Showing papers in "Journal of Literary Studies in 1992"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that formal procedures of colonisation generated in the nineteenth century have been reproduced in the adoption, by critics of black South African literature, of the implicit assumption that the received generic forms of "imaginative literature" should form the basis of scholarship and enquiry.
Abstract: Summary This article poses the question whether formal procedures of colonisation generated in the nineteenth century have been reproduced in the adoption, by critics of black South African literature, of the implicit assumption that the received generic forms of “imaginative literature” should form the basis of scholarship and enquiry. The article suggests that the context of “English” and “literature” should be sought in the broader signifying practices of colonialism, and seeks to describe the wider context in which black subjects of missionary teaching were compelled to negotiate identity in terms of a civilising colonialism founded in English as a master‐discourse.
12 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue for a rethinking of English studies away from canon-bound definitions and around the notion of the acquisition of critical literacy, a notion which is defined in terms of the persuasive properties of language.
Abstract: Summary In this essay, Higgins argues for a rethinking of English studies away from canon‐bound definitions and around the notion of the acquisition of critical literacy, a notion which is defined in terms of the persuasive properties of language. Two brief examples of critical literacy in practice are then examined: a scene from Shakespeare's Othello, and a Cape Times editorial.
10 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that neither Marxism nor poststructuralism (deconstruction) offers a viable means of conceptualizing the relationship between politics and literature in the 1990's and suggested that liberalism, properly understood as a political philosophy and as a foundation for literary activity, does provide a potentially successful way of approaching this interrelationship.
Abstract: Summary This article argues that neither Marxism nor poststructuralism (deconstruction) offers a viable means of conceptualising the relationship between politics and literature in the 1990's. It suggests, instead, that liberalism, properly understood ‐ both as a political philosophy and as a foundation for literary activity ‐ does provide a potentially successful way of approaching this interrelationship. The article begins by offering a liberal critique of Marxism and deconstruction at the levels both of their fundamental theoretical assumptions and their practical political and literary implications. It then attempts to clear up some of the confusion and misconceptions which continue to surround liberalism today by presenting a careful account of contemporary liberal political philosophy. Finally, the political analysis is related to the literary domain: a particular purpose is to consider how some of the key principles and concepts which inform modern‐day liberal political thought may have pertinent a...
7 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that students coming to the university for the first time need to understand, not only traditional university conventions and practices, but also the institutional power relations which have an immediate bearing on their positions as students.
Abstract: Summary This paper argues that students coming to the university for the first time need to understand, not only traditional university conventions and practices, but, more importantly, the institutional power relations which have an immediate bearing on their positions as students. It is claimed that “Learning, Language and Logic”, which is a credit‐bearing course for second language speakers from impoverished educational backgrounds, should provide the context for the development of a critical response to the university and for the possible contestation of some of its commonsense practices. It is argued that critical linguistics, which focuses on the way in which power relations are linguistically encoded, provides one way in which these insights can be developed. The paper describes a critical language programme which was part of “Learning, Language and Logic” and then focuses on student responses to one particular task. It also includes a brief critique of this approach to language teaching.
5 citations
TL;DR: In this article, cultural studies are explored as a replacement for the decentered discipline of English Studies, although the notion of cultural studies is itself problematical, and some practical issues concerning tertiary English teaching in SA are raised, and the paper concludes by way of a discussion of authority.
Abstract: Summary Literary Knowledge is presented as institutionally and historically constrained. Canonicity is discussed in terms of metaphors derived from religion and economics, and in relation to the politics of exclusion. Cultural studies is explored as a replacement for the decentered discipline of “English Studies”, although the notion of cultural studies is itself problematical. Some practical issues concerning tertiary English teaching in SA are raised, and the paper concludes by way of a discussion of authority.
4 citations
4 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors experimented with the disseminating play of signifiers as possible entrances to the subconscious levels of the text and gave attention to the dispersive, displacive and supplemen-tive semiotization of the Eigenwelt, Mitwelt and Umwelt of the dramatis personae.
Abstract: Summary On the level of text analysis this article experiments in a creative way with the disseminating play of signifiers as possible entrances to the subconscious levels of the text. Intratextually attention is therefore given to the dispersive, displacive and supplemen‐tive semiotization of the Eigenwelt, Mitwelt and Umwelt of the dramatis personae. Intertextually aspects of psychoanalysis (Freud), deconstruction (Derrida), anthropology (Girard et al.), Greek drama (Segal et al.) and the reception of the play (Van Zyl et al.) are touched upon, especially in the references.
3 citations
TL;DR: The reading and interpretation course at the University of Natal, Durban as discussed by the authors has been described as an attempt to assimilate the influence of theory on English studies into teaching methodology and course design.
Abstract: Summary This article examines a new first year course, “Reading and Interpretation” devised by the Department of English at the University of Natal, Durban. The course represents an attempt to assimilate the influence of theory on English studies into teaching methodology and course design. Particular attention is paid to the expansion of analysis beyond the traditional generic boundaries, as well as the changing composition of the student body.
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors suggest new directions for the progressive teaching of English based upon Gramsci's notion of counter-hegemonic struggle and Eagleton's recent study of the European aesthetic lineage in order to facilitate a process of cultural transformation conducive to a radical democratic society.
Abstract: Summary The article suggests new directions for the progressive teaching of English based upon Gramsci's notion of counter‐hegemonic struggle and Eagleton's recent study of the European aesthetic lineage in order to facilitate a process of cultural transformation conducive to a radical democratic society. Marxist literary theory needs to move beyond its mimetic and Althusserian models in order to confront fully these new demands. If English is to be the lingua franca of a post‐apartheid South Africa, English departments in universities and schools have a central role to play in this process.
2 citations
TL;DR: This article applied Bakhtin's views on the carnival world view as a problem of the poetics of genre to Bosman's Cold Stone Jug and found that the book's combination of the serious and the comic testifies not to the author's "idiosyncrasy" but to his adherence to a well established European cultural tradition.
Abstract: Summary This paper applies Bakhtin's views on the carnival world‐view as a problem of the poetics of genre to Bosman's Cold Stone Jug. The book's combination of the serious and the comic testifies not to the author's “idiosyncrasy”, but to his adherence to a well established European cultural tradition.
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the figure of the double in Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson, and argued that the narcissistic crisis in this novel does not mirror all other such crises; rather, it is inscribed within certain particularities, a history, if you will.
Abstract: Summary Through his work “On Narcissism” Freud was to bequeath an intellectual legacy in which the problems of subject and object were described, and in a sense delimited, by the classical iconology inherited with the very naming of “narcissism” itself. Studies of the double in literature are frequently informed by this model. Using Freud's standard formulation of narcissism as a point of departure, this paper examines the figure of the double in Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson. The argument rests on the claim that the narcissistic crisis in Pudd'nhead Wilson does not mirror all other such crises; rather, it is inscribed within certain particularities, a history, if you will. Perhaps Pudd'nhead Wilson is an historical novel, written as it is from a post‐Civil War moment, reflecting back on Twain's relationship to the slavery of the American South. The “family romance” between the slave‐woman, Roxy, and her son impels the plot and constitutes that son as the exemplary narcissist: however, it is a psychological d...
TL;DR: In this article, a complex fairy tale, Pierre Gripari's Fairy Tale Patrol, is explored and revealed to be entirely post-modernist in its approach and its techniques, and it begins where most writers of subversive fairy tales end: with a modulation of old ideologies, and ends in subversion subverted.
Abstract: Summary A complex fairy tale, Pierre Gripari's Fairy Tale Patrol is explored and revealed to be entirely postmodernist in its approach and its techniques. It begins where most writers of subversive fairy tales end: with a modulation of old ideologies, and ends in subversion subverted.
TL;DR: In this paper, a discursive analysis of D.J. Opperman's Joernaal van Jorik (1949) is presented, where the authors argue that different intertexts in the poem are related to one another hierarchically, with the result that JORIK's action within a sociopolitical context is interpreted as the "betrayal" of an ahistorical human and poetic task.
Abstract: Summary With reference to Ricoeur and Thompson's views on ideology and the criticism of ideology, this article offers a discursive analysis of D.J. Opperman's Joernaal van Jorik (1949). Key passages in the poem are analysed to show that the story of Jorik is closely linked to historical meta‐narratives about Western man, colonial history and the growth of a new nation at the Cape. The argument is that different intertexts in the poem are related to one another hierarchically, with the result that Jorik's action within a sociopolitical context is interpreted as the “betrayal” of an a‐historic human and poetic task. Finally, passages in the poem that deal with the poetic fixation of temporary phenomena are related to Opperman's claim in “Kuns is boos!”, that the complete work of art displays a correlation between its internal order as revelation of the complex essential nature of each phenomenon within a field of oppositions, and the structure of Divine creation.
TL;DR: This paper gave a poststructuralist reading of the different forms of intertextuality in John Barth's LETTERS (1979) and also focused on his destructive and/or creative recontextualisation of his earlier works in LETTs, establishing a bottomless mise-en-abyme of the already read and the already said.
Abstract: Summary The article gives a poststructuralist reading of the different forms of intertextuality in John Barth's LETTERS (1979); it also focuses on his destructive and/or creative recontextual‐isation of his earlier works in LETTERS. The novel structures itself around the theme of doubles and echoes, of repetition and reorchestration, establishing a bottomless mise‐en‐abyme of the already read and the already said. Defying notions of origin and originality the novel is constructed in a movement of auto‐intertextuality, or to use Lucien Dallenbach's phrase, autotextuality. LETTERS establishes itself as an imitation, not of reality, but as an intertextual product of the mimetic act, imitating, that is reading and writing other works. With the publication of his seventh novel John Barth has definitely arrived at a form of poststructuralist mimesis, one of the ultimate forms of intertextuality.
TL;DR: In this paper, a polemic focusing on underlying structural problems in literary studies in South Africa is presented, focusing on the canon, the linguistic bases of literature studies, postgraduate studies and career tracks, particular problems caused by our South African situation.
Abstract: Summary Most problems facing literary studies in South Africa are not remediable by ideological or theoretical means. This polemic focuses on underlying structural problems: the canon; the linguistic bases of literature studies; postgraduate studies and career tracks; particular problems caused by our South African situation; and concludes with several practical recommendations for literary studies in South Africa.
TL;DR: Vanwee die onbewuste (Charles Malan & H.P. van Coller) Uit liefde en ironie (Hans Ester & Ernst Lindenberg) Op die wyse van die taal (Rouston Gilfillan & Abraham de Vries) Lewe met woorde (Henriette Roos)
Abstract: Vanwee die onbewuste (Charles Malan & H.P. van Coller) Uit liefde en ironie (Hans Ester & Ernst Lindenberg) Op die wyse van die taal (Rouston Gilfillan & Abraham de Vries) Lewe met woorde (Henriette Roos)
TL;DR: The authors argue that relatively uninformed readings by South African students are less valid than conventionally informed Eurocentric readings, and draw conclusions about the validity of the demands university teachers of literature sometimes make on their students.
Abstract: Summary This essay briefly rehearses the argument for thinking of texts as culture‐bound phenomena which exist only in the value‐laden act of reading. It discriminates between the material world and the knowable world, and situates writing in the first and text‐production in the second. It suggests limits to the relativity of text‐production in terms of the limited cultural contexts in which it takes place. On the basis of these ideas it goes on to consider the practice of teaching literature in South Africa today and argues against the notion that relatively uninformed readings by South African students are less valid than conventionally informed Eurocentric readings. Finally it draws conclusions about the validity of the demands university teachers of literature sometimes make on their students.