UWCScholar :: Browsing by Author "Field, Roger"

Browsing by Author "Field, Roger"

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�� 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, Roger
The 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.
Alex La Guma’s short stories in relation to A Walk in the Night: A socio-political and literary analysis
(University of the Western Cape, 2005) Ntaganira, Vincent; Field, Roger; Dept. of English; Faculty of Arts
The minithesis provides a detailed socio-political and literary analysis of A Walk in the Night: Seven stories from the streets of Cape Town. It investigates and systematically compares each short story to the novella or compares the short stories with each other and shows their thematic and formal similarities and differences. The results of the study will provide a valuable contribution to the study of African literature. It will complete what other critics have left out. No one among La Guma’s scholars has analysed the anthology as a single entity; most critics have analysed the novella and have not analysed the accompanying short stories. As a result, the relationships between the novella and the short stories are unknown to many readers. I argue that this needs to be corrected. In order to situate the thesis, the study also presents a selected list of critics who have studied the novella and the short stories, and indicates their achievements and their shortcomings. The study will be carried out from a Marxist perspective, and will explore the use of realist and naturalist literary styles. Marxism will provide the socio-political and theoretical framework. Naturalism and realism are the two main literary genres that occur in the anthology.
The classics, African literature, and the critics
(Institute for the Study of English in Africa Rhodes University, 2017) Field, Roger
Faced 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.
Coming home, coming out: Achmat Dangor's journeys through myth and Constantin Cavafy
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2011) Field, Roger
Despite 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.
Out of place: a re-evaluation of the poetry of Dennis Brutus
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) August, Tyrone Russel; Field, Roger
The main aim of my dissertation is to re-evaluate the poetry of the South African writer Dennis Brutus (1924-2009). Even though he produced a substantial number of poems over more than half a century, his work continues to receive limited attention in South African literary criticism. One of the main reasons is the perception that he was primarily a political activist who wrote poetry with the purpose of advancing his political objectives. However, even though he wrote extensively on political issues, his themes include a wide range of subjects. In addition, he paid close attention to the craft of poetry. Due to the tendency to foreground the political content of his writing, the complexity and diversity in the language and style of his poetry are seldom examined. Refocusing attention on the aesthetic features of his work is a key aspect of my dissertation. I also contend that, despite the political content of much of his poetry, Brutus remains, first and foremost, a writer of lyric poetry. What makes his writing different from the conventional lyric, though, is his quest to find ways of using a very personal mode of poetic expression to make statements on public matters. How he pursues this objective is a major focus of my dissertation. I examine various literary influences on his writing as well. Brutus initially drew extensively on the traditional English literary canon he was taught at school and at university. Later, in order to communicate more directly and accessibly, he drew on traditional Chinese poetry. For the same reason, he subsequently wrote some poems with the specific objective of public performance. My re-evaluation of Brutus� poetry is primarily based on a contextual reading of his work. Such an approach is based on the notion that the context within which a writer lives and writes is vital in order to gain a more informed understanding of his or her writing. In addition, my dissertation draws on Homi K. Bhabha�s elaboration of Freud�s notion of the �unheimlich� (�unhomely�) to examine Brutus� life and poetry. Bhabha pays particular attention to the sense of estrangement which is embedded in Freud�s theory. His elaboration provides an important conceptual tool with which to analyse Brutus� writing, and makes it possible to identify links among his various poetic personae and to identify common features in the themes of his poetry. I argue that Brutus� unhomelineness lies at the centre of his poetic personae � the troubadour, the exile and the cosmopolitan � and of most of the themes of his poetry. Another important focus of my dissertation is how Brutus responds to this state of unhomeliness. The central aspect of my argument is that he redefines his sense of self during different periods of his life: he evolves from initially being a patriot in South Africa into a rooted cosmopolitan in exile; he then, finally, becomes a rootless cosmopolitan. I explore the reasons behind this evolution, and contend that these shifts were essentially attempts to regain agency over his life.
Shadows, faces and echoes of an African war: The Rhodesian bush war through the eyes of Chas Lotter � soldier poet
(University of the Western Cape, 2016) Hagemann, Michael Eric; Field, Roger
Poetry that is rooted in that most extreme of human experiences, war, continues to grip the public imagination. When the poetry under scrutiny comes from the "losing side" in a colonial war of liberation, important moral and ethical questions arise. In this thesis, I examine the published and unpublished works of Chas Lotter, a soldier who fought in the Rhodesian Army during the Zimbabwean liberation war (1965- 1980). In investigating Lotter's artistic record of this war, I propose that a powerful, socially embedded Rhodesian national mythology was a catalyst for acceptance of, and participation in, the Rhodesian regime's ideological and military aims. A variety of postcolonial theoretical approaches will be used to explore the range of thematic concerns that emerge and to unpack the dilemmas experienced by a soldier-poet who took part in that conflict. Trauma theory, too, will be drawn upon to critically respond to the personal impact that participation in organized violence has upon combatants and non-combatants alike. The production and marketing of this cultural record will also be examined and in the conclusion, I speculate on the changes modern technology and evolving social mores may have on future developments in war literature. Finally, I conclude my case for installing the challenging work of this often conflicted and contradictory soldier-poet as a necessary adjunct to the established canon of Zimbabwean Chimurenga writing.
Taboo topics in fiction: The case of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Brevis, Chad; Field, Roger
An important aspect of my thesis is the discussion of the various narrators in the novel; Vladimir Nabokov, John Ray Jnr. and Humbert Humbert. The novel, or Humbert’s memoirs, is only published after Lolita has died in order to preserve her dignity. John Ray Jnr. is the psychologist who is charged with editing Humbert's memoirs to ensure that no lewd details are published. This brings problems of their own, as we find that John Ray Jnr. has clear moral perceptions of Humbert as a person. This effectively creates a fiction within a fiction, which is already set in the fictitious genre of the novel. Vladimir Nabokov arguably informs the novel with his own ethics and ethos. This interrogates the reliability of the narrators and calls into question the truth-value of fiction and the inappropriateness of the law to ban fiction that discusses taboo issues. The main aim of my thesis is to discredit Humbert as a reliable narrator and character by analysing the taboo issues of paedophilia, incest, rape and murder. This will be done in order to show how Nabokov proposes alternative morals by deconstructing traditional morality using taboo topics in fiction

Browsing by Author "Field, Roger"

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