In the chapters that follow, the porous boundary between the public and the private in Jeremy Cronin’s poetry is investigated in his three collections, Inside (1983), Even the Dead: Poems, Parables and a Jeremiad (1996) and More Than a Casual Contact (2006). I argue two particular Marxist theorists are central to reading Cronin’s poetry: Bertolt Brecht, and his notion of the Verfremdungseffekt, and Walter Benjamin and his work on historical materialism, primarily the essay On the Concept of History / Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940). Both theorists focus on the work of art in a historically contextualized manner, which extends the challenge to the boundary between the public and the private. Their work is underpinned by the desire to draw out hidden narratives occluded under the grand narratives of history and capitalist ideas of progress. I argue that these are the major preoccupations in Cronin’s oeuvre as well. As such Cronin’s poetry may be seen to write against a perspective that proposes a linear conceptualisation of history. The poetry therefore challenges the notion that art speaks of ‘universal truths.’ Such ideas of History and Truth, if viewed uncritically, allow for a tendency to conceive of the past as unchanging, which subconsciously promotes the idea that social and political realities are merely logical evolutionary steps. I argue that Cronin’s poetry is thus purposefully interruptive in the way that it confronts the damaging consequences of the linear conceptualisation of history and the universal truth it promotes. His work attempts to find new ways of connection and expression through learning from South Africa’s violent past. The significance of understanding each other and the historical environment as opposed to imposing perspectives that underwrite the symbolic order requires the transformation rather than the simple transferral of power, and is a central focus throughout Cronin’s oeuvre. This position suggests that while the struggle for political freedom may be over, the necessity to rethink how South Africans relate to each other is only beginning. Chapter One will focus on positioning Cronin, the poet and public figure, in South African literature and literary criticism. In this regard, two general trends have operated as critical paradigms in the study of South African poetry, namely Formalism (or ‘prac crit’) and a Marxist inflected materialism, which have in many ways perpetuated the division between the private and the public. This has resulted in poetry being read with an exclusive focus on either one of these two aspects, overlooking the possibilities of dialogue that may take place between them. Cronin’s perspective on these polarised responses will be discussed, which will illustrate the similarity of his position to Ndebele’s notion of the ‘ordinary’ which suggests a way beyond these binaries. This will lead to a discussion of how South African poets responded to the transition phase, suggesting that the elements of the polarisation still remained. Considering the major influences and paradigms when reading Cronin’s oeuvre provides a foundation for the following three chapters. These include Cronin’s use of Romanticism, Bertolt Brecht and the V-Effekt and Walter Benjamin’s perspectives on historical materialism. In addition to these three theoretical paradigms, the relevance of Pablo Neruda’s poetry to Cronin’s work is also foregrounded. In Chapter Two, the focus will be on Cronin’s first collection of poetry, Inside, concentrating on Cronin’s use of language as a way of constructing poetry in the sparseness of the prison experience. This will show an abiding preoccupation of learning to speak in a language that considers the material context out of which it emerges. In this regard, the poems “Poem-Shrike” “Prologue” and “Cave-site” are analysed. In addition, one of the central poems in Cronin’s oeuvre, “To learn how to speak […],” will be examined in order to illustrate how the poet extends this project on a meta-poetic level, asking for South African poets to ‘learn how to speak’ in the voices of South African experience and histories. I will show how this is linked to Cronin’s “Walking on Air” which illustrates how the V-Effeckt recovers the small private histories through re-telling the life story of James Matthews, a fellow prisoner incarcerated for his anti-apartheid activism, revealing how this story is intimately connected to the public sphere. In Chapter Three, Cronin’s second collection: Even the Dead: Poems, Parables and a Jeremiad will be examined. In the poem “Three Reasons for a Mixed, Umrabulo, Round-the-Corner Poetry” Cronin resists inherited Western poetic conventions by incorporating and subverting versions of the Romantic aesthetic, arguing for poetry to be immersed in South African multi-lingual and multi-cultural experiences. “Even the Dead” reveals how Cronin uses Walter Benjamin’s perspectives on historical materialism to confront amnesia. In terms of the themes established in “To learn how to speak […]”, the poem “Moorage” demonstrates how the public and private can never be separated in Cronin’s work. The final section of this chapter will examine how Cronin responds to Pablo Neruda’s poems “I am explaining a few things” and “The Education of a Chieftain,” and how these poems challenge narratives that privilege the ‘great leader’ instead of the so-called smaller individuals’ stories. Chapter Four examines selections from Cronin’s third collection, focusing on Cronin’s use of the automobile, charting an ambiguous trajectory through the ‘new’ South Africa. The examination of the poems “Where to begin?”, “Switchback” and “End of the century - which is why wipers,” all attempt to include individuals left on the margins of the narrative of global freeways and neo-liberal capitalist progress. The poems present an interrogation of how ‘vision’ is constructed. This will show that the poetry responds to the experiences of the marginalised under these grand narratives in a primarily fragmentary and interruptive manner. This in effect constitutes the culmination of Cronin’s poetic journey and the search for new ways of envisaging South Africa’s future and finding a new language with which to speak it.

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Thesis (MMus) -- Stellenbosch University, 2010. / The wind band is a far underused composition medium in South Africa. Partially, this is due to the stereotypical view towards the ensemble and unfamiliarity with dealing with the heterogeneous timbral pallet. The author aimed to demonstrate the ensemble’s capabilities through a systematic orchestration process. The result of this dissertation is an orchestration of a large-scale work, From the Poets, for wind band. This creative research resulted in a systematic critical investigation of instrumental idiosyncrasies, balance, conventions of notation and timbre combinations found in the wind band. Furthermore, the author scrutinised the benefits and shortcomings of the aforementioned systematic process. Concluding that, through a methodical process, an orchestrator achieves a thorough understanding of the original text and can thus translate without fear of making unfavourable musical decisions. However, as this was a two-year process, the method might not work in the time constraints presented in real world situations, such as the music industry for instance. The author provides possible adaptations to the method in order to cope with the above-mentioned time constraints. / Die blaasorkes is ʼn vêr-onderbenutte medium vir komposisie in Suid-Afrika, deels as gevolg van die stereotipiese siening oor die ensemble en 'n gebrekkige kennis in die hantering van die orkes se heterogene toonkleur palet. Die skrywer het hom beywer om die ensemble se vermoëns te demonstreer deur middel van 'n stelselmatige orkestrasieproses. Die resultaat van hierdie skripsie is 'n orkestrasie van 'n grootskaalse werk, From the Poets, vir blaasorkes. Hierdie kreatiewe navorsing het gelei tot 'n sistematiese kritiese ondersoek met betrekking tot instrumentale eienaardighede, balans, konvensies van notasie en toonkleur kombinasies wat ʼn blaasorkes bied. Verder het die skrywer die voordele en tekortkominge van die bogenoemde proses ondersoek. Die gevolgtrekking is dat, by wyse van, 'n metodiese proses, 'n orkestrator 'n deeglike begrip van die oorspronklike teks kan bereik en dus die materiaal vertaal sonder vrees om ongunstige musikale besluite te maak. Aangesien die navorsing 'n tweejaarlange proses behels het, glo die skrywer dat hierdie metode moontlik ontoereikend mag wees gegewe die tydsbeperkinge wat dikwels deur die musiekindustrie opgelê word. Derhalwe bied die skrywer ook moontlike aanpassings tot sy metode om die bogenoemde tydsbeperkings te akkommodeer.

published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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Together Dorothy and William translate. a simple tour into aesthetic loveliness To his sister the journey was the juxtaposition of impoverished society and pastoral elegance. To Wordsworth the tour was a reawakening of poetic Impulse. Through his intense feeling for natural beauty, Wordsworth became the poet of all mankind..

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