The aim of my study is to identify, describe and critique Es'kia Mphahlele's Down Second Avenue and its German translation, Pretoria Zweite Avenue. More specifically, the aim is to engage with the norms and constraints operative in the various translational relationships; also, to consider the impact - resulting from the shifts involved in cultural transfer - for a new readership in the 1960s in east Germany. Lambert and van Gorp's research model, "Hypothetical Scheme for Describing Translations", provides a framework for such a study that starts with an analysis ofpreliminary data, followed by a macro-level analysis and, finally, an analysis ofmicro-level data. Toury's over-arching theory of Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS), and Even-Zohar's Polysystem Theory are used extensively, especially regarding the contextualisation of both source text (ST) and target text (TT). In considering - via a detailed analysis of shifts - how elements of South African culture have been transferred in translation, I also draw on Fairclough's theories regarding social power hierarchies, and the mutually constitutive nature of discourse. Given that norms and constraints are largely determined by cultural contexts, Fillmore's 'scenesand- frames semantics' is also invaluable to the ideological explanations necessary during the course ofthis project. Ideologically relevant extracts - representative of South African culture - from the ST, are compared with the corresponding German translations. This study makes extensive use of Baker's strategies for dealing with non-equivalence at various levels of the translation process. Based on all the above theoretical points of entry, ideological parallels between the imagined communities of east Germany and South Africa are drawn. My study proves the potential of translation projects, such as this one, of aiding in cultural dissemination between two countries that are culturally and geographically apart, but which share a profound understanding for the burdens of ideological over-determination. / Thesis (M.A.-English)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

During the course of my dissertation I demonstrate the way in which Anglo-Indian women writers of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century diverge from the genre of the "feminine picturesque" as explained by Sara Suleri in her book, The Rhetoric of English India. I look too, at what Indo-English women use as a genre, instead of the "feminine picturesque". I also apply Spivakean ideas on representation to their writing in order to see the similarities and differences between my primary texts and the theory. I begin my dissertation by explaining what Sara Suleri means by the "feminine picturesque" and how I intend using it to better understand the primary texts I look at. I also explain Spivak's ideas on representation and how I intend using them to further my appreciation of Anglo-Indian and Indo-English writing of this period. I conclude my thesis by discussing my findings with regard to the theorists looked at, and how their ideas have been reflected in the four principal texts I examined. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

The dissertation focuses on the mapping of the southern African urban spaces and how it is linked to the urban dwellers' constitution of their identities, agency and subversion of the obtaining bleak and hegemonic conditions as represented in current fiction set in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Chapter 1 of the dissertation gives an overview of the social and historical developments characterising the construction of the southern African city from the colonial up to the current global city. The subordinate and marginal identities inscribed upon the Southern Africans as well as early forms of agency and subversion of the Western social, political and economic hegemony that has defined the city through out history will be looked at. Michael de Certeau's (1993) ideas showing the hegemonic Western socio-economic agenda's creation of ordinary urban dwellers' invisibility and fragmentation, which they later subvert by renaming and remapping the alienating urban spaces of New York to improve their own lives, will be taken into consideration in this chapter's definition of the construction of the city and urban identities. In Chapter 2, the representation of the southern African urban spaces' cartography in the fiction is discussed. The characteristic spaces ranging from the socially and morally decayed inner-city, the well-built postmodern and elite Central Business District, the affluent low-density suburbs and the far-away impoverished highdensity suburbs will be explored. The discussion attempts a complex unpacking of linkages between the mapping of Harare and Johannesburg with the hegemonic western social and economic agenda as well as the current urban dwellers' state of individual and psychological fragmentation. Chapter 3 examines the way in which the current southern African urban social dislocation is represented in the fiction. The complexity of the urban dislocation signified by the prevalence of violence, xenophobia and HIV/AIDS is discussed. There is also a dialectical analysis ofhow the depicted urban dislocation is located within the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, the western global cultural and economic influence as well as individual effort and decision-making in the chapter. Chapter 4 explores the ways in which gendered urban spaces are portrayed in the fiction. The subordination of primarily women, as well as the weak and dependent irrespective of gender is discussed. The resultant anxieties, alienation, marginalisation of women and the subservient are viewed from the traditional and colonial patriarchy's construction of the city as a predominantly masculine space excluding women. The western global cultural and economic hegemony's creation of a new gendered ideology characterised by the exclusion and feminisation of the poor, invisible and dependent is also discussed in this chapter. Nevertheless, the chapter ends with a discussion of the existing possibilities of female empowerment notably inscribed in the city's open education system, informal trade space as well as the provision of a social space encouraging pragmatic female decision-making especially in relation to HIV and AIDS. Finally the dissertation's concluding note is based on an evaluation of the postcolonial condition of southern Africa in relation to the mapping of the urban spaces and various identities represented in the fiction. An attempt is also made to place the research within the problematic of whether the mapping is based on postcolonialism or postmodernism. The objective here is to offer the importance of a cross-reading between the two as enabling a more meaningful conception of the region's current urban space. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

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.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1993.

This dissertation engages in a critical analysis of the poetry of Emily Dickinson which, to me, suggests that the poet suffered from a type of manic-depression known specifically in psychiatric parlance as bipolar disorder. I argue that although Dickinson experienced much pain and suffering she learnt, through time, to address, understand and contain adversity - that ultimately, she transformed these experiences into the raw materials for poetic creation. Dickinson's poetic achievements are often obscured by a misunderstanding of her mental and emotional constitution. This thesis provides an alternative to the views of those commentators who maintain that Emily Dickinson was insane, neurotic or delusional. I intend, ultimately, to offer the reader a fresh insight into Emily Dickinson's poetry by reading it from the assumption that she suffered from bipolar disorder. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

This dissertation sets out to analyze the manner in which the writers of dramatic fiction deconstruct the mythology and ideology of the private boys' boarding school in their work. It also seeks to interrogate the sociological and philosophical notions that underpin this fictional work. The central thrust of this dissertation is to explore the representation of the private boys' boarding school experience on the South African stage, with particular reference to writers whose work reflects their personal experiences within such institutions. Private boys' boarding schools promote the ideology that they provide a superior education based on liberal and democratic principles. These institutions supposedly oversee the development of the individual's mental, physical, spiritual, cultural and social education. The projected ideology of the private boys' boarding schools has become entrenched and has manifested itself as a pervasive mythology, which glorifies and glamourises the social reality of such institutions. This mythology is challenged and refuted by the appropriation of various sociological, and philosophical theorists, including: traditional Marxist critiques such as the theories of Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (1976); structuralist theories such as those proposed by Louis Althusser (1971) and Antonio Gramsci (1971), whose notions of hegemony carry much relevance when considering private boys' boarding schools; and finally, Michel Foucault's (1977) theories of power and power hierarchies (Lotringer, 1989; Smart, 1985). Since South Africa's democratization in 1994, a number of fictional works have emerged that have engaged with the social reality of private boys' boarding schools. Most notably, two plays, Anthony Akerman's Old Boys (2000) and John van de Ruit's War Cry (1999), have highlighted issues surrounding private boys' boarding schools in South Africa. Together with a variety of texts written for different media these works have formed a critical base that, to some degree, has undermined the supremely positive resonance of the entrenched private school mythology, and in so doing, challenge the projected ideology. This dissertation's prime focus is on South African private boys' boarding schools; however, it also includes texts that articulate the social reality of private education in England and America. These texts are relevant firstly because the South African private schools are modeled very closely on the English public school system and secondly, because their inclusion adds weight and variety to the discussion. Important areas of study within this dissertation will be the interpretation of the various thematic concerns raised, and character constructions created by the various writers. This will be underpinned by the theoretical framework, which analyzes systems of power and power hierarchies, and the notion of hegemonic masculinity. Finally, the private boys' boarding school will be examined as a site for hegemonic struggle where power and privilege are continually contested in a relationship characterized by coercion and consent. The critical discourse of the fictional texts and its theoretical underpinning will be placed in opposition to the elitist mythology of the private boys' boarding school and the ideology that these institutions espouse. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

Chapter One will outline the way I will be using the constructs of "national" and "personal" identity, and will then move on to provide a brief contextual setting for the creation and importance of certain literary conventions of Irish topography and character, in particular by examining the cultural nationalism in Yeats's poems. In doing so, I will outline the metaphor of evolution which is crucial in this dissertation, and will examine some of the ethical implications of employing this metaphor. Chapter Two will examine the 1996 memoir Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, outline McCourt's employment of various stock Irish tropes, and show how this leads to a conflation of "personal" and "national" identity, to the detriment of the memoir. Chapter Three will turn to critique Are You Somebody?, the memoir by Nuala O'Faolain which was also published in 1996. I will argue that, in contrast to Angela 's Ashes, Are You Somebody? offers a constructive fusion of both kinds of identity national and personal. In Chapter Four, I will compare and contrast key issues in the texts, in relation to their both being memoirs of (Irish) national significance, published at the same time in a changing Ireland, and I will conclude by arguing that the process of invention which is necessary for the writing of a memoir is equally necessary for the creation of a national identity. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

This thesis seeks to offer an explicitly political reading of E.M. Forster's fiction, focusing on three of his novels (A Room with a View, Howards End and Maurice) and two of his short stories ("The Life to Come" and "The Other Boat"). Throughout I have used a combination of close reading techniques and elements of critical theory to show how Forster's fiction is characterised by a prolonged and ongoing analysis of the political notion of the intersection of mainstream and marginal cultures. In this regard, I argue that the majority of Forster's novels and short stories are concerned with issues surrounding characters who are somehow marginalised from mainstream power structures and who then have to rebel against the cultural centre in their personal quests for political autonomy. It is this cultural issue, I argue, that gives Forster's novels and short stories their thematic unity and continuity. In probing this theme, I hope to move beyond restrictive (and often reductive) liberal humanist styles of criticism, which tend to downplay the political implications of Forster's fiction by fore grounding only the metaphysical questions posed by his writing. However, this thesis is also informed by certain deconstructive theoretical concepts, which I have loosely drawn upon in tracing the development of this theme. In particular, I argue throughout that the oppositional quality of the novels and short stories identified by the liberal humanist critics is only truly evident in the early novels, such as A Room with a View. In the later novels, I argue, it is evident that Forster had significantly re-evaluated his understanding of the relationship between the dominant culture and its dissident, subordinate subcultural strands, and that he had begun to conceive of the interaction between the two in a vastly more fluid and pluralistic manner than has been acknowledged by earlier critics. In particular, Forster seems to apprehend in the later works the manner in which a subject can be simultaneously both at the centre and the margins of hislher respective cultural system. It is for this reason that I stress that Forster sees the relationship between mainstream and marginal cultures as an intersection rather than an opposition. I also stress throughout this thesis the fact that the mainstream/marginal theme extends beyond issues raised in the novels and short stories and includes the author himself. As a male homosexual living in a sexually repressive society, Forster was himself a marginalised member of society, and this cultural positioning must therefore be seen to infonn the themes raised in his writings. However, as a middle-class male, Forster was himself also an empowered subject, and his writing thus also reflects his own complicity in the power structures he was seeking to subvert. This is particularly evident when one considers the recurrent misogyny his novels and short stories display. In addition, Forster's particular historical positioning as an early twentieth century writer means that his novels resonate with several of the non-literary discourses so prominent in the period, such as feminism and sexology. It is when one considers the manner in which the novels actively engage with these non-literary discourses that the considerable political invective of Forster's writing becomes apparent. In the light of the issues outlined above, I interpret Forster's novels as an attempt on the author's part to vocalise the feelings, hopes and aspirations of those groups somehow marginalised from the dominant culture. / Thesis (M.A.) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

No abstract available. / M.A. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2014.