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This thesis sets out to examine the role of the poems in Echo (a supplement to the Natal Witness) that were published between 1986 and 1994. I will be exploring these poems in the light of the political conflict that was taking place between Inkatha, on the one hand, and the United Democratic Front/Congress ofSouth African Trade Unions (UDF/COSATU), and later on the African National Congress (ANC), on the other. The introductory chapter will deal with the scope ofmy research. It will outline what it is that I will be researching and the direction of my research. I will also begin to introduce some of the key theoretical assumptions around izibongo (praise poetry) and some of its key definitions as a dominant tradition that influenced some of the Echo poets. Chapter Two will deal with the history of the Echo Poetry Corner itself. It looks at its early beginnings, who conceived the idea and why, and what the editorial policy of this page was. It will also shed some light on how complex issues, such as the originality and authenticity of the poems, were dealt with. The third chapter deals with the background to the political conflict in the Natal Midlands and in Pietermaritzburg in particular. It will be an analysis of violence, its origins and its interpretations, and will show how violence affected the people and the poets around Pietermaritzburg. In Chapter Four I will begin to critically analyse the poems, looking at various themes that were expressed in the poems. I will also define the role that these poems played in the political conflict, looking at whether they engaged with the reality of the time or tried to escape it. In conclusion, Chapter Five deals with my findings on the role that the Echo poems played during the political conflict. It will also address the issue of the role of the poet or poetry in a violent society. The positive role of poetry during war will also be dealt with. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

This thesis aims to establish Jessica Powers (1905 – 1988) as a metaphysical poet, to augment the composite definition of metaphysical poetry, and to add two emphases to Christian literary theory. A comprehensive library search on Powers reveals that no scholarly work has been written on her poetry since 2005. A meta-analysis of existing work on Powers demonstrates that the metaphysical aspect of her poetry has not yet been comprehensively examined. Though Powers wrote in a time commonly called ‘post-modern’, my contention is that it would be more accurate to describe her as a metaphysical poet in the traditional sense of that term, as used, for example, of George Herbert (1593 – 1633). I endorse the view that the central theme of all metaphysical poetry is the relation between body and soul (Tanenbaum 2002: 211). It will be seen that this relation is the central concern of Powers’ metaphysical poetry. My close reading of Powers’ work as metaphysical is according to a Christian literary theory which agrees with Hass ‘that the study of the text and textual hermeneutics in the twenty-first century will continue because of a particular resurgence of religion’ (2007: 856). It is augmented by two emphases, a scientific (based on Gallagher’s 2009 study of the neurophysiology of attention), and a philosophical (based on Fromm’s 1976 analysis of the ‘being mode’, and on Buber’s 1947 analysis of attentiveness to the present moment). My study thereby contributes to Christian literary theory. There are one hundred and eighty two poems in The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers. This thesis refers, to greater or lesser extents, to one hundred and seventy six of the poems, and comprehensive examination of their metaphysical aspect is the primary focus of the thesis. My examination of the poems demonstrates that Powers’ poetry can justly be described as metaphysical, which definition of her work serves to highlight an important and hitherto neglected aspect of her work, that she is a metaphysical poet of the finest calibre, and that renewed attention to her work is timely. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English studies)

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)

Within a southern African literary-historiographical milieu, the corpse of the First World War (1914-1918) either wanders in the ‘darkling’ woods or wades in the ice-mirrored sea of a sinister psychological landscape. The veld, with its moon, flowers, bowers, animals and sea, is a potent South African metaphysical conceit in which both the white and black corpse – the horrific waste product of war – is seemingly safely hidden within euphemistic shadows. However, these shades are metonymic and metaphorical offshoots of an Adamastorian nightmare, which has its inception in a nascent South African literary tradition. This thesis explores these literary-historiographical leftovers within the war poetry of both civilians and soldiers. Both ‘white’ and ‘black’ poetry is discussed in a similar context of dressing the corpse in meaning: a meaning that resides deep within the wound of loss. In tracing this blood spoor in the poetry a highly eclectic approach has been followed. As the title illustrates, both literary and historical approaches were used in analysing the effect of the Great War on the poetry, and by implication, on the society from which it sprung. It is, therefore, a cultural history as well as an intellectual subtext of wartorn South Africa that has been scrutinised, and is revealed in its poetic literature. Archival research and the scouring of individual volumes were the sources of the poems for this study. This is true especially with regards to the ‘white’ poetry, where very few examples of poetry have been published in secondary histories. Various anthologies and studies on ‘black’ poetry considerably lightened the search for war izibongo. A variety of literary theoretical approaches have been most useful in extracting the subtext of early 20th century South African history. The psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung’s collective unconscious have been most insightful. The poststructuralist theory of Julia Kristeva has cast more light on the recalcitrant corpse, the main waste product of war. David Lewis-Williams’s recent archaeological-anthropological approach has also been crucial in understanding the indigenous izibongo by putting forward Neuroscience as an explanation of the universally held neuropsychological hallucinatory poetic experience. Finally, war poetry in this thesis is seen as verse written by both soldiers and civilians as a response to the reality – or rather surreal unreality – of conflict, in an effort to come to terms with the abjection of both body and mind. Thea Harrington‘s manqué reading of Kristeva’s poststructuralist corpse is used as a referent for the abject, or loss thereof, that is to be found in the war poetry. Throughout the thesis, the term manqué is used to refer to the corpse as a fluid linguistic-psychological signifier saturated with loss. It is the manqué that has essentially remained hidden behind the various political histories of the war. / English Studies

Landscape in Roman literature is manifest with symbolic potential: in particular, Vergil and Ovid respond to ideologically loaded representations of abundance in nature that signal the dawn of the Augustan golden age. Vergil's Eclogues foreground a locus amoenus landscape which articulates both the hopes of the new age as well as the political upheaval that accompanied the new political regime; Ovid uses the same topography in order to suggest the arbitrary and capricious use of power within a deceptively idyllic landscape. Moreover, for Latin poets, depictions of landscape are themselves sites for poetic reflection as evidenced by the discussion of landscape ecphrases in Horace's Ars Poetica. My thesis focuses upon the depiction and refiguration of the locus amoenus landscape in the post-Augustan epics of the first century AD: Lucan's Bellum Civile, Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Statius' Thebaid and Silius Italicus' Punica. Landscape in these poems retains the moral, political and metapoetic force evident in the Augustan archetypes. However, I suggest that Lucan's Neronian Bellum Civile fundamentally refigures the landscapes of Latin epic poetry, inscribing the locus amoenus with the nefas of civil war in such a manner that it redefines the perception of landscape in the succeeding Flavian poets. Lucan perverts the landscape, making the locus horridus, a landscape of horror, fear and disgust, the predominant landscape of Latin epic; consequently, the poems of Valerius, Statius and Silius engage with Lucan's refiguration of landscape as a means of expressing the horror of civil war. In the first part of my thesis I examine archetypal landscapes, including those of the Augustan poets and Lucan's Bellum Civile. Taking an approach which engages with literary reception theory and the concept of the â horizon of expectationâ as a framework within which literary topographies can be understood as articulating a response to the thematics of civil war, in the second part of my thesis I demonstrate the manner in which landscapes represent a coherent and paradigmatic response to Lucan's imposition of his civil war narrative within the literary landscape of Roman literature.

Vergil’s Georgics was published in 29 BCE, at a critical point in the political life of Octavian-Augustus. Although his position at the head of state had been confirmed by victory at Actium in 31, his longevity was threatened by his reputation for causing bloodshed during the civil wars. This thesis argues that Vergil, in the Georgics, presents a defence of Octavian against criticism of his past, in order to safeguard his future, and the future of Rome. Through a complex of metaphor and allusion, Vergil engages with the weaknesses in Octavian’s public image in order to diminish their damaging impact. Chapter One examines the way in which the poet invokes and complements the literary tradition of portraying young men as destructive, amorous creatures, through his depiction of iuvenes in the Georgics, in order to emphasise the inevitability of youthful misbehaviour. Since Octavian is still explicitly a iuvenis, he cannot be held accountable for his actions up to this point, including his role in the civil wars. The focus of Chapters Two and Three of this thesis is Vergil’s presentation of the spring season in the Georgics. Vergil’s preoccupation with spring is unorthodox in the context of agricultural didactic; under the influence of the Lucretian figure of Venus, Vergil moulds spring into a symbol of universal creation in nature, a metaphor for a projected revival of Roman affairs under Octavian’s leadership which would subsequently dominate the visual art of the Augustan period. Vergil’s spring is as concerned with the past as it is the future. Vergil stresses the fact that destructive activity can take place in spring, in the form of storms and animal violence; the farmer’s spring labor is characterised as a war against nature, which culminates in the horrific slaughter of oxen demanded by bugonia. In each case destruction is revealed as a necessary prerequisite for some form of creation: animal reproduction, increased crop yield, a renewed population of bees. Thus, the spring creation of a new Rome under Octavian will come as a direct result of the bloodshed of the civil wars, a cataclysm whose horrors are not denied, but whose outcome will ultimately be positive. Octavian is assimilated to Jupiter in his Stoic guise: a providential figure who sends fire and flood to Earth in order to improve mankind.

Within a southern African literary-historiographical milieu, the corpse of the First World War (1914-1918) either wanders in the ‘darkling’ woods or wades in the ice-mirrored sea of a sinister psychological landscape. The veld, with its moon, flowers, bowers, animals and sea, is a potent South African metaphysical conceit in which both the white and black corpse – the horrific waste product of war – is seemingly safely hidden within euphemistic shadows. However, these shades are metonymic and metaphorical offshoots of an Adamastorian nightmare, which has its inception in a nascent South African literary tradition. This thesis explores these literary-historiographical leftovers within the war poetry of both civilians and soldiers. Both ‘white’ and ‘black’ poetry is discussed in a similar context of dressing the corpse in meaning: a meaning that resides deep within the wound of loss. In tracing this blood spoor in the poetry a highly eclectic approach has been followed. As the title illustrates, both literary and historical approaches were used in analysing the effect of the Great War on the poetry, and by implication, on the society from which it sprung. It is, therefore, a cultural history as well as an intellectual subtext of wartorn South Africa that has been scrutinised, and is revealed in its poetic literature. Archival research and the scouring of individual volumes were the sources of the poems for this study. This is true especially with regards to the ‘white’ poetry, where very few examples of poetry have been published in secondary histories. Various anthologies and studies on ‘black’ poetry considerably lightened the search for war izibongo. A variety of literary theoretical approaches have been most useful in extracting the subtext of early 20th century South African history. The psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung’s collective unconscious have been most insightful. The poststructuralist theory of Julia Kristeva has cast more light on the recalcitrant corpse, the main waste product of war. David Lewis-Williams’s recent archaeological-anthropological approach has also been crucial in understanding the indigenous izibongo by putting forward Neuroscience as an explanation of the universally held neuropsychological hallucinatory poetic experience. Finally, war poetry in this thesis is seen as verse written by both soldiers and civilians as a response to the reality – or rather surreal unreality – of conflict, in an effort to come to terms with the abjection of both body and mind. Thea Harrington‘s manqué reading of Kristeva’s poststructuralist corpse is used as a referent for the abject, or loss thereof, that is to be found in the war poetry. Throughout the thesis, the term manqué is used to refer to the corpse as a fluid linguistic-psychological signifier saturated with loss. It is the manqué that has essentially remained hidden behind the various political histories of the war. / English Studies

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 research aims to illuminate how and why war challenges the limits of poetic representation, through an analysis of non-combatant poetry of the Second World War. It is motivated by the question: how can one portray, represent, or talk about war? Literature on war poetry tends to concentrate on the combatant poets of the First World War, or their influence, while literature on the Second World War tends to focus on prose as the only expression of literary war experience. With a historicist approach, this thesis advances our understanding of both the Second World War, and our inherited notions of 'war poetry,' by parsing its historiography, and investigating the role critical appraisals have played in marginalising this area of poetic response. This thesis examines four poets as case studies in this field of research-W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, Dylan Thomas, and Stevie Smith-and evaluates them on both their individual explorations of poetic tone, faith systems, linguistic innovations, subversive performativity, and their collective trajectory towards a commitment to represent the war in their poetry. The findings from this research illustrate how too many critical appraisals have minimised or misrepresented Second World War poetry, and how the poets responded with a self-reflexivity that bespoke a deeper concern with how war is remembered and represented. The significance of these findings is breaking down the notion of objective fact in poetic representations of war, which are ineluctably subjective texts. These findings also offer insight into the 'failure' of poetry to represent war as a necessary part of war representation and prompt a rethinking of who has the 'right' experience-or simply the right-to talk about war.