The motif of initiation in selected works by Joseph Conrad
- Authors: Doherty, Helen
- Date: 1998
- Subjects: Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924 -- Criticism and interpretation , Initiation rites in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2220 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002263 , Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924 -- Criticism and interpretation , Initiation rites in literature
- Description: This thesis explores the archetypal theme of initiation in selected texts by Joseph Conrad. The Introduction first surveys critical attention to initiatory motifs in Conrad with the objective of demonstrating the need for an approach to the topic informed by a more formal and theorized understanding of initiation. It then offers a prima facie case for the centrality of the idea of initiation in Conrad's oeuvre, based on references culled from a range of the author's writings. Chapter One seeks to contextualise initiation by providing a history of anthropological research into and theorisations of the rite, proceeding to a description of its typical structure and functions. A detailed account is given of the most widely accepted model of initiation, Arnold van Gennep's tripartite schema. Moving on to Conrad's writing, Chapter Two draws on both his fiction and more personal writings in order to provide a provisional account of the writer's own understanding of initiation and its importance, and to offer some explanation of why Conrad should have been prompted to accord the motif such prominence in his work. Conrad's presentation and (impliedly) his understanding of initiation was never entirely consistent and underwent some change in the course of his writing career. The critical assessment of "Typhoon" in Chapter Three depicts Conrad's more optimistic conception of initiation as a rite benefitting both society, by promoting solidarity, and the individual, by advancing self-knowledge. Chapter Four introduces, via analyses of the novellas "Youth" and "The Shadow Line", that variation on the motif of initiation which is more typical of its manifestation in Conrad: the failure of individuals to complete their cycles of initiation. Chapter Five identifies those characteristics of initiation which appear to be determinative in the representations of incomplete initiation in Conrad's work. Initiation seems to play out approximately seven paradoxes; the impact of some of these is examined through analysis of the initiatory ordeals of the main protagonists in The Secret Agent. Integral to this discussion is an attempt to demonstrate the vital role which initiation plays in the healthy maintenance not only of social order but also of faith and life itself. The Conclusion summarises the more important findings of the study and indicates some directions for further, related research.
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- Date Issued: 1998
The naive moral as a possible mental attitude behind the outlaw-motif in English medieval narratives and its influence upon the structure of Thomas Lodge's "Rosalynde" and Shakespeare's "As you like it"
- Authors: Ruthrof, Horst
- Date: 1967
- Subjects: Literature and morals , English literature -- Middle English, 1100-1500 , English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2312 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013105
- Description: The idea for this thesis originated in a seminar concerned with short forms of epic literature. It is meant to throw some light on the development of rudimentary narrative technique, especially on the influence a particular motif can exert on a writer's mind and the final form of his work. Preface, p. 7.
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- Date Issued: 1967
The nature and function of setting in Jane Austen's novels
- Authors: Kelly, Patricia Marguerite Wyndham
- Date: 1979
- Subjects: Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 , English fiction , Eighteenth century , Novel , Setting , Northanger Abbey , Pride and Prejudice , Mansfield Park , Emma
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2172 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001823
- Description: This study examines the settings in Jane Austen's six novels. Chapter I introduces the topic generally, and refers briefly to Jane Austen's aims and methods of creating her settings. Short accounts are given of the emphasis put on setting in the criticism of Jane Austen's work; of the chronology of the novels; and of the use made of this aspect of the novel in eighteenth-century predecessors. Chapter II deals with the treatment of place in Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. The consideration of five novels together makes it possible to generalize about aspects of place common to all , and to discuss particulars peculiar to individual novels without, I hope, excessive repetition. The chapter may be thought disproportionately long, but this aspect of setting is most prominent and important in the delineation of character. Chapter III discusses the handling of spatial detail and time in these five novels. Chapter IV offers a fuller analysis of what is the chief concern of this thesis, the nature and function of setting, in respect of the single novel Persuasion, and attempts to draw together into a coherent whole some of the points made in Chapters II and III. Persuasion separates conveniently from the other works, not only because it was written after them, but more importantly because in it there is a new development in Jane Austen's use of setting. Some critics, notably E.M. Forster and B.C. Southam, have found startlingly new qualities in the setting of Sanditon, and, certainly, the most striking feature of the fragment is the treatment of place. But Jane Austen left off writing Sanditon in March 1817 because of illness, and the twelve chapters make up too small and unfinished a piece to be considered in the same way as the other novels. The Watsons, too, except for some references to it in Chapter I, does not come within the scope of this dissertation. Another introductory point needs to be made briefly. Where it is necessary, the distinction between Jane Austen and the omniscient narrator is observed, but generally, partly because it is clear that Jane Austen's values are close to those of the narrator, and partly because it is convenient, traditional and sensible to do so, the name "Jane Austen" is used to refer both to the actual person and to the narrator of the novels.
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- Date Issued: 1979
The nouvelles of Henry James : a phenomeno-generic approach
- Authors: Bijker, Antony Jan
- Date: 1979
- Subjects: Novelists, American -- 19th century -- Diaries , James, Henry, 1843-1916 -- Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc. , James, Henry, 1843-1916 -- Diaries
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2168 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001819
- Description: From Introduction: The present work is about the nouvelles of Henry James and not about phenomenology. That is to say that I am more concerned with James's use of the form of the nouvelle than with the illustration of a method. But, as Roland Barthes has pointed out: "How can we tell the novel from the short story, the tale from the myth, suspense drama from tragedy ... without reference to a common model? Any critical attempt to describe even the most specific, the most historically orientated narrative form implies such a model. "I Hence, because phenomenology is somewhat alien to the Anglo-American critical sensibility, I must temporarily reverse this emphasis and discuss the phenomenological "model" that underlies my investigation of James and the nouvelle form. Elsewhere phenomenological theory will take precedence only when it throws light on what is a highly elusive genre.
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- Date Issued: 1979
The past in the present: race, gender and transnationalism in Zoë Wicomb’s October and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah
- Authors: Nthunya, Manosa
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/3939 , vital:20559
- Description: This thesis will interrogate the ways in which the most recent novels of Zoë Wicomb and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (namely October and Americanah) explore race, gender and transnational issues. Wicomb and Adichie share an interest in representing the lives of people who have been historically marginalised by racial and gender classifications. This thesis will argue that historical and stereotypical ways of looking at people, particularly African people, are still prevalent in the twenty-first century. Wicomb’s interest is in the coloured community and the impact that apartheid ideology has had on it. She shows, as this thesis will argue, that notions of shame and respectability still influence the coloured community, post-1994, in the same ways they did under apartheid. Furthermore, the thesis will show that religion, which was used to justify apartheid, has been instrumental in maintaining racist and sexist norms in the coloured community in post-apartheid South Africa. Adichie’s novel, on the other hand, shows the impact of gender norms in Nigeria on her female characters. Unlike characters in Wicomb’s novel, Adichie’s mostly experience racial bias when they move to Western countries. This thesis will argue that many Western countries, which were the main beneficiaries of colonialism, continue to ‘other’ Africans, in spite of their claims to respect all human beings. Wicomb’s and Adichie’s novels depict characters that are moving between different continents, along with the impact that this has on them. In the twenty-first century, more people are moving between different spaces and, as a result, interacting with different cultures. These migrations, as this thesis will show, give rise to paradoxical circumstances: people are still being judged according to their race and gender, in spite of the freedom that these moves are supposed to lead to. Of central importance to both novels then is the question of home and belonging. Since people are moving between different continents, is it still possible to belong to one place? Is it in fact possible to belong at all? These are some of the questions that will be raised and answered in this thesis. Lastly, the thesis will look at the thematic representations of reading and writing in the novels under consideration. This is most evident in Adichie’s novel where her main character starts blogging as a way to express her dissatisfaction with the racist and sexist environment she encounters in the United States of America. The thesis will explore how Adichie examines blogging as a mode of communication that is unique to the twenty-first century. It will argue that it is perhaps through new media that historically subjugated subjects, such as African people and women, will be able to express themselves. Less hackneyed modes of communication might provide the necessary channels for those who have historically been denied voice to finally find it.
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- Date Issued: 2016
The place of man and nature in the shorter poems of William Wordsworth, 1793-1806
- Authors: Mirkin, Barry
- Date: 1974
- Subjects: Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2285 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007656 , Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Description: Introduction: This present essay is an analysis of the place of man and nature in [Wordsworth's] poetry ... I have been concerned essentially with trying to discover how Wordsworth used his two most prominent poetic subjects. I have attempted to trace Wordsworth's development from the poet of nature, to the poet of man, and finally to the poet of man and nature. What I have hoped would emerge from this essay is an understanding of Wordsworth's relationship with nature and his attitude to it in the poems. I have attempted to stress that man and humanity were not always important to Wordsworth as a poet, and that their importance does not eventually equal that of nature. For by 1807 man, the mind of man and humanity in general are very much more important and much more vital as poetic subjects than is nature. I have tried to show that Wordsworth was at different times a poet of landscape descriptions, a poet interested only in man and humanity, and finally a poet interested in man within nature.
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- Date Issued: 1974
The poetry of Guy Butler
- Authors: Van der Mescht, Hennie
- Date: 1981
- Subjects: Butler, Guy, 1918-2001 -- Criticism and interpretation , South African poetry (English)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2256 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004387 , Butler, Guy, 1918-2001 -- Criticism and interpretation , South African poetry (English)
- Description: This study of ButIer's poetry proceeds chronologically in accordance with the dates of composition of his poems. The first task has, therefore, been the compilation of a chronology of his poems. Butler rarely dates his poems; nor does he keep a diary. Yet there are several criteria which make sensible dating of his poems possible. The first is the date of publication of individual poems. Many of the poems which appear in one or more of the five collections were published earlier in army magazines, student newspapers, and the like. A work which can be traced back to one of these early sources may be assumed to have been written fairly soon before its date of publication. Another criterion is subject. It is possible to discern periods in the poet's career in relation to the subjects of his poems. The most obvious example is the War Period. Allied to subject is the criterion of theme. To use the War Period again, poems written during or immediately after the war years all treat the theme of man's dehumanisation. Both subject and theme are linked with biography. It is often possible to ascertain Butler's location from details in the poem; knowledge of his movements thus enables one to date such a poem. Butler's style is the most significant criteion. This study is based on the observation that his style develops as time passes. The Butler of the Sixties is different from the Butler of the Fifties as far as style of writing is concerned. A poem which defies dating on all other grounds cannot escape this ultimate test. Each of these criteria - date of publication, subject matter and theme linked to biography, and style - has limited reliability as a guide to dating the poems. But combined they are a meaningful instrument to assist in the structuring of a chronology whose most valuable source was the poet himself who was kind enough to search his memory for dates. The fact that Butler rewrote or revised a number of his poems several times does of course raise the question: Is the first version merely a stage in the development of the poem, or a poem in its own right? This study is based on the opinion that a poem is a poem, regardless of the number of versions which precede or follow it, provided it is a complete statement. Each version should, in fact, be regarded as representative of the poet's thoughts, feelings, and skills at the time he wrote it, and is lndependent of subsequent versions. For the purposes of this chronology, poems have been placed at the time of the experience from which they grew. This thesis does, however , take cognizance of the ehanges in style or theme later versions may reveal.
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- Date Issued: 1981
The presentation of the orphan child in eighteenth and early nineteenth century English literature in a selection of William Blake's 'Songs of innocence and experience', and in Charlotte Brontë's 'Jane Eyre', and Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights'
- Authors: Singh, Jyoti
- Date: 2010 , 2013-07-18
- Subjects: Blake, William, 1757-1827 -- Songs of innocence and of experience -- Characters -- Orphans Blake, William, 1757-1827 -- Criticism and interpretation Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855 -- Jane Eyre -- Characters -- Orphans Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855 -- Criticism and interpretation Brontë, Emily, 1818-1848 -- Wuthering Heights -- Characters -- Orphans Brontë, Emily, 1818-1848 -- Criticism and interpretation Orphans in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2267 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005628
- Description: This thesis is a study of the presentation of the orphan child in eighteenth and early nineteenth century English literature, and focuses on William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. It is concerned with assessing the extent to which the orphan children in each of the works are liberated from familial and social constraints and structures and to what end. Chapter One examines the major thematic concern of the extent to which the motif of the orphan child represents a wronged innocent, and whether this symbol can also, or alternatively, be presented as a revolutionary force that challenges society's status quo in Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. Chapter Two considers the significance of the child "lost" and "found", which forms the explicit subject of six of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience and explores the treatment of these conditions, and their differences and consequences for the children concerned. Chapter Three focuses on Charlotte Bronte's depiction of the orphan in Jane Eyre, which presents two models of the orphan child: the protagonist Jane, and Helen Burns. The chapter examines these two models and their responses to orphan-hood in a hostile world where orphans are mistreated by family and society alike. Chapter Four determines whether the orphan constitutes a subversive threat to the family in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and also explores the notion that, although orphan-hood often entails liberation from adult guardians, it also comprises vulnerability and exposure. The thesis concludes by considering the extent to which orphan-hood can involve a form of liberation from the confines of social structures, and what this liberation constitutes for each of the three authors.
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- Date Issued: 2010
The role of the artist in society as seen in the novels of Henry James
- Authors: Middleton, D F
- Date: 1963
- Subjects: James, Henry, 1843-1916 , Journalists as artists , Art and society , Fiction -- History and criticism -- 19th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2305 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012874
- Description: Henry James (1843-1916) is a curious and, by his own choice, enigmatic figure. We have a great many dates, a few letters, and little else. James's fragment of autobiography, vast as it is; is strangely unrevealing. There is a wealth of impressions as one would expect from such a writer but precious little about the man. Henry James was chary of describing his personal feelings - so much so that some doubted his ability to have any strong emotions. His autobiography, interesting as it is, is pure observation, memories of people, places and impressions, all marvellously sensitive, but little personal feeling. Intro., p. 1.
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- Date Issued: 1963
The shadowed corners of sunlit ruins: Gothic elements in twentieth century children's adventure fiction
- Authors: Wagenaar, Peter Simon
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Children's literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism , Gothic literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2250 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002293 , Children's literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism , Gothic literature
- Description: This thesis examines the way in which children's adventure fiction makes use of Gothic features, how these features have been modified for a younger audience and how these modifications have been influenced by other developments in children's and popular fiction: Chapter One sets out to define the nature of Gothic and isolate those aspects of it relevant to the proposed study. It puts forward a theory to account for the movement of Gothic trends into later children's fiction. Chapter Two examines the use of landscape, setting and atmospheric effects in Gothic and the way in which children's fiction has used similar trappings to create similar effects. Children's fiction, emphasising pleasurable excitement rather than fear has, however, muted these effects somewhat and played down the role of the supernatural, so intrinsic to Gothic. Chapter Three emphasises the Gothic's use of stereotypes, focusing on the portrayal of heroes and heroines. Those of children's fiction are portrayed very similarly to those of Gothic and the chapter compares and, on occasion, contrasts them noting, inter alia, their adherence to rigid moral codes and narrowly defined norms of masculine and feminine behaviour. Chapter Four looks at the portrayal of villains and the way in which their appearance defines them as such (as, indeed, does that of heroes and heroines). It examines in some detail their relationship to and interaction with the heroes and heroines, noting, for example, the 'pseudo-parental' role of villains who are characteristically older and in socially approved positions to exert power over heroes and heroines. The Conclusion addresses the fantasy aspect of these novels,referred to several times in passing in the course of earlier chapters, and comments on how the features detailed in Chapters Two, Three and Four all operate within the conventions of a fantasy.
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- Date Issued: 1991
The unstable earth landscape and language in Patrick White's Voss, Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and David Malouf's An Imaginary Life
- Authors: Lee, Deva
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: White, Patrick, 1912-1990. Voss Ondaatje, Michael, 1943- The English patient Malouf, David, 1934- An imaginary life Language and languages in literature English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2238 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002281
- Description: This thesis argues that Patrick White’s Voss, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient and David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life depict landscape in a manner that reveals the inadequacies of imperial epistemological discourses and the rationalist model of subjectivity which enables them. The study demonstrates that these novels all emphasise the instabilities inherent in imperial epistemology. White, Ondaatje and Malouf chart their protagonists’ inability to comprehend and document the landscapes they encounter, and the ways in which this failure calls into question their subjectivity and the epistemologies that underpin it. One of the principal contentions of the study, then, is that the novels under consideration deploy a postmodern aesthetic of the sublime to undermine colonial discourses. The first chapter of the thesis outlines the postcolonial and poststructural theory that informs the readings in the later chapters. Chapter Two analyses White’s representation of subjectivity, imperial discourse and the Outback in Voss. The third chapter examines Ondaatje’s depiction of the Sahara Desert in The English Patient, and focuses on his concern with the ways in which language and cartographic discourse influence the subject’s perception of the natural world. Chapter Four investigates the representation of landscape, language and subjectivity in Malouf’s An Imaginary Life. Finally, then, this study argues that literature’s unique ability to acknowledge alterity enables it to serve as an effective tool for critiquing colonial discourses.
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- Date Issued: 2011
The use of certain myths in the work of T.S. Eliot
- Authors: Hall, R F
- Date: 1964
- Subjects: Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965 -- Knowledge -- Literature , Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965 -- Criticism and interpretation , Mythology in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2300 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012129 , Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965 -- Knowledge -- Literature , Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965 -- Criticism and interpretation , Mythology in literature
- Description: T.S. Eliot's statement that myth is an ordering device in literature 'is constantly belied by his use of myth in his own poems'. This is the belief of the American critic Richard Chase, noted for his work on myths and mythological themes in English and American literature. Whether or not Chase is right must emerge from the chapters which follow. The purpose will be to examine the effects of the use of myths and mythological patterns on Eliot's work in general, rather than to annotate individual mythological allusions. Simply to recognise an allusion is to raise a question, not to answer one: for we have then to decide what the writer hope to achieve by its use, and whether or not he has succeeded. Unless they lead on to such questions, lists of sources contribute little to our understanding of a work. Far more important than incidental allusions are the mythological themes and patterns on the larger scale, which reveal themselves in recurrent allusions and in basic patterns of symbolism. Again, merely to recognise such a pattern is inadequate: in every case a discovery of its function in both the poem's (or play's) structure and the poet's technique should be our main concern. ... Eliot himself has made it clear that in his case the use of myths and mythological patterns has often been a fully conscious, even self-conscious process. Therefore we may apply to his work the questions mention by Norman: what functions the myths fulfil within individual works; and why Eliot uses them in the first place. This last question leads us back to a more fundamental one; why do many writers, especially modern ones, use myths 'in the first place'? The problem involves discussion of the relation between myths and literature and of the nature of myths themselves, this forms the material of the first chapter. The other chapters will deal with some of Eliot's works, attempting to explain and analyse his use of myths in them, and to illustrate its importance in each case.
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- Date Issued: 1964
The use of the female voice in three novels by J.M. Coetzee
- Authors: Graham, Lucy Valerie
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Coetzee, J. M., 1940- -- Criticism and interpretation , Coetzee, J. M., 1940- Foe , Coetzee, J. M., 1940- In the heart of the country , Coetzee, J. M., 1940- Age Of Iron , Women in literature , Voice in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2224 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002267 , Coetzee, J. M., 1940- -- Criticism and interpretation , Coetzee, J. M., 1940- Foe , Coetzee, J. M., 1940- In the heart of the country , Coetzee, J. M., 1940- Age Of Iron , Women in literature , Voice in literature
- Description: This study investigates J.M. Coetzee's use of the female voice in In the Heart of the Country, Foe and Age of Iron, and is based on the premise that Coetzee's position as a male author using a female voice is important for readings of these novels. Although the implications of Coetzee's strategy are examined against the theoretical background of feminist or gender-related discourses, this study does not attempt to claim Coetzee for feminism, nor to prove him a misogynist. Instead, it focuses on the specific positional and narrative possibilities afforded by Coetzee's use of a female voice. Chapter One comments on the fact that Coetzee's strategy of "textual cross-dressing" has not been given much critical attention in the past, observing that research on South African literature has largely been limited to studies of racial and colonial problematics. This introductory chapter mentions that the different female narrators in Coetzee's novels articulate aspects of a discourse in crisis, resulting in profound ambivalence in their representation. Chapter Two observes that the female voices in Coetzee's novels invoke the textual illusion of a speaking/writing female body, and explains that this is useful in expressing aspects of what Coetzee refers to as the suffering body. Although Coetzee appropriates a female narrative position and employs certain subversive textual elements associated with "the feminine", attempts made by certain critics to label Coetzee's writing as ecriture feminine are rejected as highly problematic. Instead, the study contends that the femaleness of the narrators relative to "masculine" discursive power enables Coetzee to perform a critique of power "from a position of weakness". Furthermore, the presence of certain "feminine" elements within these narrators suggests Coetzee's affiliation with characteristics derided within phallocratic discourses, and becomes a strategic means of fictive self-positioning, of figuring his own position as a dissident. Chapter Three is a study of In the Heart of the Country, and proposes that Magda is represented as a typical nineteenth century hysteric. Her hystericized narrative is linked to certain avant-garde narratives, such as the nouveau roman and "New Wave" cinematography, both cited by Coetzee as influences on the novel. Furthermore, the novel provides insight into the ambiguous role of the hysteric and dramatises the position of the dissident: on a discursive level Magda's narrative is subversive, and yet in terms of social "reality" her revolt is ineffectual. Chapter Four addresses the issue of author-ity in Foe, and draws on Coetzee's affiliation with Susan Barton, the struggling authoress, whose narrative reveals the levels of power and authority operating within, novelistic discourse when she asks "Who ,is speaking me?". The study observes that Foe also performs a critique of the power-seeking project of liberal feminism, as the novel sets Susan's quest for authorship against the background of a more radical "otherness", that of Friday. Chapter Five asserts that Age of Iron exploits the ethical possibilities of a maternal discourse. Tracing parallels between images of motherhood in psychoanalytic feminism and in Age of Iron, this chapter argues that Kristeva's theory of abjection is relevant for a reading of Elizabeth Curren's position as a mother who has cancer. The childbirth metaphor as it appears in Age- of Iron becomes an alternative and profoundly ethical way of figuring the process of novel writing.
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- Date Issued: 1997
The voice of protest in English poetry : with special reference to poets of the first three decades of the twentieth century
- Authors: Verschoor, Edith N E
- Date: 1973
- Subjects: Protest poetry, English -- History and criticism , English poetry -- History and criticism , English poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2277 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007270
- Description: Poetry, like every other form of art, reflects the values of the artist himself as well as the values of the age in which he lives. "I would say that the poet may write about anything provided that the thing matters to him to start with, for then it will bring with it into the poem the intellectual or moral significance which it has for him in life". (Louis MacNeice). This thesis sets out to uncover some of the things which, in the long pageant of English poetry, have "mattered" to poets to such an extent that they have felt compelled to voice their protest against any violation of such things perceived by them in life around them. The basic study has been a search for the different kinds of values and codes of conduct, in social, political and moral spheres, which have been unacceptable to some of the major poets in English, and to examine particularly the manner and the tone of voice in which each one has expressed his disapproval. "Poetry was the mental rattle that awakened the attention of intellect in the infancy of civil society." (T.L.Peacock). English poets who have protested against whatever they regarded as worthy of protest have continued up to the maturity of civil society to be rattles (some soft and mellow, others loud and harsh), to awaken both the intellect and the conscience of their readers.
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- Date Issued: 1973
Thematic integrity in filmic versions of E.M. Forster's novels
- Authors: Hayes, Kalmia Joy
- Date: 1998
- Subjects: Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1970. Passage to India , Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1978. Where Angels Fear To Tread , Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1978. Howards End , Sturridge, Charles , Merchant Ivory Productions , Lean, David, 1908-1991 , Film adaptations , Motion pictures -- Plots, themes, etc
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2218 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002261 , Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1970. Passage to India , Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1978. Where Angels Fear To Tread , Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1978. Howards End , Sturridge, Charles , Merchant Ivory Productions , Lean, David, 1908-1991 , Film adaptations , Motion pictures -- Plots, themes, etc
- Description: This study discusses the extent to which Charles Sturridge's Where Angels Fear to Tread, Merchant Ivory's Howards End, and David Lean's A Passage to India have aimed at, and succeeded in, exploring the thematic concerns of E.M. Forster's novels. A brief introductory chapter explains the motivation behind this research, and the choice of critical methodologies used. It concludes with an outline of some of the problems confronting film-makers wishing to explore the concerns of novels. The first chapter, which is devoted to Where Angels Fear to Tread, reveals that while Sturridge is "faithful" to Forster's novel at a superficial level, basing most of his scenes on, and taking most of his dialogue directly from, the text, he does not explore Forster's themes. The facility with which film tells stories proves to be a treacherous trap for Sturridge. His version of Where Angels Fear to Tread is totally vacuous because he failed to develop anything beyond the story -- Forster's "tapeworm" of time (Aspects of the NoyeI41). The causality that Forster calls plot seemed beyond Sturridge's comprehension, leaving his film little more than an endless progression of "and then[s]" (Forster, Aspects 87). Characters are not given their full weight; symbols and leitmotifs are overlooked; the allegorical elements he did recognize, he failed to understand, and thus misplaced, so that the epiphanic moments of the novel are lost. There is no possibility of thematic concerns emerging from a film in which plot, characterization, symbol and rhythm are ignored. Sturridge's apparent inability to understand his source is in stark contrast to Merchant Ivory's sensitivity to Howards End, and their evident familiarity with literary criticism on the work. Chapter two explores the way in which their adaptation smooths out putative flaws in characterization and plot, and uses filmic rhythm and camera work to suggest comments made by the novel's narrator. Almost wholly successful in developing the novel's themes, Merchant Ivory's Howards End does not, however, successfully explore the spiritual dimensions of Forster's novel. Film is a medium capable of great subtlety, but its strength lies in its ability to capture the seen; the unseen tends to evade its grasp. It is in dealing with the unseen that Lean's A Passage to India misses greatness, for in virtually every other respect his version of Forster's masterpiece is superb. Chapter three explores Lean's creative and flexible approach to adaptation, his acute sensitivity to the differing demands of film and novel, and his confident technical mastery. It also explores, however, the emptiness at the heart of his film, an emptiness that is the result of his trivialization of the spiritual concerns of Forster's novel.
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- Date Issued: 1998
Toni Morrison and the literary canon whiteness, blackness, and the construction of racial identity
- Authors: Phiri, Aretha
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Morrison, Toni -- Criticism and interpretation Morrison, Toni. Playing in the dark Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896. Uncle Tom's cabin Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892. Leaves of grass Twain, Mark, 1835-1910. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn African Americans in literature Race in literature Race relations in literature American literature -- White authors -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2212 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002255
- Description: Toni Morrison, in Playing in the Dark, observes the pervasive silence that surrounds race in nineteenth-century canonical literature. Observing the ways in which the “Africanist” African-American presence pervades this literature, Morrison has called for an investigation of the ways in which whiteness operates in American canonical literature. This thesis takes up that challenge. In the first section, from Chapters One through Three, I explore how whiteness operates through the representation of the African-American figure in the works of three eminent nineteenth-century American writers, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain. The texts studied in this regard are: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Leaves of Grass, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This section is not concerned with whether these texts constitute racist literature but with the ways in which the study of race, particularly whiteness, reveals the contradictions and insecurities that attend (white American) identity. As such, Morrison’s own fiction, written in response to white historical representations of African-Americans also deserves attention. The second section of this thesis focuses on Morrison’s attempt to produce an authentically “black” literature. Here I look at two of Morrison’s least studied but arguably most contentious novels particularly because of what they reveal of Morrison’s complex position on race. In Chapter Four I focus on Tar Baby and argue that this novel reveals Morrison’s somewhat essentialist position on blackness and racial, cultural, and gendered identity, particularly as this pertains to responsibilities she places on the black woman as culture-bearer. In Chapter Five I argue that Paradise, while taking a particularly challenging position on blackness, reveals Morrison’s evolving position on race, particularly her concern with the destructive nature of internalized racism. This thesis concludes that while racial identities have very real material consequences, whiteness and blackness are ideological and social constructs which, because of their constructedness, are fallible and perpetually under revision.
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- Date Issued: 2009
Tragic themes in the plays of Arthur Miller
- Authors: Wortham, Christopher John
- Date: 1968
- Subjects: Miller, Arthur, 1915-2005 , American drama (Tragedy) -- History and criticism -- 20th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2306 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012875
- Description: Aeschylus wrote that we learn through suffering. Whether one agrees with this statement or not, one has to recognise that it has given rise to a great deal of discussion about tragedy. What kind of suffering we can associate with tragedy will be considered in the chapters which follow. The more immediate concern is the business of learning. Man can learn a good deal about the problems that confront him, but he cannot learn all there is to know about anything. His knowledge is relative. He may postulate the absolute, but it is beyond the grasp of the human mind to perceive the absolute in its absoluteness. The relativist can avoid an epistemological quagmire by simply accepting that a relativistic attitude is only of relative value; he has the intellectual humility to recognise that whatever he thinks or says is likely to reveal only part of the truth. Arthur Miller has suggested that the best serious literature is concerned with the absolute, in that he criticises one of his contemporary playwrights for writing a work which "fails to extend itself so as to open up ultimate causes". Chap. 1, p. 1.
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- Date Issued: 1968
Transcendence in Patrick White: the imagery of the Tree of Man and Voss
- Authors: Van Niekerk, Timothy
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: White, Patrick, 1912-1990. Tree of man , White, Patrick, 1912-1990. Voss
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2254 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004269 , White, Patrick, 1912-1990. Tree of man , White, Patrick, 1912-1990. Voss
- Description: This study represents an exploration of White's concept of transcendence in The Tree of Man and Voss by means of a detailed account of some of the key patterns of imagery deployed in these novels. White's imagery is a key mode of expression in his work, not simply manifesting in overarching religious symbols and framing structures but figuring in constantly modulated tropes continuous with the narrative, as well as in minor, but no less significant images occasionally susceptible to etymological or onomastic reading. While no attempt is made to provide an exhaustive exploration of the tropes at work in these novels, a sufficient range of material is covered, and its metaphoric density adequately penetrated, to highlight and explore a fundamental concern in White's work with a paradoxical unity underlying the dualities inherent in temporal existence. A useful way of approaching his fiction is to view the perpetual modulations of his imagery as the dramatisation of an enantiodromia or play of opposites, in which the conflicts of duality are elaborated and paradoxically - though typically only momentarily - resolved. This resolution or coincidence of opposites is a significant feature of his notion of transcendence as well as his depictions of illuminatory experience, and in this respect White's metaphysics share an essential characteristic, not only of Christianity, but a range of religious and mythological systems concerned with expressing a transcendent reality. Despite these analogies, however, the novels at hand are not so tightly bound to Christian, or any other, meaning-making systems so as to constitute sustained allegories, and hence this study does not aim to chart a series of correspondences between White's images and biblical or mythological symbols. Indeed, a criticism often levelled at White - with The Tree of Man and Voss typically figuring in support of this claim - is that he too rigidly imposes religious frameworks on his work. An extension of this view is formulated in the Jungian critique of White's corpus offered by David Tacey, who argues that White's conception of transcendence is consistently challenged by the archetypal significance of the images he employs, which point to a contrary process of psycho-spiritual regression in his protagonists. In a fundamentally text-based approach, this study explores White's use of imagery while taking biblical resonances and archetypal interpretations into account, and suggests that, though White's images are highly allusive, they are not merely agents of imported Christian, or other traditional symbolic values. Nor do they undermine the authenticity of his depiction of the spirituality of his protagonists, or obtrude on the fabric of the narrative. Instead, the range of his images are - though often ambivalent - integral to a network of mercurial tropes which articulate and constantly evaluate a notion of transcendence through inflections and oscillations rather than equations of meaning.
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- Date Issued: 2003
Transcribing tales, creating cultural identities an analysis of selected written english texts of Xhosa folktales
- Authors: Naidu, Sam
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Tales -- South Africa , Folklore -- South Africa , Xhosa literature -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2187 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002229 , https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9456-8657 , Tales -- South Africa , Folklore -- South Africa , Xhosa literature -- History and criticism
- Description: This thesis maps a marriage of postcolonial theory and folklore studies. The progeny of this marriage is an analytic tool which can suitably and effectively tackle the subject of written folktale texts, whether they be part of a nineteenth century colonialist discourse, or a twenty-first century nationalist discourse. First, GM Theal's collection of folktale texts, Kaffir Folklore (1882), is analysed as part of his specific colonialist discourse. Theal formulated for himself, and for the Xhosa peoples, identities which consolidated the colonialisms he supported. I argue that these folktale texts, although a part of Theal's colonialist discourse, are hybrid, containing the voices of both coloniser and colonised. Second, the position of contemporary written folktales in a neo-colonialist and >new nationalist discourse=, is examined. The optimistic belief of scholars and authors, that folktales are a means of bridging cultural gaps, is questioned. Finally, it is shown that authors of folktale texts can synthesise diverse literary traditions in a hybrid artform. This synthesis, to some extent, embodies the >new nationalist= aim of a unified national cultural identity in South Africa. The central value of recognising the role of folktale texts in colonialist and nationalist discourses lies in the awareness that this type of literary activity in South Africa is a cross-cultural practice. The confluence of voices which constitutes these folktale texts, reveals that our stories are intertwined. In the past, the discourses of colonialism and apartheid controlled the formation of the diverse and hierarchised cultural identities of South Africa. But this is not to say that alternative stories of self-fashioning and cultural self-determination did not exist. In the folktale texts of writers such as Mhlope, Jordan, and even in Theal's colonial collection, different mediums, literary heritages and styles converge to create narratives which speak of cross-cultural interaction and the empowerment of the black voice. In post-apartheid South Africa, there is even greater opportunity to reshape stories, to recreate selves, and to redefine intercultural relations. This thesis has outlined how some of those stories, which use folktale texts as their central trope, are constructed and commodified. Not only do these reinvented folktale texts embody the heterogeneous cultural influences of South Africa, they also have the potential to promote, first, the understanding of cultural differences, and second, the acceptance of the notion of cultural hybridity in our society.
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- Date Issued: 2000
Translating Heaney: a study of Sweeney astray, The cure at Troy, and Beowulf
- Authors: Van der Woude, Peter William
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Heaney, Seamus, 1939- Criticism and interpretation Heaney, Seamus, 1939- Sweeney astray Sophocles. Philoctetes -- Translations History and criticism Beowulf -- Translations History and criticism Buile Suibhne Geilt Buile Suibhne Geilt -- Translations History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2213 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002256
- Description: This thesis examines Seamus Heaney’s approach to translation with specific reference to Sweeney Astray, The Cure at Troy, and Beowulf. An assessment of Heaney’s translations, and the ways in which they relate to his poetry, is essential to an understanding of his work as a poet. This thesis demonstrates the centrality of translation to Heaney’s oeuvre as an effective means to comment on his Northern Irish socio-political context without producing political propaganda. Translation is a valuable means for Heaney to elucidate his contemporary experience by considering it in terms of the recorded past captured within his chosen translations. Instead of comparing the three translations with their original texts, this thesis concentrates on Heaney’s translations as a continuation of his own creative work and as catalysts for further poetry. The translations are explored in chronological order to allow a sense of Heaney’s development as a translator and his efforts to remain critically attuned to the Northern Irish political situation. The first chapter examines Heaney’s translation of the Gaelic poem Buile Suibhne, which is published as Sweeney Astray. In this first major act of translation Heaney recognises the political role that translation is able to play. He draws attention to the protagonist’s sense of cultural ease in both Britain and Ireland, which he argues is exemplary for the people of Ulster and renders the narrative particularly accessible to a Northern Irish readership due to his anglicisation of the text, which is intended as a reminder to both Catholics and Protestants of their shared identity as Irishmen. The second chapter focuses on Heaney’s translation of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, entitled The Cure at Troy. Heaney’s translation contextualises the Ancient Greek concern for personal integrity in the face of political necessity, a situation relevant to his own complex relationship with Northern Irish politics. His alterations to the text accentuate the positive aspects of the play, suggesting the very real possibility of social change within the seemingly constant violence of Northern Ireland. The third chapter explores Heaney’s engagement with the Anglo-Saxon epic poem, Beowulf, as a means of coming to terms with the complex history of Irish colonisation through language. This chapter assesses Heaney’s incorporation of Irish dialectal words into his translation, which lend the poem political weight, and yet prove to be contextually appropriate, rendering Heaney’s Beowulf a masterpiece of readability and subtle political commentary.
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- Date Issued: 2007