Cultivating Grahamstown: Nathaniel Merriman, Shakespeare and Books
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:7033 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007367
- Description: In 1857, Archdeacon Nathaniel Merriman delivered two public lectures on Shakespeare under the auspices of the “General Institute” of Grahamstown. The first, “On the Study of Shakspeare”, was given on 2 September and “Shakspeare, As Bearing on English History” two months later, on Friday 6 November. This article sets out to place the lectures in their local context, by providing a brief sketch of literary and cultural life in the town, in which the appreciation of Shakespeare played no small part.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:7033 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007367
- Description: In 1857, Archdeacon Nathaniel Merriman delivered two public lectures on Shakespeare under the auspices of the “General Institute” of Grahamstown. The first, “On the Study of Shakspeare”, was given on 2 September and “Shakspeare, As Bearing on English History” two months later, on Friday 6 November. This article sets out to place the lectures in their local context, by providing a brief sketch of literary and cultural life in the town, in which the appreciation of Shakespeare played no small part.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
The oppression of isiXhosa literature and the irony of transformation
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:6334 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012398 , https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5481-6748
- Description: his article will contend that the natural development of isiXhosa orature and literature, as with all South African indigenous literatures, ended with the arrival of European missionaries in 1799. The apartheid policy then exacerbated the destructive approaches to indigenous languages already in operation as it designated separate language boards for language development. These boards operated in the 'homelands' and were generally conservative, corrupt and oppressive. The manuscripts they recommended to publishers were for the most part only those that could be prescribed in schools. This resulted in the publishing of material that was parochial, apolitical and neutral in style. Often the material prescribed was written by the board members themselves. For instance, Lennox Sebe, erstwhile President of the Ciskei, produced an isiXhosa book entitled Ucamngco, for prescription, though it seems to contain little original material. Laurence Wright has shown that the opposite was true for English literature written by black South Africans and published internationally in the 1970s, at the height of apartheid (2004, 47). He describes, for instance, how one of the manuscript readers of Peteni's seminal novel, Hill of Fools (1976), rejected it as irrelevant and unsuitable for publication precisely because it made no reference to South Africa's turbulent politics. Throughout this period, however, only apolitical novels were published in the indigenous languages.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:6334 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012398 , https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5481-6748
- Description: his article will contend that the natural development of isiXhosa orature and literature, as with all South African indigenous literatures, ended with the arrival of European missionaries in 1799. The apartheid policy then exacerbated the destructive approaches to indigenous languages already in operation as it designated separate language boards for language development. These boards operated in the 'homelands' and were generally conservative, corrupt and oppressive. The manuscripts they recommended to publishers were for the most part only those that could be prescribed in schools. This resulted in the publishing of material that was parochial, apolitical and neutral in style. Often the material prescribed was written by the board members themselves. For instance, Lennox Sebe, erstwhile President of the Ciskei, produced an isiXhosa book entitled Ucamngco, for prescription, though it seems to contain little original material. Laurence Wright has shown that the opposite was true for English literature written by black South Africans and published internationally in the 1970s, at the height of apartheid (2004, 47). He describes, for instance, how one of the manuscript readers of Peteni's seminal novel, Hill of Fools (1976), rejected it as irrelevant and unsuitable for publication precisely because it made no reference to South Africa's turbulent politics. Throughout this period, however, only apolitical novels were published in the indigenous languages.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Enigmatic trace fossils from the Aeolian lower Jurassic Clarens formation, Southern Africa
- Authors: Bordy, Emese M
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6730 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007538
- Description: The Lower Jurassic aeolienites of the Clarens Formation in southern Africa contain unique sedimentary structures that are unlikely to be non-biogenic. They are also unlike any known modern or ancient trace fossils. Here, some nigmatic, horizontal,regularly-oriented sedimentary structures are described, which occur in association with other trace fossils as well as features that were previously nterpreted as nests of termites or termite-like ancient social nsects. These spectacular structures are exposed in enormous profusion as straight, ~5 mm cylinders with strong compass orientation, in parallel alignment with one another and to ancient horizontal bedding planes. Their fill is identical to that of the host rock: clean, well-sorted, very fine- to finegrained quartz-arenite. In cross-section, each structure is defined by a subtle, ~0.1 mm thin, concentric gap. Without comparable modern biogenic structures, the biological origin of the structures is uncertain. Their strong compass orientations are, however, also inconsistent with an inorganic origin, even though they may resemble pipey concretions generated by flowing groundwater. Nonetheless, this paper, based on spatiotemporal distribution patterns of the oriented structures, their locally high abundance and association with obvious trace fossils, as well as other sedimentological and palaeontological lines of evidence, argues that the compass structures may be products of ancient social invertebrates living in a resource-limited, semi-arid to arid environment. Furthermore, the compass structures as well as the accompanying structures of the predominantly aeolian Clarens Formation collectively imply the recurrence of favourable ecological parameters (e.g., moist ubstrates) related to episodic climate fluctuations in the Early Jurassic of southern Pangaea (i.e., southern Gondwana).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Bordy, Emese M
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6730 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007538
- Description: The Lower Jurassic aeolienites of the Clarens Formation in southern Africa contain unique sedimentary structures that are unlikely to be non-biogenic. They are also unlike any known modern or ancient trace fossils. Here, some nigmatic, horizontal,regularly-oriented sedimentary structures are described, which occur in association with other trace fossils as well as features that were previously nterpreted as nests of termites or termite-like ancient social nsects. These spectacular structures are exposed in enormous profusion as straight, ~5 mm cylinders with strong compass orientation, in parallel alignment with one another and to ancient horizontal bedding planes. Their fill is identical to that of the host rock: clean, well-sorted, very fine- to finegrained quartz-arenite. In cross-section, each structure is defined by a subtle, ~0.1 mm thin, concentric gap. Without comparable modern biogenic structures, the biological origin of the structures is uncertain. Their strong compass orientations are, however, also inconsistent with an inorganic origin, even though they may resemble pipey concretions generated by flowing groundwater. Nonetheless, this paper, based on spatiotemporal distribution patterns of the oriented structures, their locally high abundance and association with obvious trace fossils, as well as other sedimentological and palaeontological lines of evidence, argues that the compass structures may be products of ancient social invertebrates living in a resource-limited, semi-arid to arid environment. Furthermore, the compass structures as well as the accompanying structures of the predominantly aeolian Clarens Formation collectively imply the recurrence of favourable ecological parameters (e.g., moist ubstrates) related to episodic climate fluctuations in the Early Jurassic of southern Pangaea (i.e., southern Gondwana).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
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