This thesis examines the violent punishments undergone by various martyrs in Prudentius’ Peristephanon. In particular, it explores how the poet’s depiction of this violence and suffering might affect readers of the collection. Four poems (poems II, III, IX and XI) are studied from the point of view of the emotions they are likely to evoke in the reader. The question of whether different types of readers might undergo different emotional experiences while reading these poems arises as a result of the proposed study. The first chapter of this thesis thus examines the nature of emotions, focussing on their sources and composition. This examination suggests that an individual’s emotional experience can be influenced both by biological factors and by social and cultural environment. With this in mind, an examination follows of various aspects of Roman society and culture which were likely to influence the ways in which its citizens, in particular, reacted to the violent scenes in the poems. We will also consider how our own specific cultural milieu may influence modern readers to sometimes react differently to Roman readers. In particular, it is proposed that most readers of the Peristephanon will react with varying shades of disgust and horror. These two emotions are thus used as a framework for discussing reader reactions to the poems. Disgust and horror are understood in a very broad sense, allowing for different varieties of these emotions, which at times even give rise to contradiction and paradox. The remaining chapters of the thesis are devoted to examinations of the four chosen poems which explore the various ways in which they might evoke horror and disgust among both Roman and modern readers. Often, there is considerable overlap between these two groups. These examinations provide a way of understanding why these poems are so striking, and have impacted so strongly on readers through the ages. / Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2009

This thesis examines the violent punishments undergone by various martyrs in Prudentius’ Peristephanon. In particular, it explores how the poet’s depiction of this violence and suffering might affect readers of the collection. Four poems (poems II, III, IX and XI) are studied from the point of view of the emotions they are likely to evoke in the reader. The question of whether different types of readers might undergo different emotional experiences while reading these poems arises as a result of the proposed study. The first chapter of this thesis thus examines the nature of emotions, focussing on their sources and composition. This examination suggests that an individual’s emotional experience can be influenced both by biological factors and by social and cultural environment. With this in mind, an examination follows of various aspects of Roman society and culture which were likely to influence the ways in which its citizens, in particular, reacted to the violent scenes in the poems. We will also consider how our own specific cultural milieu may influence modern readers to sometimes react differently to Roman readers. In particular, it is proposed that most readers of the Peristephanon will react with varying shades of disgust and horror. These two emotions are thus used as a framework for discussing reader reactions to the poems. Disgust and horror are understood in a very broad sense, allowing for different varieties of these emotions, which at times even give rise to contradiction and paradox. The remaining chapters of the thesis are devoted to examinations of the four chosen poems which explore the various ways in which they might evoke horror and disgust among both Roman and modern readers. Often, there is considerable overlap between these two groups. These examinations provide a way of understanding why these poems are so striking, and have impacted so strongly on readers through the ages. / Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2009

"March 2002". / Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Humanities, Department of English, 2005. / Bibliography: p. 324-344. / Introduction: framing the texts -- Subversive voices -- Formulating a theoretical position -- Performance: a complete process -- On second thoughts: rewriting contemporary culture -- Performing On second thoghts -- Dialogic voices: Amanda Stewart and # -- Performing # -- Voices of desire: Ania Walwicz and Soft -- Performing Soft -- Marginal voices: Hazel Smith and Poet without language -- Performing Poet without language -- Conclusions: interpreting subversive voices. / This study considers the text and performance of four Australian experimental poets, Chris Mann, Amanda Stewart, Ania Walwicz and Hazel Smith. My aim is to demonstrate how the genre of experimental poetry uses language and performance in such a way as to rewrite existing dominant discourses. The challenge as an analyst is to find ways into such reflexive texts that use intertextual resources of critical theory as their subject matter. The perspective employed here engages with the theories posited by the texts and allows for a theoretical position removed from the structure and theories informing them. -- The study is organised in two parts. First, I consider the subversiveness of the genre drawing on Raymond Williams' notion of the emergent, followed by a discussion of important predecessors in the field of experimentation. I then outline the particular method of enquiry and theoretical framework used here to analyse the meaning potential of such works. Systemic Functional Grammar and Multimodal Discourse theory are discussed and their particular application in this study. The second part of the thesis applies these theories to the experimental works. -- I begin explaining my theoretical position by considering the weakness of the commonly used theories of Kristeva's 'semiotic' to analyse such works. I found Systemic Functional Grammar, as developed by Michael Halliday and then Terry Threadgold, to be a useful tool for elucidating the meaning potential behind the fractured grammars in the texts. It also provided a way of conceptualising enunciative positions and the way intertextual resources might be rewritten. From within this linguistic framework I was able to discern subversive messages from the intertwined theories ranging across the texts from Marxism, structuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism and multiculturalism. -- The performance posed another challenge as the improvised spoken texts, uniquely performed by these artists, create a subversive listening position for the audience, which engages with both the words and sounds for their sonic and semantic qualities. I consider many ways of addressing the role and behaviour of the performer and listener as well as the performance as a creative process, emerging from the two. I engage the model put forward by Kress and Van Leeuwen for analysis of multimodal texts which provides a functional approach to meaning potential in the performance and its varying layers. Within this model, I found prosody most useful for its ability to notate intonation, key, disjuncture and stress, exposing the dialogic voices and the relationship between semantics and sound in the performances. This form of communication is equivalent to the indexical entailment of sound and music which forms the basis for communication between performers, and between performer and audience. The dialogic situation is enhanced by both prosody and indexical entailment providing possible meanings. I use some traditional musicological analysis but my aim is to move away from such formalistic descriptions to consider culturally inscribed sounds and their interpretation using a functional model. -- Throughout, the complexity of experimental performance is evident but the theoretical frame used here might be applied to other works of this nature as a means of further understanding the semiotic web in subversive texts. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / 344 p., music

It is now widely acknowledged that the Greek epic tradition, best known from Homer, dates back into the Mycenaean Age, and that certain aspects of epic language point to an origin for this type of verse before the date of the extant Linear B tablets. This thesis argues that not only is this so, but that indeed before the end of the Mycenaean Age epic verse was composed in a distinctive literary language characterized by the presence of alternative forms used for metrical convenience. Such alternatives included dialectal variants and forms which were retained in epic once obsolete in everyday speech. Thus epic language in the 2nd millennium already possessed some of the most distinctive characteristics manifest in its Homeric incarnation, namely the presence of doublets and the retention of archaisms. It is argued here that the most probable source for accretions to epic language was at all times the spoken language familiar to the poets of the tradition. There is reason to believe that certain archaic forms, attested only in epic and its imitators, were obsolete in spoken Greek before 1200 B.C.; by examining formulae containing such forms it is possible to determine the likely subject-matter of 2nd millennium epic. Such a linguistic analysis leads to the conclusion that much of the thematic content of Homeric epic corresponds to that of 2nd millennium epic. Non-Homeric early dactylic verse (e.g. the Hesiodic corpus) provides examples of both non-Homeric dialect forms and of archaisms unknown from Homer. This fact, it is argued, points to the conclusion that the 2nd millennium linguistic heritage of epic is evident also from these poems, and that they are not simply imitations of Homer, but independent representatives of the same poetic tradition whose roots lie in the 2nd millennium epic.

No description available.

This study investigates the use of modern and izibongo (praise poetry) techniques in representing women in selected isiXhosa poems. The main interest of the study is to determine whether the same techniques to depict men are used when writing about women. It is also the interest of the study to ascertain how gender issues are dealt with in the selected poems. Seminal studies on izibongo by eminent scholars in this field show a serious lack of critique and little recognition of women in African languages’ poetry in general and in isiXhosa in particular. Pioneering studies in Nguni poetry about women have thus recommended that serious studies on poetry about women be undertaken. The analyses of selected poems by established isiXhosa poets show that modern poetry conventions are significantly used together with izibongo techniques. These techniques are used without any gender differentiation, which is another point of interest of this study. There are however instances where images specific to women are used. Such use has however not been found to be demeaning of women in any way. Poems where modern poetry forms and conventions are used tend to deal with subjects who have international or an urban area background. Even though the modern poetry conventions are used with izibongo techniques the presence of the modern literary conventions is prominent. This is the case particularly with poems about women in politics. That some female poet seems to accept some cultural practices that are viewed to be undermining the status of women does not take away the voice of protest against this oppression by some of the selected poets. These two voices, one of acceptance and the other one of protest are used as a basis for a debate around a need for a literary theory that addresses the question of African culture with special reference to isiXhosa poetry about women. The success of the selected poets with both modern and izibongo techniques is a good sign for the development of isiXhosa poetry in general and isiXhosa poetry about women. It is strongly recommended that continued research of a serious nature concerning poetry about, and produced by women, be undertaken.

No description available.

This thesis explores the forms and significance of dispute settlement by arbitration, or ‘δίκη’, in the Iliad. I take as my focus the ‘storm simile’ of Iliad XVI: 384-393, which describes Zeus’ theodical reaction to corruption within the δίκη-court, and the ‘shield trial’ of Iliad XVIII: 498-508, which presents a detailed picture of such a court in action, and compare the forms and conception of arbitration that emerge from these two ecphrastic passages with those found in the narrative body of the poem. Analysing the terminology and procedures associated with dispute settlement in the Iliad, I explore the evidence for the development of an ‘ideology of δίκη’, that valorises arbitrated settlement as a solution to conflict, and that identifies δίκη as a procedure and a civic institution with an objective standard of fairness: the foundation of a civic concept of ‘justice’. I argue that this ideology is fully articulated in the storm simile and the shield trial, as well as Hesiod’s Works and Days, but that it is also detectable in the narrative body of the Iliad. I further argue that the poet of the Iliad employs references to this ideology, through the narrative media of speech and ecphrasis, to prompt and direct his audience’s evaluation of the nature and outcome of the poem’s central conflict: the dispute of Achilles and Agamemnon.

No description available.

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / Die term "volkspoesie" is reeds in die agtiende eeu deur Johann Gottfried Herder gebruik. Dit kom steeds in Europese tale soos Nederlands en Dui ts voor en word oak in Afrikaans gebruik. Belangstelling in die genre word in twee verskillende vakgebiede aangetref: die volkskunde en die letterkunde. Volkspoesie is poesie wat deur 'n individu geskep word, maar soveel aanklank vind by die "gewone publiek" dat hulle dit as 11volksbesit 11 aanvaar en mondel ing oordra. Die oorspronklike skepper raak dus vergete, die kunswerk bestaan anoniem voort en variante ontstaan. Volkspoesie het verskeie verskyningsvorme soos die volkslied( jie), die ballade, rympies en raaisels. Eiesoortige kenmerke is: spontaneiteit, eenvoud, die irrasionele. Alhoewel volkspoesie oor "landsgrense11 heen kan swerf, is bepaalde vorme daarvan dikwels streekgebonde. Nieteenstaande sy bevraagtekening van die term in die vyftigerjare het N.P. van Wyk Louw dit ook self gebruik. Sy gedigreeks 11 Klipwerk uit Nuwe verse (1954) het 'n nuwe belangstelling in volkspoesie gewek. Later het hy die reeks bestempel as 'n "soort volkspoesie wat hy doelbewus wou skep: volksversagtige" gedigte, gebind aan die digter se jeugwereld. D.J. Opperman het in sy proefskrif van 1953 ook ender meer 'n belangstelling in volkspoesie geopenbaar en in 1962 gewys op die volkse in moderne Afrikaanse digkuns. Sy laaste digbundel, Kamas uit 'n bamboesstok ( 1979), word as 'n volksboek met volkspoesie-eienskappe aangebied. Die vorm en eienskappe van volkspoesie vind neerslag in beide Van Wyk Louw en Opperman se werk. Aanvanklik skryf Van Wyk Louw heelwat volksversagtige gedigte en later gebruik hy ook volksballade-eienskappe in sy ballades. Ook in Tristia (1962) kom eienskappe van volksliedjies en rympies voor. Opperman verwerk meermale bestaande volksliedjies en -rympies in sy poesie en gebruik dit betekenisverruimend as verwysingsveld. Die twee digters se belangstelling in volkspoesie het gelei tot 'n verdere ontginning van die "volkse" vers in Afrikaans, onder andere deur digters soos Boerneef, Adam Small en Breyten Breytenbach. Volkskundige navorsing deur P.W. Grobbelaar en andere het in die moderne tyd ook die aandag op hierdie onderwerp gevestig. In die tagtigerjare is mondelinge Afrikaanse poesie selfs deur swartmense in hulle politieke stryd gebruik! / The term "folk-poetry" had already been used by Johann Gottfried Herder in the eighteenth century. It has ever since prevailed in European languages such as Dutch and German and is also found in Afrikaans. Interest in this genre occurs in two different fields of study: folklore and literature. "Folk-poetry" is poetry created by the individual and accepted by the "general public" to a large extent. Therefore it is acknowledged as common property and passed on by word of mouth. The original creator is thus forgotten, the work of art prevails anonymously and different versions come into being. "Folkpoetry" appears in a variety of forms: the folk-song( s), the ballad, rhymes and riddles. Particular characteristics are: spontaneousness, simplicity, the irrational. Although "folkpoetry" may cross "national borders", some forms are often regional. Despite his questioning the term in the fifties, N.P. van Wyk Louw used it himself. His poetry series "Klipwerk" from Nuwe verse (1954) gave rise to a new interest in ''folk-poetry". He afterwards labelled the series as "a kind of folk-poetry" which he deliberately wanted to create: "folksy" poems, relating to the world of the poet's youth. In his 1953 thesis D.J. Opperman also showed amongst others an interest in "folk-poetry" and in 1962 pointed out the "folksy" identity in contemporary Afrikaans poetry. His last anthology, Kamas uit 'n bamboesstok (1979), is presented as a folk book with "folk-poetry" characteristics. The form and characteristics of "folk-poetry" are embedded in both Van Wyk Louw's and Opperman's work. Initially Van Wyk Louw wrote quite a number of "folksy" poems and afterwards also used folk-ballad characteristics in the ballads he wrote. Characteristics of folk-songs and rhymes also occur in Tristia (1962). Opperman adapts existing folk-songs and rhymes in his poetry and uses it as framework to broaden the meaning. These two poets' interest in "folk-poetry" resulted in further exploration of the "folksy" verse in Afrikaans, among others by poets like Boerneef, Adam Small and Breyten Breytenbach. Folk research by P.W. Grobbelaar and others focused attention on this subject. In the eighties even blacks used oral Afrikaans poetry in their political struggle! / Afrikaans and Theory of Literature / D. Lit. et Phil. (Afrikaans)