In this thesis I have made a study of certain aspects of pastoralism and the pastoral genre in late Elizabethan literature. I have done this because I felt that Elizabethan pastoral writing was, at its best, far more than just a literary exercise undertaken, as was much Continental pastoral writing, to furnish the vernacular with a genre approved by Classical precedent. The strength of Elizabethan pastoral derived from the combination of certain indigenous factors present during Elizabeth's reign, with the current interest in imitating the Classics and introducing a famous genre into the vernacular. There had always been in English literature a strong response to the natural world and this response revealed itself in pastoral writing in which the traditional naturalistic details derived from Classical sources were infused with the grace and strength of direct observation. More importantly, Elizabethan England had a monarch who was not only ideally suited through her sex and celibacy to play the leading role in a pastoral world, but who also actively encouraged and enjoyed the eulogistic sentiments native to the Renaissance pastoral. In the English attempt to imitate a favourite Renaissance version of the pastoral - the use of a pastoral framework to comment on ecclesiastical or political affairs - there was, in Tudor Protestantism, with all its internal conflicts and its vital struggle against the political and spiritual forces of the Roman church, an ideal source of material for eclogues in the style of Mantuan. Such factors ensured that Elizabethan pastoral had a significance and relevance largely lacking in the more academic products of Continental pastoralists. Preface, p. i

This thesis presents for the first time a critical reading edition of all known poems by N. H. Brettell. It makes no claim to being definitive, nor does it attempt to establish a final text. It represents merely the best thinking of the editor. Brettell printed and circulated his poetry primarily in hand-made illustrated volumes in a process reminiscent of the scribal publication of the seventeenth century. Only 137 of his 206 extant poems were commercially published during his lifetime. In this study all known printed versions of Brettell's poetry whether in privately printed or commercially published form were examined. All variant readings were recorded and are shown. Wherever possible the relationships between texts are also noted. The poems in this edition are ordered in each case according to the version in the latest datable privately produced collection. The commentary and critical introduction were compiled with the general reader in mind. No previous familiarity with southern African fauna and flora is assumed: animals, birds and insects are described and their scientific names supplied. Expressions current in ordinary British or South African English and present in non-specialist dictionaries are not glossed, but archaic and dialectal forms felt to require explication are briefly explained. So too are less familiar South African dialectal expressions which have been assimilated into the South African English lexicon. Intertextual, Christian and mythological references, both African and Western, are annotated in an attempt to make such references accessible to readers who may not share Brettell's cultural background. The intention is to close the changing distance between the text and the audience. An essay discussing the merits, potential and limitations of electronic scholarly editing is included as part of the textual introduction. A CD-Rom containing Brettell's watercolour illustrations in his privately produced collections and audio-clips of him reading his poetry accompanies this thesis.

Poetry, like every other form of art, reflects the values of the artist himself as well as the values of the age in which he lives. "I would say that the poet may write about anything provided that the thing matters to him to start with, for then it will bring with it into the poem the intellectual or moral significance which it has for him in life". (Louis MacNeice). This thesis sets out to uncover some of the things which, in the long pageant of English poetry, have "mattered" to poets to such an extent that they have felt compelled to voice their protest against any violation of such things perceived by them in life around them. The basic study has been a search for the different kinds of values and codes of conduct, in social, political and moral spheres, which have been unacceptable to some of the major poets in English, and to examine particularly the manner and the tone of voice in which each one has expressed his disapproval. "Poetry was the mental rattle that awakened the attention of intellect in the infancy of civil society." (T.L.Peacock). English poets who have protested against whatever they regarded as worthy of protest have continued up to the maturity of civil society to be rattles (some soft and mellow, others loud and harsh), to awaken both the intellect and the conscience of their readers.

This dissertation proposes that George Herbertʾs poetry may profitably be understood as a sacramental means by which the divine is made present in temporal existence. In order to support this claim, the relation between sacramental symbolism and literary symbolism, particularly Herbertʾs, is examined from a number of perspectives. The symbolic meanings suggested by Herbertʾs title (The Temple), and their relation to sacramentalism are considered in the opening chapter. This includes a consideration of some of the background to the analogical thinking prevalent in both the seventeenth-century and Herbert. It is followed in the second chapter by an examination of some of the modern theories about how literary symbolism may relate to sacramental symbolism, a discussion which is followed by a consideration of this dissertation's argument in relation to modern scholarship. The chapter ends with a reading of ʺThe Flowerʺ. The third chapter discusses the poet's attempt to imitate the divine by ʺcopyingʺ both Scripture and Nature, and this includes a consideration of the allegorical and hieroglyphic modes of thought prevalent in the poems. The concern with imitation encourages an examination of the poet's frequent invitation for God actually to assume the poet's role, and this is the subject of the fourth chapter. The argument suggests that the poet's attempt to ʺsacrificeʺ his own writing may be seen in his concern with corporate imagery and corporate (impersonal) structures. The five ʺAfflictionʺ poems are examined as examples of the first, while structures such as synecdoche and metonymy are examined as examples of the second. The final chapter considers aspects of narrative time in the poems, particularly the sense often evoked of the eternal being imminent in the present. This involves a consideration of both liturgical imagery, and what may be called liturgical structures as they can be seen to operate in the poems. Particular examples of the latter are the relation between the liturgical anamnesis and the poems, as well as certain narrative structures that may be called ʺachronisticʺ.

D.Litt. et Phil. (English) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The study explores the complex relationship between various manifestations of the self and the other in twentieth century Science Fiction (SF). According to Richard Bernstein (1983), much modem thought is still influenced by Cartesian Anxiety, a deeply-rooted tendency to polarise or dichotomise arguments and living entities, demarcating one side as positive, necessary and desirable and the other as negative and destructive. Various embodiments of the self and the other are polarised in such a manner in both literature and life and this results in an impoverishment as the parties involved never really engage in dialogue, understand or learn from one another. Because it features a variety of truly alien creatures, SF literature has been chosen as the genre within which the concept of otherness will be discussed. Moreover, as an innovative and subversive genre, SF approaches old issues from a new perspective. It is believed that SF can shed new light on the old dichotomy of the self and the other. The study includes randomly and personally chosen works by authors such as Wells, Wyndham, Butler, Le Guin, Card and Tepper. The tendency to demarcate women, alien offspring and alien life forms in general as the other is discussed in separate chapters, with the focus on why given selves and society feel compelled to marginalise and destroy otherness. Various theories as to what the fear of the other represents are laid out and the Jungian interpretation that fear of the other is linked to anxiety about expressing what Jung calls the psyche's shadow side is suggested. Hermeneutic principles, particularly the theories of H-G Gadamer, are then used to provide a model of a fruitful discourse between a self and other where the decentered self engages in an equal and open-ended dialogue with the other, resulting in greater understanding and acceptance as both parties learn from one another and incorporate that new understanding into their sense of self-identity and humanity. / Dissertation (MA (English))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / English / unrestricted

The concept of a distinctively South African poetry in English has been, and still is, derided as a "pipe dream" as part of the fallacy which stems from the desire for a "national" literature. In 1955, for instance, C.J. Harvey (in an article containing much common sense as well as sound literary judgment) denounced the self-conscious hunting for "Local Colour" which engrosses so many South African writers. Harvey claimed: "Our civilization is not "South African", except in trivial details, it is Western European, and more specifically as far as poetry written in English is concerned, English ... ". There is a serious error of emphasis here. It would be more accurate to say that our ancestors brought Western European civilization to this continent. To imagine that this civilisation has not undergone and is not still constantly suffering a subtle but far-reaching metamorphosis in Africa would be to fly in the face of reality. White South Africans do not only carry the same identity-card but they can be distinguished from Frenchmen, Englishmen or Irishmen by more than "trivial details". This thesis is an examination of some af the earliest English written in southern Africa, particularly of the verse produced by our poetasters and near-poets. It attempts, during the course of this examination, to call attention to a few of the more significant changes which have arisen as the result of the importation of Western civilsation to an African frontier. Further I hope to show some at the varying ways in which these differences affected the white pioneer and how this has been reflected in our verse since pioneering times. In this sense the Frontier may be thought of as the background against which South African English writers developed certain characteristic traits. Intro., p. 1-2.

An analysis of the preoccupation writers of South African fiction display after the process started by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is vital in post-apartheid South African writing. It becomes clear that a fascination with the past is not bound to any one specific racial or gender group within post-apartheid South Africa. Authors can therefore be said to continue the excavation work that the TRC started many years ago. The severe impact that the rigid classification of human beings into different groups based on race had, and continues to have, becomes evident in contemporary South African writing. The fact that white privilege always comes at a cost for those wanting to attain or maintain it cannot be overlooked and whiteness as a construct is examined.

Critical comment on Old English elegiac poetry is discussed from the following three standpoints: definition of the genre 'elegy'; interpretations of representative elegiac poems; stylistic analysis. The theories of critics are evaluated, with the aim of establishing the features of elegiac poetry in Old English and assessing the adequacy of critical coverage of them to date. Not many critics have attempted to define the Old English, elegy as a genre, and their definitions tend to be either too vague or too restrictive, needing to be qualified in a number of ways. However, it appears that the elegy in Old English is an abstract kind of poetry. It presents a state of mind rather than a specific person or event. In addition, there are certain recurrent features by which the genre can be defined. The elegy presents the viewpoint of an individual, usually in monologue form. It often contains structural elements which are conventionale. The typical themes of elegy are separation from a loved one, exile, banishment, the contrast between present desolation and past or absent happiness. These themes are associated with conventional descriptions, the recurrent features of which extend to quite small particulars of wording and imagery. Interpretations of the following elegiac poems are discussed: The Seafarer, The Wanderer, The Ruin, The Wife's Lament, The Husband's Message, Wulf and Eadwacer. Critical theories regarding these poems show, by and large, a change from considering them primitive and pagan (sometimes with Christian interpolations) to stressing their sophistication, unity, and essential Christianity. It is, on the whole, a change for the better, but the sophistication and the Christian element now tend to be overemphasised, especially by those critics who interpret the poems as allegories. Present interpretations show two main trends: a tendency to relate the poems to Latin influence, often patristic, and a movement towards closer investigation of the poems by internal evidence alone, without regard to sources and analogues. Stylistic studies have mostly considered Old English poetry as a whole, rather than any particular branch of it, but although the elegies employ the same formal devices as the rest of the poetry, they tend to handle them in a freer and more personal way. Also, the tendency of Old English poetry to use external description with a symbolic purpose is particularly shown in the elegies, which make an extensive use of natural description as a vehicle of mood. There has been a change in stylstic analysis similar to that in interpretation. Instead of regarding Old English poetry as unsophisticated, as earlier scholars tended to do, modern critics stress its subtlety and skilful integration, both structurally and syntactically. This change of attitude has affected criticism of the elegies, although the focus has not usually been specifically on them. The stylistic investigations which have shed most light on the elegy as a type have been the formulaic analyses. Apart from the formulaic studies, there has been little direct stylistic examination of elegiac poetry, and it is here that most remains to be done, as regards both formal devices and the looser patterns of imagery and description. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The dissertation reappraises Thomas Dekker's dramatic achievement through an examination of his contribution to the development of Elizabethan-Jacobean domestic drama. Dekker's alterations and modifications of two essential features of early English domestic drama--the homiletic pattern of sin, punishment, and repentance, which the genre inherited from the morality tradition, and the glorification of the cult of domesticity--attest to a complex moral and dramatic vision which critics have generally ignored. In Patient Grissil, his earliest extant domestic play, which portrays ambivalently the vicissitudes of marital and family life, Dekker combines an allegorical superstructure with a realistic setting. The tension between homiletic and realistic impulses is also at the heart of The Honest Whore. In Part I, although Dekker provides a trenchant portrait of the afflicted domus, the play's satirical tone clashes oddly with the homiletic schemes. In Part II, however, the marriage code is presented amid intricate plotting and a complex ethical design in which orthodox homiletic paradigms such as the patient wife, the testing of the wife's virtue, and the prodigal husband's reformation are consistently undermined through irony and paradox. Taken as a whole, these three plays reveal Dekker's growing cynicism toward the tidy moral and dramatic schemes of their analogues, and of the treatises and domestic-conduct books from which domestic dramas took their plots. Dekker's skillful exploitation of homiletic motifs extends to the comic vision of The Roaring Girl. The play sustains a central tension between the domus and the city, and offers a bold portrait of the heroine, Moll Cutpurse, who scorns marriage, preferring the openness of the city to the confinement of the household. In Dekker's domestic tragedy, The Witch of Edmonton, written shortly after his lengthy imprisonment for debt, the comic optimism that informs The Roaring Girl yields to bitter tones and to the defeat by a repressive society of those protagonists who openly challenge the values imbedded in the marriage code. The conclusion surveys the development of domestic drama since the Renaissance, and shows how Dekker anticipates the domestic plays of modern dramatists such as Ibsen, Arthur Miller, and Eugene O'Neill. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate