M.Phil. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

From Introduction: We not only tolerate violence, we put it on the front pages of our newspapers. One-third or one-fourth of our television programmes use it for the amusement of our children. Condone! My dear friends, we love it." -Karl Menninger, psychiatrist. War is one of the most violent of man's past-times, yet many of the atrocities committed are termed heroic deeds. Andre Malraux, one of the leading writer-philosophers of his day, praised the international involvement by so many writers, artists, etc. in the Spanish Civil War as one of the most wonderful deeds of brotherhood in the history of mankind. There is a strange idolatry that is often accorded to violent criminals such as the early American outlaws, and people like Charles Manson, around whom an entire cult has sprung up. The "aggressive machismo" is something that boys and young men strive to achieve in most countries in the Western world. Scientlsts and philosophers have puzzled these paradoxes for centuries, and this effort to unravel the mystery of violence and aggression bears a fateful significant. For the quality of human life and the survival of man are involved. Robbery, rape, riots, vandalism, are all now part of man's existence. Around the world, violence has soared. In London, violent crimes increased by 39 per cent in three years. Even sports events (the soccer fans stage gang wars at most soccer matches nowadays, especially in England,) and entertainment ---books, movies, television--- have become permeated with violence. It has not always been as bad as this, and as art imitates life, life imitates art, and so aggressive paintings, threatening paintings are now commonplace. In this dissertation, I have studied this development of threat in painting. What follows is the course my study has taken.

[No abstract available] / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

Erinna was a poetess from Telos, who flourished in the latter part of the fourth century or the early part of the third century B.C. There is very little evidence available about her life or her work but what there is allows us to state with confidence that she must have lived at some time between 356-352 B.C., the date given as her floruit by Eusebius, and 276/5, the probable date of the earliest testimony about her. We may also be sure that, due to an early death at the age of nineteen, her work was confined to a few epigrams and a lament upon the death of her friend Baucis, a poem in three hundred hexameters that was known to later writers by the title of the Distaff. A portion of the Distaff was discovered in a papyrus unearthed in 1928 and the major part of this thesis is concerned with an examination of this fragment. The papyrus is extremely mutilated and a great deal of restoration has been needed in order to gain an idea of the poem's content. Unfortunately, many of the suggestions offered by earlier scholars about the poem were based upon unsupported speculation and much of the earlier work has been rejected as new readings have been made in the papyrus. I have therefore attempted to present a text of the fragment, based upon not only a consideration of the work of earlier scholars but also upon a close examination of the peculiarities of Erinna's style that show a knowledge of the poetry of both Homer and Sappho. The text is accompanied by a critical apparatus, giving a summary of earlier work upon the text, and a commentary upon the style and content of the fragment. A consideration of the few lines ascribed to Erinna by later authors has shown that the couplet assigned to her by Athenaeus, 7.283d, should probably be rejected as spurious, as should another papyrus fragment, P.Oxy.I.8, in the style of Alcman. On the other hand I have argued that an anonymous Alexandrian fragment, fr.Alex.adesp.11D, seems more likely to be the work of Erinna than of Antimachus. The epigrams of Erinna are also dealt with and the reason for the poetess' appeal to the Alexandrians, who praised her lavishly, is investigated. / Arts, Faculty of / Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of / Graduate

The first Part of the dissertation examines in some detail the poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid. A chronological approach is used, but what is most stressed is the thematic unity of all MacDiarmid’s work, from such early poems as A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (of which a detailed exegesis is presented) through the poems of the '30s to the long "world-view" poems such as In Memoriam James Joyce. This unity is to be found principally in MacDiarmid’s attitude towards Evolution, and his view of the evolutionary development of the human mind. Within this context, the apparent paradoxes and confusions of MacDiarmid's political, social, and aesthetic views may be reconciled. Although mainly concerned with the ideas contained in MacDiarmid's poetry, the dissertation also attempts to describe and to defend the changing stylistic means by which these ideas are presented, especially with regard to the very "prosaic" nature of the later poems. Part Two examines the work of four leading poets of the Scottish Renaissance. Sydney Goodsir Smith's poetry is discussed in terms of its main themes of love and politics, and their partial reconciliation in poems dealing with the figure of the outsider. Particularly close attention is given to the poem-sequence Under the Eildon Tree. The discussion of Robert Garioch relates his work as a translator of poetry to his work as an original poet, dealing especially with his poems about Edinburgh, and with the relation of his humorous to his more serious work. The section on Norman MacCaig analyses his attitudes towards nature, and the means of perceiving external nature, especially the poetic perception through metaphor. The results of MacCaig's recent shift to free verse are also treated. Iain Crichton Smith's poetry is viewed as a system of dualities, perhaps best summed up in the title of one of his books, The Law and the Grace; the discussion closes with a detailed analysis of the one poem, Deer on the High Hills, in which these dualities are (tentatively) reconciled. The final Part of the dissertation opens with an account of the history and theoretical basis of the experimental Concrete Poetry movement, and then examines the contributions to this movement of two Scots poets, Edwin Morgan and Ian Hamilton Finlay. Finlay’s work is examined in detail, not only for its extraordinary inventiveness of technique, but also for the very positive values of it’s attitudes, themes, and imagery. Particular attention is given to the theme of fishing-boats and the sea in Finlay's work. This section is not merely a defence of Finlay's technical procedures, but an assertion of his greatness as a poet. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Contained within is a sample, consisting of the first twelve chapters, which portray the final days of the fictional Polian War. The events are a springboard for the rest of the novel, and indeed the series.

This study analyzes the contents of the "Lounger" to fill the vacuum caused by the lack of critical material on this eighteenth-century publication edited by Henry MacKenzie. This thesis catalogues the content of these one hundred and one essays and record their authorship. Specific areas, such as fashions, manners, morals, and literature, are dealt with in detail with emphasis on their reflecting the attitudes and social conditions of the period. Biographical information on the authors is given.

Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the DEPARTMENT OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES at the UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND, 2001 / This study focuses on the study of J.P. Shongwe's poetry. The introductory chapter reveals the actual aim of this study. Shongwe's biographical note clarifies his whole background and social life, factors and circumstances that influenced his writing specifically of poems. In chapter 2 the focus is on some of the related political issues particularly given that educational issues are highly politicized in the South African context. This chapter also gives a short background on cultural, social, religious aspects and beliefs in Shongwe's poetry. Chapter 3 focuses only on Shongwe as to whether he is a metaphysical or not. Chapter 4 discusses the different types of imagery. The poet employs imagery, which enables him to express his thoughts vividly and concisely. In chapter 5 we focus on the external structure of Shogwe's poetry. Chapter 6 is a concluding chapter with the evaluation, findings and recommendations.

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