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Journal ArticleDOI

Coetzee’s Foe and Borges: An Intertextual Reading

TL;DR: Coetzee's "Foe" as mentioned in this paper is one of the most ambiguous and controversial novels written by J.M. Coetzee, and has been discussed extensively by criticism from a great variety of theoretical positions.
Abstract: Foe (1986) is one of the most ambiguous and controversial novels written by J.M. Coetzee, and has been discussed extensively by criticism from a great variety of theoretical positions. This essay p...
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Coetzee as mentioned in this paper discussed the development of his ideas about the notion of the real South or "real South", as opposed to the "mythic South", through a brief analysis of Borges's tale "El Sur" [The South] and Coetzee's novel Disgrace.
Abstract: This essay addresses some of the relations that can be traced between, on the one hand, J. M. Coetzee and Jorge Luis Borges and, on the other, the concept of the Global South and Coetzee’s recent approach to Latin America. The development of his ideas about the notion of the South or “real South,” as opposed to the “mythic South,” is discussed and illustrated through a brief analysis of Borges’s tale “El Sur” [“The South”] and Coetzee’s novel Disgrace. These two texts help us in focusing Coetzee’s rejection of the so-called “Northern Gaze,” a Westernised world-view dominated by the English language, and his preference for Spanish as the language for the initial publication of his latest books.
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors consider the temporality of J. M. Coetzee's Foe (1986) for what it suggests about the demands of authorship and copyright in the postcolonial present.
Abstract: ABSTRACT This article considers the temporality of J. M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986) for what it suggests about the demands of authorship and copyright in the postcolonial present. By close reading the novel alongside some salient commentaries and intertexts, we attend to the interval between the postcolonial novel and its early modern predecessor Robinson Crusoe (1719), and suggest how the works could be so reread as to displace the limits of proprietary authorship.
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01 Jan 1987
TL;DR: The Adaptable Man and Yellow Flowers in the Antipodean Room as discussed by the authors are two of Frame's novels that explore the relationship between the past and the present through the use of myth.
Abstract: The unifying principle behind all Janet Frame's novels is the theme of fiction building which is central to human life. In each of her novels, a distinct but related aspect of these, acknowledged and unacknowledged, fictions is examined. This serial is available in Kunapipi: http://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol9/iss2/17 C A R O L M A C L E N N A N Myths and Masks in Two of Janet Frame's Novels The unifying principle behind all Janet Frame's novels is the theme of fiction building which is central to human life. In each of her novels, a distinct but related aspect of these, acknowledged and unacknowledged, fictions is examined. Two of these positions, for example, are considered in the novels The Adaptable Man and Yellow Flowers in the Antipodean Room} In these works the biblical and classical myths of the past are shown to cast light on the fictions of the present and the future. With the development of a structured rationality, modern human beings can no longer be myth-makers in the true sense of the term. They no longer possess the 'abstracting, god-making, fluid, kaleidoscopic world view of the ancieijts'.^ For this reason writers must revisit 'the fabulous to probe beyond the phenomenological, beyond appearances, beyond randomly perceived events, beyond mere history' ^ to challenge the assumptions of ages which have passed and to set the Poetic Imagination on new journeys of exploration towards new worlds. It is this process of probing and this function of challenging, that Frame engages in through the use of myth in her fiction. People today have retreated so far from their mythic beginnings, according to Jorge Luis Borges, that in place of the myth-making tools which allowed for the apprehension of a multi-faceted world view, combined in endless variety, only one tune, endlessly repeated, remains. Having lost 'the mentality that doubts the validity of its own constructs' which enabled myth-making to occur in its fluid form, modern mankind has reduced its scope to one choric chant, which it plays and replays without variation. Frame's re-exploration of our mythic heritage demonstrates the accuracy of Borges' contention. In The Adaptable Man, Alwyn Maude, the representative twentieth century man, is engaged in unwittingly reenacting the roles of Icarus, Phaethon and Oedipus, while firmly

63 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Coetzee's Foe as discussed by the authors is defined as "those who design, uphold, live amidst, fail to dismantle, or fail to detach themselves from systemic racial dominance." And yes, the foe to which Coetzee alludes could so be described.
Abstract: ho is the foe figured as antagonist by the title of J. M. Coetzee's Foe? Of this title-authorized by a prize-winning white South African writer, who is also a linguist, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of General Literature, a "colonizer who refuses"--one might well ask the question: in what mode of intellectual seduction does this title entitle the reader to participate? The first temptation, given Coetzee's stature and the status of South African literature as contiguous with the political, is the obvious and historical one: that this "foe" will be-again-those who design, uphold, live amidst, fail to dismantle, or fail to detach themselves from systemic racial dominance. And yes, the foe to which Coetzee alludes could so be described, but ...

29 citations

MonographDOI
25 Aug 2010

29 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article argued that the critical assumption that Friday lacks a tongue results from a too-ready recourse to the established critical templates of postcolonial (and, to a lesser extent, feminist) discourse, making it difficult to entertain ideas outside of their own methodologies and assumptions.
Abstract: This article argues for a radical reassessment of J.M. Coetzee's novel Foe, claiming that the novel's current critical oeuvre duplicates rather than critiques universalizing discursive practices. In particular, it suggests that the critical assumption that Friday lacks a tongue results from a too-ready recourse to the established critical templates of postcolonial (and, to a lesser extent, feminist) discourse. These templates make it difficult to entertain ideas outside of their own methodologies and assumptions. The article recognizes that Friday may well have a tongue, and offers a provisional re-reading of Friday's silence as an act of wilful restraint and defiance rather than as the straightforward result of an act of physical mutilation.

26 citations

Trending Questions (1)
Did J.M Coetzee write any novels about afrikaans in south africa?

The paper does not mention whether J.M. Coetzee wrote any novels about Afrikaans in South Africa. The paper is about an intertextual reading of Coetzee's novel Foe and Borges.