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The idea we have of a literary tradition is not a matter of fixity. In a living language the canon is continually being added to and therefore, to the extent that the tradition is present to us and simultaneous with us, liable to be changed by new work. Fresh contributions, innovative of necessity, realign our picture of the past and, above all, redefine it. Writers, to paraphrase Jorge Luis Borges, create their own ancestors. So it is that a hitherto peripheral writer or a form considered "low" may be reassessed and enlisted in the perpetual struggle with narrative forms. Just this is the case of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) whose experimental transformations of a number of genres of fiction have an almost exemplary status at the present time. Meanwhile, Vladimir Nabokov's lectures on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Borges' ubiquitous remarks on the Scots writers illuminate both his work and theirs. ' He is now an ancestor and requires the consideration of all who are interested in the continuing life of storytelling. From the point of view of literary criticism, the shifting tradition consists first and foremost only of literary works and not of a philosophy of literary form or of any ideas originating outside the realm of literature itself. The language which criticism uses to speak about the novel, for example, will derive from specific novels. At the same time it is engaged in selecting those very novels which will constitute its values. The language the critic uses to describe some kinds of fiction can seem absolute, when in actual fact it is simply the case that his language is suitable for describing one kind and is inappropriate to another.

M.A. (Fine Arts) / The predominant artistic motif in the art of Irma Stern is the fecale figure. Stern prefers certain "types" of females in her art - that of young girls, of adolescents, of female workers, of nudes, of brides, of mature women and of mothers. This dissertation aims to show that these different motifs are not isolated, but rather interrelated to elicit a holistic symbolic syntax in the art of Stern. The symbolic relevance is extended with regard to her personalized world and with regard to the world around her. In Chapter 1 the female figure is analysed in terms of its forma7 qualities and the types of motifs in the art of Stern are juxtaposed with the characteristic types of motif preferred by the German Expressionists. It is noted that the female figure in the art of Stern is closely associated with the cultivation of the land - so much so that a cycle emerges which includes such activities as planting, bearing fruit and harvestirg. Other motifs such as young girls, adolescents and mature women indicate a cycle in the physiological as well as psychic development of the female. In Chapter 2 the symbolic meaning of the motifs is discussed in terms of the cultivation cycle of the land and the cycle tracing the deveThpment of the female. A corollary is also established between the female's role in the cultivation of the land and the female's own development. Chapter 3 examines the symbolic relevance of the art of Stern in terms of her ontogenetic development as human being in relation to society and in terms of the phylogenetic development of society itself. The relevance of the female principle in the art of Stern is evauated in terms of the above approach in the final chapter.

My thesis addresses two significant misrepresentations in western criticism and translation of Mayakovsky that have developed since his death in 1930: his diminished status as a Marxist poet; and his negative attitude towards everyday life (byt). Part One (‘Mayakovsky and Marxism') contests the consistent refusal in the west to acknowledge Mayakovsky as a Marxist poet and demonstrates instead, through a close examination of the specific terminology used in certain essays and poems by Mayakovsky in relation to that used by Karl Marx in Capital, not only that the poet is keenly engaged with and influenced by Marxist theory, but that he uses that theory explicitly to describe and imagine the production of ideal communist writing. Part Two (‘Mayakovsky and Byt') contests the widespread western characterisation of Mayakovsky as a misogynist whose hatred of domesticity in all its forms has long been accepted as fact. At the heart of this characterisation is the Russian concept of byt (everyday life), which has been systematically misunderstood and mistranslated in relation to Mayakovsky. Through a study of the complex cultural, political and social developments of this concept in early Soviet Russia, alongside the collation of my own translations of twenty-nine never-before-translated poems by Mayakovsky on the subject of byt, this part of the thesis presents a radical and feminist perspective of the poet as a vocal proponent of equality and revolution in everyday life. Both contestations represent the first sustained studies of their kind in English, and – in the case of Part Two in particular, which is the first of its kind in any language – constitute significant and challenging contributions to Mayakovsky scholarship.

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E. E. Cummings' reputation as America's pre-eminent avant-garde poet obscures his significant use of schemes and tropes in his traditional and free verse poems. Because of his influence as a sonneteer and lyricist, his poetics constitute an important facet of our modern definition of poetry. However, he did not formulate a coherent statement of his aesthetic theories. Therefore, inductive research is necessary to define "the necessary anything"--those elements which Cummings' practice indicates are essentially poetic.Cummings' traditional poems include his "Epithalamion," ballade-derivations, and a large body of sonnets. All of his sonnets are fourteen lines long; and most maintain line lengths of approximately ten syllables; follow rhyme schemes based on five, six, or seven rhymes; and adhere to traditional rhetorical patterns of development. Deviations from the prescribed scheme include experimental rhymes and rhyme schemes, metrical and rhetorical variations, and a wide variety of subjects and themes. Freedom to deviate from prescribed forms renders the choice to use traditional schemes and tropes significant. Cummings elects to use meter, rhyme, allusion, allegory, personification, metaphor, simile, irony, paradox, onomatopoeia, and economy in his sonnets and free verse.Besides esoteric typography and innovative syntax, half-rhyme and rhetorically significant rhyme and metrical patterns are his trademarks. Additionally, this study demonstrates that Cummings' typography is generally organic and that his aesthetic theories are grounded in the modern romantic movement. While innovation is primary in Cummings' poetics, traditional schemes and tropes are highly significant in the composition and artistic achievement of his poetry. In Cummings' poetry, "the necessary anything" is a product of his formal education in classical and contemporary literatures and his eccentric invention. / Department of English