published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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In this study the dramatic and novelistic aspects of Galaico-Portuguese poetry are analysed. We point out the dramatic tendency of the cantigas showing that the troubadours and jougleurs grouped together a certain number of cantigas with a dramatic purpose. This is demonstrated by the 12 cantigas with which Lopo L(')ias has created a satirical play, which we have entitled Os Zevroes, and which will be studied in the last chapter of this study. / Secondly, the narrative and thematic structures of some 1.150 love songs are analysed. In this case, the cantigas de amigo and the cantigas de amor are seen by us as if they had been written by only one author, who had proposed to create with them a complex sentimental plot in dialogue. / In order to prove the existence of a sentimental narrative romance in the Cancioneiros, the cantigas de amigo and the cantigas de amor have been classified into three categories: (a) third-person cantigas, in which the poet describes what the young girl (Amiga) does and says; (b) polyphonic cantigas, in which the poet dialogues with a female character (the pastourelle represents a particular kind of polyphony) and (c) sentimental cantigas, in which the poet disappears altogether, leaving way for the archetypal characters (the Amiga, the Amigo, the Mother, the Go-Between, etc) to express themselves freely, enabling us to reconstruct a dramatic-narrative romance. The analysis of this romance is based upon the formal and thematic particularities of the sentimental cantigas. / The sentimental cantigas, in monologue or dialogue form, are open utterances. They are mutually complementary and they are spoken by archetypal characters, always denominated in the same manner, but who lack a proper name, who communicate among themselves, but are not described by the poet. These characters are "voices" that have been grouped together in this study in a causal and chronological order, so as to define the theme and the plot of the archetypal romance of the Cancioneiros. / The narrative structure of the archetypal romance can be appreciated in the 374 cantigas de amor and de amigo which are found in the Appendix to this study, titled "Narrative anthology of Galaico-Portuguese love poetry".

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English-speaking Germanists have shown considerably less interest in Gottfried Benn than their German colleagues. The latter have produced, in recent years, a multitude of critical works, approaching Benn from various angles and arriving at very different conclusions. Outside Germany, the picture is less variegated. The few voices to be heard seem to agree that there is, or may be, some value in Benn's poetic works, but little or none in his theoretical pronouncements. By offering a dissenting view, this thesis hopes to animate the discussion outside Germany and, with due respect, to expose and correct a number of misconceptions that have, in my view, tarnished Benn's image and brought upon him undeserved opprobrium. I shall endeavour to show that Benn's views on lyric poetry form a consistent and significant pattern of thought which defies the many suggestions we have heard of his fickleness, irrationalism, rigid formalism and all-pervading self-contradiction. A diachronic approach seemed best suited to counter the assumption of an essential stasis of Benn's views - an assumption that underlies tacitly most critical discussions of the various aspects of his alleged irrationalism. At the same time, this approach brings out the consistency with which Benn's views developed and crystallized. Three chapters of my thesis are devoted to tracing this development (chapters two, three and four): close interpretations of some critical and literary works, selected to represent the successive stages of Benn's evolving thought, are designed to illuminate and place into context Benn's understanding of the various issues he himself raised and elaborated over the years. From these analyses emerges a poetic theory identical with that presented at Marburg under the title 'Probleme der Lyrik' and discussed, for strategic purposes, in my first chapter. This rather extended discussion has three principal goals: First, to show that Benn, in order to be understood, must be approached as a poet and provocateur who aims at neither accuracy of quotation nor conceptual precision and consistency, but at effective formulation. Second, to present in a new light the salient aspects of Benn's poetological conception. The creative process is shown to be thought of as involving, at all stages, a close co-operation of intellectual and imaginative energies. It is suggested that the 'absolute poem' , as Benn envisages it, is a vehicle of depth and significance whose 'monologic' character activates and affects the reader; that poetic 'montage' aims at the production of an organic whole whose 'fascination' addresses itself to the reader's emotional and cognitive faculties; that the 'transcendence of the creative pleasure' is an aid in life. Third, to call attention to Benn's 'historical' stance which causes him to relate every important aspect of 'modern' poetry to the poetic tradition and invalidates the charge, levelled against Benn from various quarters, that he adopted a progressive pose to present an antiquated second-hand theory. Chapter five deals with the question of Benn's alleged self-contradiction. It argues that 'ambivalence' and 'tension', to be clearly distinguished from 'contradiction', are the principles informing the whole of his poetological thought, endowing it with perspective, depth, and ultimate credibility. In conclusion it is suggested that the generally accepted placement of Benn's poetology at the extreme 'absolute' , 'anti-human' end of the modernist spectrum and, consequently, our evaluation of its historical significance, need to be reconsidered.

M.A. / Lestrade (1949) has already stated that the African people themselves regard traditional praise poems as the highest form of their literary art. Scholars such as Goma (1967), Kunene (1971) and Swanepoel (1983) have already highlighted some aspects concerning the "literariness" of Soho dithoko tsa marena. In this study, an attempt is made to highlight some of the literary features of dithoko within the literary framework established by the Russian Formalists almost a century ago. Focus is placed on the devices used by the traditional composer to create poetic' language, which is different from everyday communicative language. In the study an important vehicle used by traditional composers to create - literariness namely the application of allusion to violate normal language usage is investigated. The interaction between the so-called narrative lines in dithoko and events alluded to in the poems is discussed. Allusion and traditional beliefs are also focused on. The function of poetic devices such as metaphorical language, symbols and poetic diction is also investigated within the framework of the Formalists.

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M.A. / Old age is a universal experience. Poets in general and Afrikaans poets in particular use imagination and metaphor to understand and make sense of the experience of old age and nearing death. To understand one domain of experience in terms of another we need metaphor that unites reason and imagination. Language is based on cognition. According to cognitive semantics we mentally group together similar, but disparate, entities and transformations of image schemas. A conceptual domain consists basically of interrelated entities emanating from universal experiences. The purpose of this study is to give an account of various (mainly cognitive) theories on metaphor and to use the cognitive approach to disclose the main conceptual domains which act as source domains and are projected onto the target domain. The resulting metaphors describe the experience of old age and its physical and psychological infirmities and decay. By analysing various examples of metaphor it is argued that image schemas are different patterns of recurring bodily experiences that emerge from our perceptual understanding of actions and events in the world. The examples illustrate that image schemas/domains do not exist as single entities, but are often linked together to form relationships through different image schemata transformations. The poet as abstract author, but also the reader, creatively and imaginatively recognize a schema in a new situation and contrive metaphorical connections between various conceptual structures. Thus a metaphorical expression links two or more domains of experience. Metaphor is the means by which we project structure across categories to establish new connections. Structure from two or more input mental spaces is projected onto a separate "blended" space, which inherits partial structure from the inputs, and has emergent structure of its own. It is argued that creativity shows rationality and structure. In metaphorical projection, blending from different conceptual domains plays an important role in the process of creating meaning. The examples in this study reveal that metaphors are a reflection of the ecological, cultural and ideological background of the language community. Metaphors based on image schemata for path, time, cycle, container, balance and verticality are discussed by means of examples from the poetry of selected Afrikaans poets. Special attention is given to the works of poets who are themselves experiencing old age. This study arrives at the conclusion that language is inextricably entrenched in our cognitive make-up, as illustrated by the various metaphors conveying the experience of old age. The examples reveal that the path-, cycle- and time domains are the more important source domains for the old age metaphors. The metaphors not only describe the authors' emotions on experiencing old age, but also create emotions in the reader.

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