Research Articles (English Studies)
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Browsing by Author "Field, Roger"
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Item �� The Agapanthi, Asphodels of the Negroes��: Life-writing, landscape and race in the South African diaries and poetry of George Seferis(Taylor & Francis, 2012) Field, RogerThe Greek poet George Seferis (1900-1971) spent 10 months in South Africa during WWII as a senior diplomatic official attached to the Greek government in exile. Drawing on his diary entries, correspondence and poetry this article challenges earlier interpretations of his work best described as a �synchronic panoptic vision� (Bhabha). Beginning with an exploration of the troubled relationship between the �glory that was Greece� and the failure of its early 20thcentury nationalist, expansionist and modernization projects, the article argues that Seferis tried to overcome alienation from landscape and a crisis of creativity in two ways: he transcribed and commented on Cavafy�s poetry, but was unable to resolve his relationship with the latter; by reaching down into the ruins of ancient Greece and back into its mythological past, through a process of negative displacement he transforms these crises into a descent to the world of the dead. Unlike Odysseus, he receives no guidance from its inhabitants, for they speak only the language of flowers and there are none. Accompanying Seferis� dual purpose use of classical mythology as national heritage and ironic device is a more problematic aspect of modernism � the relegation of Africa and its sub- Saharan inhabitants to a primitive otherness that, he felt, limited his ability to express himself, and which generated some of his greatest poetry.Item The classics, African literature, and the critics(Institute for the Study of English in Africa Rhodes University, 2017) Field, RogerFaced with the criticism that myth and epic poetry have no place in contemporary South African literature departments, there is no point in defending the material on the grounds of intrinsic worth. No text can claim this privilege. Instead, students and lecturers alike may find value and relevance for these works if they explore a range of aesthetic, conceptual, cultural, and political issues that close readings may precipitate. After analysing a fictional demonstration of how not to teach The Odyssey, the article surveys a range of writers and cultural critics who identify as African or African-American, and whose work comments directly and indirectly on the history of the meaning, purpose and value of selected ancient and classical Greek texts. This spectrum stretches from defensive cultural nationalism to an open-ended combination of the cosmopolitan and the vernacular. The article concludes that a combination of resistance and appropriation is the best way to make new and local these canonical texts.Item Coming home, coming out: Achmat Dangor's journeys through myth and Constantin Cavafy(Taylor & Francis Group, 2011) Field, RogerDespite his international status, the impact of Constantin Cavafy�s poetry on South African letters has gone largely unnoticed. This article draws attention to the range of Cavafy's, influence on the local poets, writers, critics and cultural activists, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s, but directs most of its attention to two early short stories by Achmat Dangor, �The Homecoming� and �Waiting for Leila�, and his most recent novel Bitter Fruit. In all of these works Dangor refers directly and indirectly to Cavafy�s poetry, his sexuality, his evocations of place and his use of Greek mythology, particularly in one of his most famous poems �Ithaka�. The article also addresses Dangor�s ambivalence towards Cavafy, particularly the disjuncture between Cavafy�s ironic, apolitical modernism, modernism�s appeal to Dangor, his desire to produce accessible protest literature and his need to justify recourse to the classics in Africa.