eliminate polemic relations. These texts however fail to extricate themselves from the hypotext through the figure of Robinson Crusoe who remains a fiction of the self developing as a subject within the topos of the desert isle. Emancipation from and subversion of the hypotext is rather achieved through the figure of Friday who emerges as an equal or a desirable alternative to be copied, but remains an object in a white man's discourse. An analysis of the treatment of the black man's language by Defoe and J.M. Coetzee establishes that, in the fiction of Robinson Crusoe, Friday can only be a parrot or a mute. The third (female) figure of Susan Barton in Foe allows the South African writer to introduce a “middle voi...
TL;DR: In this paper, an archetypal reading of the Fourth Gospel is presented, making possible an encounter with the author's imaginal world, without being put off by the offensive rhetoric.
Abstract: Summary Modern readers of the Fourth Gospel can scarcely ignore the Wirkungsgeschichte of this powerful text. Although its intense polemic against “the Jews” can be understood historically as a not unusual example of intra‐Jewish sectarian animosity, its appropriation by Christians has made a sinister contribution to the Holocaust. Furthermore, although the Fourth Gospel affirms of the disciple everything that it affirms of Jesus, it has served as the starting point for conciliar definitions on christology which have opened up a “divinity gap” between the reader and the central figure in the narrative. An archetypal reading of this text makes possible an encounter with the author's imaginal world, without being put off by the offensive rhetoric.
TL;DR: In this paper, a distinction is made between physio-mimetic and psycho-, i.e., the latter dealing with the mimetic presentation of a charcter's image of a certain space, e.g. dreams.
Abstract: Summary In discussions of space in plays the terms used are usually vague and general. In this paper an attempt is being made to provide more appropriate terms, especially as pertains to descriptions of space in the radio play. Stemming from the well‐known usage of “mimetic space”, a difference is here being established between physio‐mimetic and psycho‐mimetic space; the latter dealing with the mimetic presentation of a charcter's image of a certain space, e.g. dreams. Diegetic space is also more closely defined, and divided into periods (e.g. present, historical and prospective). Further useful terms are psycho‐, socio‐ and textual diegesis. The terminology explicated in this article is equally useful for theatre, radio and television plays.
Abstract: Summary In this article I investigate the role of the father within nationalism by analysing two obscure plays, Padbrekers (1947) and Legende (1942) by J.F.W. Grosskopf. Through the use of psycho‐analysis I have come to the conclusion that nationalism constitutes a melancholy‐related guilt reaction to the death of the father. Synonymous with the death of the father is the experience of the apocalyptic downfall of the fatherland as a result of capitalist expansion and the concomitant materialism. Underlying this experience is the inability to form a libidinal relationship with the world (as object). The nationalist feels threatened by the materialist world‐picture which implies an object‐relationship with the world.