Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines the literary journal Horizon, its editor Cyril Connolly, and a selection of its editorial articles, poems, short stories and essays in the context of the Second World War, from 1939-45. Analyses of these works, their representation of wartime experience, and their artistic merit, serve as evidence of a shared and sustained literary engagement with the war. Collectively, they demonstrate Horizon’s role as one of the primary outlets for British literature and cultural discourse during the conflict. Previous assessments of the magazine as an apolitical organ with purely aesthetic concerns have led to enduring critical neglect and misappraisal. This thesis shows that, contrary to the commonly held view, Horizon consistently offered space for political debate, innovative criticism, and war-relevant content. It argues that Horizon’s wartime writing is indicative of the many varied types of literary response to a war that was all but incomprehensible for those who experienced it. These poems, stories and essays offer a distinctive and illuminating insight into the war and are proof that a viable literary culture thrived during the war years. This thesis also argues that Horizon, as a periodical, should be considered as a creative entity in and of itself, and is worthy of being studied in this light. The magazine’s constituent parts, interesting enough when considered separately, are shaped, informed, and granted new shades of meaning by their position alongside other works in Horizon. Chapters in the thesis cover editorials and editing, poetry, short stories, political essays, and critical essays respectively. Analyses of individual works are situated in the context of larger concerns in order to demonstrate the coherence of debate and discourse that characterised Horizon’s wartime run. In arguing that Horizon is a singular creative entity worthy of consideration in its own right, this thesis locates itself within the emerging field of periodical studies. Further, by arguing that the magazine demonstrates the value of Second World War literature, it articulates with other recent attempts to reassess the scope and quality of that literature. More specifically, this thesis offers the first focused and in-depth analysis of Horizon’s formative years.

This thesis is focused on a study of translation strategies in Guillaume Oyono Mbia's plays. By using the sociological, formalistic and semiotic approaches to literary criticism to inform the analysis of the source texts and by applying descriptive models outlined within the framework of descriptive translation studies (DTS) to compare the source and target texts, the study establishes the fact that in his target texts Oyono Mbia, self-translating author, has produced a realistic and convincing portrait of his native Bulu culture and society depicted in his source texts by adopting the same default preservation and foreignizing strategy employed in his source texts. Oyono Mbia's works, his translation strategies and translational behaviour are situated in the context of the prevailing trend and attitude (from the sixties to date) of African writers writing in European languages and it is posited that this category of writers are in effect creative translators and that the strategies they use in their original compositions are the same as those outlined by translation scholars or effectively used by practitioners. These strategies enable the writer and the translator of this category of African literature to preserve the "Africanness" which is the essence and main distinguishing feature of that literature. Contrary to some scholars (cf. Bandia 1993:58) who regard the translation phenomenon evident in the creative writings of African writers writing in European languages as a process which is covert, semantic and secondary, the present study of Oyono Mbia's translation strategies clearly reveals the process as overt, communicative and primary. Taking Oyono Mbia's strategies as a case in point, this study postulates that since for the most part, the African writer writing in a European language has captured the African content and form in his original creative translation, what the translator simply needs to do is to carry over such content and form to the other European language. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D.Litt. et Phil. (Linguistics)

The purpose of my dissertation is to conduct an intertextual study of two fantasy texts — Alice in Wonderland by Victorian author Lewis Carroll, and Stardust by postmodern fantasy author Neil Gaiman — and their filmic re-visionings by Tim Burton and Matthew Vaughn respectively. In scrutinising these texts, drawing on insights from feminist, children’s literature and intertextual theorists, the actions of ‘growing up’ and ‘falling down’ are shown to be indicative of a paradoxical becoming of the text’s central female protagonists, Alice and Yvaine. The social mechanisms of the Victorian age that educate the girl-child into becoming accepting of their domestic roles ultimately alienate her from her true state of being. While she may garner some sense of importance within the imaginary realms of fantasy narratives, as these female protagonists demonstrate, she is reduced to the position of submissive in reality – in ‘growing up’, she must assume a ‘fallen down’ state in relation to the male. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

The collection of sonnets Rings of a Thundering Tree (2000), by R.K. Belcher, is rich in metaphorical imagery; lending itself particularly well to textual analyses of imagined sensory perceptions. Although perspectives on or theories about metaphor can be deployed in such analyses, an imagined sense of sensory perception in itself theoretically frames the study of this poetic imagery. In this regard, the titles of the sonnets within this collection and their themes, as well as the title of the collection and the theme of ”South African decay” (with which this title is linked), are explored with an emphasis on imagined sensory experiences. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This thesis examines works written about imprisonment by four South African political prison writers who were incarcerated for political reasons. My Introduction focuses on current research and literature available on the subject of political prison-writing and it justifies the study to be undertaken. Chapter One examines the National Party's policy pertaining to the holding of political prisoners and discusses the work of Michel Foucault on the subject of imprisonment as well as the connection he makes between knowledge and power. This chapter also considers the factors that motivate a prisoner to write. Bearing in mind Foucault's findings, Chapters Two to Five undertake detailed studies of La Guma's The Stone Country, Dennis Brutus's Letters to Martha, Hugh Lewin's Bandiet and Breyten Breytenbach's The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, respectively. Particular emphasis is placed on the reaction of these writers against a repressive government. In addition, Chapters Two to Five reflect on the way in which imprisonment affected them from a psychological point of view, and on the manner in which they were, paradoxically, empowered by their prison experience. Chapters Four and Five also consider capital punishment and Lewin and Breytenbach's response to living in a hanging jail. I contemplate briefly the works of Frantz Fanon in the conclusion in order to elaborate on the reasons for the failure of the system of apartheid and the policy of political imprisonment and to reinforce my argument. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

The study examines cognitive rationality as to()l for problemsolving within the context of a movement from determinism and monolithic universal Reason towards indeterminism and plurality. It is contended that theories of literature do not provide an adequate conceptual framework, and therefore, extensive use is made of pluralist fallibilism (Popper, Helmut Spinner) and chaos theory. The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche is viewed as a decisive influence in the shift towards plurality and scepticism. In chapter 2, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, a novel by Agatha Christie and Gaston Leroux's Le mystere de Ia chambre jaune are discussed as examples of optimistic rationalism. Chapter 3 indicates that Eco's II nome della rosa emphasizes the conjectural nature of truth and objective knowledge, underpinned by a 'soft' rationalism which amounts to monopolistic pluralism. Chapter 4 analyses the defeat of cognitive rationality by the complex interaction of a multiplicity of independent causal series. The detectives' relationship with the feminine exemplifies the interpenetration of rationality and the instinctual, while the mystery of the feminine is a metaphor for impenetrable complexity. Chapter 5 shows that hypotheses concerning random complex systems remain inconclusive. However, as the trajectory of a complex system can be regulated, so reason can be viewed as the underlying regulative pattern (strange attractorl for an infinite proliferation of hypotheses. Thus, despite .shifting conceptions of rationality and order, all the detectives in the study accept objective truth as regulative principle and are involved in a search for objective knowledge / Afrikaans & Theory of Literature / D.Litt. et Phil. (Theory of literature)

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / Apartheid het die oorgrote meerderheid Suid-Afrikaners se lewens onherroeplik beinvloed. Dit is daarom te verstane dat dit in die Suid-Afrikaanse literatuur, insluitende die Engelse Suid-Afiikaanse jeugliteratuur, neerslag gevind het. Ten einde die studie in konteks te plaas, word in die eerste drie hoofstukke 'n historiese oorsig van die apartheidsera, Engelse Suid-Afrikaanse volwasse literatuur, en Engelse Suid-Afrikaanse kinderen jeugliteratuur, gegee. Die hoofgedeelte van die studie word vervolgens bespreek, en is in die volgende drie hoofstukke verdeel: • Die uitbeelding van sosio-ekonomiese toestande gedurende die apartheidsera, soos byvoorbeeld van afsonderlike woongebiede en aparte openbare geriewe. • Die uitbeelding van die onderwystoestande, veral van die Bantoe-onderwysbeleid. • Die uitbeelding van die veiligheidsmagte (polisie en weermag), insluitende die beeld van hierdie magte in die bree gemeenskap. Ten slotte word verskillende ooreenkomste wat na vore gekom bet in die bestudeerde Engelse Suid-Afrikaanse jeugromans waarin apartheid uitgebeeld word, bespreek. Daar word ook gekyk na die waarde van hierdie jeugromans. / Apartheid had a irrevocably influence on the lives of the majority of people in South Africa. Therefore it is understandable that it would be portrayed in South African literature, including the English South African youth literature. To put the subject in context, the first three chapters ofthe thesis deal with a historical overview of the apartheidera; South African English adult literature; and South African English children's literature. The main part of the thesis has been divided as follows: • The portrayal of socio-economic conditions, e.g. separate residential areas and public amenities. • The portrayal of the education situation, especially the Black Education policy. • The portrayal of the security forces (police and army), including the images of these forces in the broader community. To conclude the thesis, similarities in the youth novels portraying apartheid are discussed. The value of these youth novels is also looked into. / Information Science / M. Inf.

Roy Campbell (1901-1957), who ranks among South Africa's leading poets, was also a gifted and skilled translator. Shortly after the Second World War he was commissioned by the Spanish scholar Rafael Martinez Nadal to supply the English translations for a planned edition of the complete works of the Spanish poet and dramatist, Federico Garcia Lorca, to be published by Faber and Faber, London. However, most of these translations remained unpublished until 1985, when the poetry translations (but not the translations of the plays) were included in Volume II of a four-volume edition entitled Campbell: Collected Works, edited by Alexander, Chapman and Leveson, and published in South Africa. In 198617, Eisenberg published a collection of letters from the archives of the Spanish poet and publisher Guillermo de Torre in a Spanish journal, Ana/es de Literatura Espanola, Alicante, which revealed that the politically-motivated intervention in 1946 of Arturo and Ilsa Barea, Republican supporters who were living in exile in London, prevented the publication of Campbell's Lorca translations. These poetry translations are studied here and compared with the work of other translators of Lorca, ranging from Lloyd (1937) to Havard (1990), and including some Afrikaans versions by Uys Krige (1987). For the analysis an eclectic framework is used that incorporates ideas from work on the relevance theory of communication (Sperber and Wilson 1986) as applied to translation theory by Gutt (1990, 1991) and Bell (1991), among others, together with Eco's (1979, 1990) semiotic-interpretive approach. The analysis shows that although Campbell's translating is constrained by its purpose of forming part of a Lorca edition, his versions of Lorca' s poetry are nevertheless predominantly oriented towards the target-language reader. In striving to communicate Lorca's poetry to an English audience, Campbell demonstrates his skill and creativity at all levels of language. Campbell's translations that were published during his lifetime earned him a place among the best poetry translators of this century. The Lorca translations, posthumously added to the corpus of his published work, enhance an already established reputation as a fine translator of poetry. / Classics & Modern European Languages / D. Lit. et Phil. (Spanish)

This dissertation is mainly on Wole Soyinka as a dramatist. It aims to show that Soyinka, far from being an irrelevant artist as some of his fiercest critics have alleged, is a deeply committed writer whose works are characterised by a strong sense of concern with basic human values of right and wrong, good and evil. Furthermore, the dissertation shows that although Soyinka is not an admirer of Marxist aesthetics, he is certainly not in the art-for-art's-sake camp either, I because he is fully aware of the utilitarian value of literature. Soyinka's works are much influenced by his social and historical background, and the dissertation shows that Soyinka's socio-political awareness pervades all these works, although it will be seen that in the later plays there is a sharpened political awareness. Although largely concerned with his own country's issues, Soyinka also emerges as a keen observer of humanity universally / English Studies / M.A. (English)

For the past century, medievalism studies generally and Anglo-Saxonism studies in particular have largely dismissed the eighteenth century as a dark period in English interest in the Anglo-Saxons. Recent scholarship has tended to elide Anglo-Saxon studies with Old English studies and consequently has overlooked contributions from fields such as archaeology, art history and political philosophy. This thesis provides the first re-examination of scholarly, antiquarian and popular Anglo-Saxonism in eighteenth-century England and argues that, far from disappearing, interest in Anglo-Saxon culture and history permeated British culture and made significant contributions to contemporary formulations and expressions of Englishness and English national, legal and cultural identities. Each chapter examines a different category of Anglo-Saxonist production or activity, as those categories would be distributed across current scholarship, in order to explore the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons were understood and deployed in the construction of contemporary cultural- historiographical narratives. The first three chapters contain, respectively, a review of the achievements of the ‘Oxford school' of Saxonists of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; antiquarian Anglo-Saxon studies by members of the Society of Antiquaries of London and their correspondents; and historiographical presentations of the Anglo-Saxons in local, county and national histories. Chapters four and five examine the appearance of the Anglo-Saxons in visual and dramatic art, and the role of Anglo-Saxonist legal and juridical language in eighteenth-century politics, with reference to discoveries resulting from the academic and antiquarian research outlined in chapters one to three. It is my contention that Anglo-Saxonism came to serve as a unifying ideology of origins for English citizens concerned with national history, and political and social institutions. As a popular as well as scholarly ideology, Anglo-Saxonism also came to define English national character and values, an English identity recognised and celebrated as such both at home and abroad.