The first Part of the dissertation examines in some detail the poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid. A chronological approach is used, but what is most stressed is the thematic unity of all MacDiarmid’s work, from such early poems as A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (of which a detailed exegesis is presented) through the poems of the '30s to the long "world-view" poems such as In Memoriam James Joyce. This unity is to be found principally in MacDiarmid’s attitude towards Evolution, and his view of the evolutionary development of the human mind. Within this context, the apparent paradoxes and confusions of MacDiarmid's political, social, and aesthetic views may be reconciled. Although mainly concerned with the ideas contained in MacDiarmid's poetry, the dissertation also attempts to describe and to defend the changing stylistic means by which these ideas are presented, especially with regard to the very "prosaic" nature of the later poems. Part Two examines the work of four leading poets of the Scottish Renaissance. Sydney Goodsir Smith's poetry is discussed in terms of its main themes of love and politics, and their partial reconciliation in poems dealing with the figure of the outsider. Particularly close attention is given to the poem-sequence Under the Eildon Tree. The discussion of Robert Garioch relates his work as a translator of poetry to his work as an original poet, dealing especially with his poems about Edinburgh, and with the relation of his humorous to his more serious work. The section on Norman MacCaig analyses his attitudes towards nature, and the means of perceiving external nature, especially the poetic perception through metaphor. The results of MacCaig's recent shift to free verse are also treated. Iain Crichton Smith's poetry is viewed as a system of dualities, perhaps best summed up in the title of one of his books, The Law and the Grace; the discussion closes with a detailed analysis of the one poem, Deer on the High Hills, in which these dualities are (tentatively) reconciled. The final Part of the dissertation opens with an account of the history and theoretical basis of the experimental Concrete Poetry movement, and then examines the contributions to this movement of two Scots poets, Edwin Morgan and Ian Hamilton Finlay. Finlay’s work is examined in detail, not only for its extraordinary inventiveness of technique, but also for the very positive values of it’s attitudes, themes, and imagery. Particular attention is given to the theme of fishing-boats and the sea in Finlay's work. This section is not merely a defence of Finlay's technical procedures, but an assertion of his greatness as a poet. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the DEPARTMENT OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES at the UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND, 2001 / This study focuses on the study of J.P. Shongwe's poetry. The introductory chapter reveals the actual aim of this study. Shongwe's biographical note clarifies his whole background and social life, factors and circumstances that influenced his writing specifically of poems. In chapter 2 the focus is on some of the related political issues particularly given that educational issues are highly politicized in the South African context. This chapter also gives a short background on cultural, social, religious aspects and beliefs in Shongwe's poetry. Chapter 3 focuses only on Shongwe as to whether he is a metaphysical or not. Chapter 4 discusses the different types of imagery. The poet employs imagery, which enables him to express his thoughts vividly and concisely. In chapter 5 we focus on the external structure of Shogwe's poetry. Chapter 6 is a concluding chapter with the evaluation, findings and recommendations.

Barry MacSweeney was a prolific poet who embraced many poetic styles and forms. The defining characteristics of his work are its excess (for example, its depiction of extreme emotional states, its use of challenging forms, and the flagrancy with which it appropriates other writers and poems) and its quality of swerving (for example, the way it frustrates the reader's expectations, and its oppositional identification with literary antecedents and schools). I argue that MacSweeney's poetic development constitutes a series of reactions to a moment of trauma that occurred in 1968, when a crisis in his personal life coincided with a disastrous publicity stunt for his first book. I chart MacSweeney's progress from 1968 to 1997 in terms of five stages of trauma adjustment, which account for the stylistic changes his poetry underwent. In Chapter One I consider the ways in which the traumatic episode in 1968 led to MacSweeney embracing the underground poetry scene. In Chapter Two I examine the ways in which his 1970s poetry exhibits denial. In Chapter Three I look at Jury Vet and the other angry, alienated poetry he wrote in the early 1980s. In Chapter Four I look at 1984s Ranter, an example of poetic bargaining in which MacSweeney alludes to mainstream poetry in return for what he hopes will be a wider readership. In Chapter Five I consider Hellhound Memos, the collection that resulted from a period of depression MacSweeney suffered 1985- 1993. In Chapter Six I look at his most successful work, Pearl and The Book of Demons, in which he confronts and accepts the roots of his trauma. Using a combination of close reading, literary theory and biographical research, I explicate and evaluate MacSweeney's development in terms of his literary and cultural contexts. While accounting for the various styles and approaches MacSweeney undertook, this study shows his oeuvre to be remarkably consistent in its structure, imagery and poetic techniques.

Text in Afrikaans / Die Afrikaanse poesie van die tagtigerjare toon 'n ryke verskeidenheid deurdat ouer digters soos Eybers, Breytenbach, Cussons, Stockenstrom en Ernst van Heerden voortdig en 'n groot aantal nuwelinge na vore tree. Hoewel die groep digters die grense van "generasie" ver oorskry, blyk dit dat hulle 'n baie li tererbewuste groep kunstenaars is wie se poesie verskeie gemeenskaplike trekke openbaar. Uit die groot verskeidenheid blyk dat sekere temas, soos pyn, aftakeling, dood, liefde, godsdiens asook sosio-kulturele en politieke aktualiteite steeds as die gewildste onderwerpe figureer. 'n Deel van die studie word daaraan gewy om aan te toon hoe hierdie temas in die jonger Afrikaanse poesie vergestalting vind. 'n Terna wat 'n besliste vernuwende aspek in die Afrikaanse poesie bring, is die homoerotiek. Die groter openheid oor homoseksualiteit gee aanleiding tot eksplisiete homoerotiese verse, veral by Joan Hambidge en Johann de Lange. As gevolg van die terroristiese bedrywighede en militere optrede aan die landsgrense gedurende die sewentiger- en tagtigerjare beleef die Afrikaanse literatuur die opkoms van die sogenaamde grensliteratuur as 'n vernuwende aspek van die tema van oorlog en geweld wat van die vorige dekade af oorspoel. Verder word aandag gegee aan die verskynsel van inter(-)tekstualiteit, wat weens die omvang daarvan in die kreatiewe en beskouende literatuur, perspektiefverandering in die Afrikaanse poesie teweegbring. 'n Verdere vernuwende aspek wat aangetoon word, is die wegbeweeg van die beoef ening van die loss er, vryer versvorm van die sestiger- en vroee sewentigerjare na 'n strenger vormbeheer en - dissipline. Die skryf van 'n meer tradisionele tipe poesie word by verskeie digters aangetoon. Die bydrae van tydskrifte en tydskrifverse tot die Afrikaanse poesie word ondersoek. Saam met die verskyning van talle bundels populere poesie, waar die klem veral op die volkskwatryn, sonnet en limerick val, speel die tydskrifte 'n besondere rol om Afrikaanse poesie vir 'n breer leserspubliek toeganklik te maak. Daar word tot die gevolgt~ekking gekom dat die digters van die tagtigerjare die "demokratisering" van die Afrikaanse letterkunde veel verder gevoer het en dat die reikwydte van Afrikaans daardeur uitgebrei is / The rich diversity of Afrikaans poetry of the eighties is displayed by the fact that many of the older poets, such as Eybers, Breytenbach, Cussons, Stockenstrom and Ernst van Heerden, have continued writing poetry, while a large number of newcomers have appeared on the scene. Although these poets far exceed the "generation" boundaries, they are evidently a very literary-aware group of artists, whose work has a number of traits in common. Certain themes, such as pain, decadence, death, love and religion, as well as socio-cultural and political realities, remain popular topics. Part of this study is to show how these themes are expressed in contemporary Afrikaans poetry. A decidedly new aspect of Afrikaans poetry is homo-eroticism. The more open approach to homosexuality gives rise to explicit homo-erotic poems, especially those of Joan Hambidge and Johann de Lange. As a result of terrorist activities and military action on our borders during the seventies and eighties, Afrikaans literature saw the beginning of the so-called border literature as a renewal of the war and violence theme, a relic from the previous decade. Inter(-)textuality is explored, which, due to its influence on creative and reviewing literature, has brought about a change in the perspective of Afrikaans poetry. A further renewal highlighted, is the moving away from the unstructured and freer verse form of the sixties and early 4 seventies to a stricter, controlled and disciplined form. The more traditional type of poetry written by various poets is discussed. The contribution by periodicals and poems in periodicals to Afrikaans poetry is explored. Together with the numerous volumes of popular poetry published, emphasizing the national quatrain, sonnets and limericks, periodicals play an important role in making Afrikaans poetry more accessible to a broader reading public. The conclusion is reached that the poets of the eighties promoted the "democratization" of Afrikaans literature, thereby extending its influence / Afrikaans & Theory of Literature / D. Litt. et Phil. (Afrikaans)

published_or_final_version / abstract / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese Language and Literature / Master / Master of Arts

Mas allá de la realidad objetiva y de los hechos históricos verificables que su nombre denota, la nueva poesía socio-política se estudia aquí como un extenso sistema literario que genera su propia coherencia y su inagotable red de posibilidades significativas. Nuestro enfoque es asimismo una manera de concebir histórica y analíticamente la trayectoria del discurso hispanoamericano. El hecho de que la nueva poesía socio-política sea comprensible en su totalidad al considerar el sustrato ideológico del cual surge, nos conduce a la formulación de un modelo analítico ideológico-semiótico que se adecúe a la realidad de esta poesía. Tal modelo manifiesta la interrelación dinámica que existe entre la estructura de coherencia y la estructura de significación verificando así la funcion normativa que ejerce la ideología sobre el texto. Más que nada, este proyecto se ha fundado en la necesidad de esclarecer el proceso de construcción de un nuevo sistema poetico. El juego de relaciones intertextuales y contextuales apuntan a una revisión de valores estético-ideológicos que fundamentan literariamente un nuevo sistema de prioridades. De aquí el repaso de la historia de la poesía; una historia en construcción que ha empezado a negar el criterio positivista, evolucionista y oficialista utilizado hasta ahora. El nuestro es un enfoque que surge desde una perspectiva crítica distinta, la cual considera los factores socio-económicos y además intenta responder tanto al rigor analítico como a las exigencias culturales del presente. La creciente conciencia de las relaciones de dependencia generan una politización de la conciencia, que en el plano cultural, configura una nueva estetica cuya caracterización se establece en el tercer capítulo. Las nuevas técnicas representacionales se esclarecen al analizar la obra de tres poetas. En la poesía de Roberto Fernández Retamar y Pedro Shimose es posible estudiar la cualidad "conversacional" del código utilizando el concepto de intertextualidad como principio constructor y como principio de intercalación y además la relación de contigüidad entre el lenguaje literario y el natural. Finalmente, se estudia el concepto de la patria, utilizando la categoría espacial, para ejemplificar el impulso ideológico revolucionario y su plasmación en la interioridad textual.

University of Macau / Faculty of Arts and Humanities. / Department of English

Bob Cobbing (1920-2002) was a poet known for his performances and as an organiser of poetry events, as a participant in the British Poetry Revival, as a late-modernist and as a sound and concrete poet. This thesis seeks to reconfigure our view of Cobbing as a performer by considering his performances across a range of institutions to argue that this institutionalised nature was their defining aspect. It maps the transition from Cobbing’s defence of amateurism and localism in the 1950s to his self-definition as a professional poet in the mid 1960s and his attempt to professionalise poetry in the 1970s. This process was not uncontested: at each stage the idea of the poet and the reality of what it meant to live as a poet were at stake The first chapter considers Cobbing’s poems and visual artworks of the 1950s in the context of Hendon Arts Together, the suburban amateur arts organisation he ran for ten years, and it situates both in Britain’s postwar social and cultural welfare system. Chapter two analyses Cobbing’s transition from Finchley’s local art circles to his creative and organisational participation in London’s international counterculture, specifically the Destruction in Art Symposium (9-11 September 1966). Chapter three considers ABC in Sound in the context of the International Poetry Incarnation (11 June 1965) and analyses Cobbing’s emergence as a professional poet. Chapter four examines Cobbing’s tape-based poems of 1965-1970 and their associated visual scores in the context of audio technology, and the role they played in Cobbing’s professionalisation. The final chapter examines Cobbing’s performances at the Poetry Society (1968- 1978) in order to investigate the effects of subsidy and friendship on poetic performance.

Abstract not available