An interest in colonial literature is relatively new in the study of English. English-speaking South Africans especially, cut off as they are, a minority group in a new republic, have begun to re-assess their identity through a study of their existing literature. When asked what South African verse there was beside his own, Kipling remarked, "As to South African verse, it's a case of there's Pringle, and there's Pringle, and after that one must hunt the local papers." This thesis is the result of such a hunt - the hunt being limited to the years 1824 to 1851 - and on occasion, the writer has been tempted to conclude rather unfairly, "And there is only Pringle." It cannot be claimed that every poem ever printed during the period under review has been collected and examined, for the reason that many volumes of old newspapers are no longer available. Nevertheless, it has been possible to make a representative selection, which could provide the raw material for several theses to come. A detailed study of critical criteria prevalent at the Cape during this period, or public taste and the influence especially of the lesser British poets are some of the topics which might repay study. Intro., p. 1.

This is a study of the poetry of Don Maclennan in four chapters. Chapter One explores the poetry's deep involvement with the immediate world, and with the being that encounters it. Chapter Two examines the corpus's mistrust of abstract thought, and its suggestions for alternative ways of intepreting (or at least approaching an interpretation of) our existential situation. Chapter Three deals with Maclennan's writing on the subject of death, while the final chapter looks at the response of the poetry to the fact of death: put simply, this is to learn to love the situation we are in, and to record our thoughts for future generations, thus reaching beyond death to share with others the necessarily unique experience of our one and only life.

In this collection of free verse lyric poems I have drawn inspiration from childhood memories, as well as from the natural world and encounters with the people around me. Each poem focuses on a small moment, presenting an emotive portrait of a memory or an experience. These small moments lead, cumulatively, to deeper insights into myself and the world around me. The collection is divided into four seasons, in part because the work is strongly influenced by the natural world, but also because the progression of the seasons mirrors something of the personal journey reflected in the poems.

This thesis presents for the first time a critical reading edition of all known poems by N. H. Brettell. It makes no claim to being definitive, nor does it attempt to establish a final text. It represents merely the best thinking of the editor. Brettell printed and circulated his poetry primarily in hand-made illustrated volumes in a process reminiscent of the scribal publication of the seventeenth century. Only 137 of his 206 extant poems were commercially published during his lifetime. In this study all known printed versions of Brettell's poetry whether in privately printed or commercially published form were examined. All variant readings were recorded and are shown. Wherever possible the relationships between texts are also noted. The poems in this edition are ordered in each case according to the version in the latest datable privately produced collection. The commentary and critical introduction were compiled with the general reader in mind. No previous familiarity with southern African fauna and flora is assumed: animals, birds and insects are described and their scientific names supplied. Expressions current in ordinary British or South African English and present in non-specialist dictionaries are not glossed, but archaic and dialectal forms felt to require explication are briefly explained. So too are less familiar South African dialectal expressions which have been assimilated into the South African English lexicon. Intertextual, Christian and mythological references, both African and Western, are annotated in an attempt to make such references accessible to readers who may not share Brettell's cultural background. The intention is to close the changing distance between the text and the audience. An essay discussing the merits, potential and limitations of electronic scholarly editing is included as part of the textual introduction. A CD-Rom containing Brettell's watercolour illustrations in his privately produced collections and audio-clips of him reading his poetry accompanies this thesis.

In this thesis I present a collection of semi-narrative poems about a rural Africa that is a place of folk-lore and tradition, but also a place of otherworldly, almost grotesque, incident. My characters are, similarly, range in type, from buskers, to guards, school-children, paupers and tycoons. Through the work a place that is both familiar and unknown, common-place and mysterious, emerge.

The concept of a distinctively South African poetry in English has been, and still is, derided as a "pipe dream" as part of the fallacy which stems from the desire for a "national" literature. In 1955, for instance, C.J. Harvey (in an article containing much common sense as well as sound literary judgment) denounced the self-conscious hunting for "Local Colour" which engrosses so many South African writers. Harvey claimed: "Our civilization is not "South African", except in trivial details, it is Western European, and more specifically as far as poetry written in English is concerned, English ... ". There is a serious error of emphasis here. It would be more accurate to say that our ancestors brought Western European civilization to this continent. To imagine that this civilisation has not undergone and is not still constantly suffering a subtle but far-reaching metamorphosis in Africa would be to fly in the face of reality. White South Africans do not only carry the same identity-card but they can be distinguished from Frenchmen, Englishmen or Irishmen by more than "trivial details". This thesis is an examination of some af the earliest English written in southern Africa, particularly of the verse produced by our poetasters and near-poets. It attempts, during the course of this examination, to call attention to a few of the more significant changes which have arisen as the result of the importation of Western civilsation to an African frontier. Further I hope to show some at the varying ways in which these differences affected the white pioneer and how this has been reflected in our verse since pioneering times. In this sense the Frontier may be thought of as the background against which South African English writers developed certain characteristic traits. Intro., p. 1-2.

English Studies / M.A. (English)

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the criteria for the c[egree of Master of Arts / The literature produced by writers who align themselves with national liberation and resistance movements presents a serious challenge to dominant standards of literary . aesthetics. Resistance writing aims to break down the assumed division between art and politics. and in this view literature becomes an arena of conflict and struggle. This dissertation examines certain aspects of the poetry of Mongane Wally Serote in order to explore the relationship between aesthetics and resistance in his writing. Over the last two decades, Serote has made a significant contribution to the development of South African literature, and his work has important implications for literary criticism in South Africa. Chapter 1 looks at some of these implications by discussing the concept of resistance literature and the main issues arising from the debates and polemics surrounding the work of Serote and other black political writers. Perhaps the most important here is the need to construct a critical approach to South African resistance literature that can come to terms with both its aesthetic qualities and political effects. This kind of approach would in some way attempt to integrate the seemingly incompatible critical practices of idealism and materialism. Accordingly, Chapter 2 is a materialist approach to aspects of Serote's early poetry. The critical model used is a simplified version of the interpretive schema set out by Fredric Jameson in The Political Unconscious. This model enables a discussion of the poetry in relation to ideology, and also suggests ways of examining the discursive strategies and symbolic processes in this particular phase of Serote's development. Serote's later work is 'characterised by the attempt to create a unifying mythology of resistance. Chapter 3 thus looks at Serote's long poems from an idealist perspective that is based on the principles of myth-criticism, As this is a complex area, this chapter merely sketches the main features of Serote' s use of myth as a form of resistance, and then suggests further avenues of exploration along these lines. The dissertation concludes by pointing towards some of the implications of recent political developments in South Africa for Serote and other resistance writers. / Andrew Chakane 2018

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts / This dissertation shows how both poets and their audiences have played a central role in the emergence of Durban Worker poetry. A review of critical responses to worker poetry concludes that insufficient attention has been paid to questions of audience. Performances of worker poetry are analysed, highlighting the conventions used by the audience when participating in and evaluating the poetry, Social, political and literary factors which have influenced the audience of worker poetry are explored, as are the factors which led to the emergence of worker poetry. In discussing the influence of the Zulu izibongo (praise poetry) on worker poetry, particular attention is paid to formal and performative qualities. The waye in Which worker poetry has been utilised by both poets and audience as a powerful intellectual resource are debated. Finally, the implications of publishing worker poetry via the media of print, audio-cassettes and video-Cassettes are discussed. / Andrew Chakane 2019

This dissertation offers an extended examination of the writing of the 1820 Scottish settler Thomas Pringle. Though the primary focus of analysis is Pringle's poetry, the dissertation also engages extensively with Pringle's prose writing, particularly the Narrative ofa Residence in South Africa (1834), as well as the archival records of his personal and official correspondence. As the title suggests, the dissertation works through three distinct periods of Pringle's life, in each of which it locates different but related colonial postures or dispositions. In this schema, Pringle's Scottish writing is understood as obeisant to British cultural and linguistic norms, which it reproduces in a fashion that may be considered colonial in its deference to metropolitan standards. The Scottish context also provides Pringle with examples of people considered marginal to the developing modernity of the Scottish state (such as gypsies), who provide, I argue, baseline models for how Pringle will come to represent colonised indigenous peoples. In addition, the general principles of Scottish Enlightenment thought, in particular the four stages theory of historical development, supplied Pringle with a model within which to conceptualise the colonial state and its future evolution. Chapters two and three focus on Pringle's colonial career in the Cape Colony. Here I argue that Pringle's poetry of this period provides evidence of two distinct phases. In the first and most difficult period of settlement Pringle wrote poetry of troubled lyric interiority which reflected an incommensurable gap between colonial experience and the expressive expectations and conventions which he brought to it. Following his fallout with Governor Somerset and a de facto alliance with the mission humanitarians, Pringle's poetry moves away from a Romantic preoccupation with the self and begins to engage larger public issues, such as the treatment of indigenous people. In this mode, Pringle very often assumes an indigenous persona and I examine the extent to which such a gesture might be considered both appropriative and incipiently transcultural. As indicated earlier, I also examine the generic and representational models which might have informed Pringle's treatment of this subject. The chapters also consider Pringle's colonial politics, and emphasise that his reputation as a 'radical' is a misleading one; there are, furthermore, no easy conjunctures to be established between Pringle's allegedly radical politics and a radicalism of representation in his poetry (a commonplace critical assumption). In the final chapter I examine the complexities of Pringle's London years, which require that we bring into focus both his Scottish and his South African experience and their mediation by this new context. Here the broad focus of my argument is that we must take account not only of Pringle's standing as an abolitionist-humanitarian and Secretary to the high profile Anti-Slavery Society, but also his position as a respectable man of letters, particularly his role as editor of the influential but genteel 'annual', Friendship's Offering, from 1829-1835. These dual public roles reciprocated one another, I argue, in that Pringle's reputation as a poet of 'elegance' and 'taste' also lent credence to his reputation an ethically exemplary humanitarian. This reciprocation of roles is strongly evident in Pringle's best known poems of this period, «The Bechuana Boy" and «The Emigrant's Cabin", which rewrite colonial experience in a way that conforms to the expectations of his metropolitan readers. During his residence in London, Pringle also produced a number of poems in the subgenre of what could be described as evangelical redemptivism. These hortatory and proselytising pieces were mainly published in missionary magazines, and though South African in subject matter they could equally be set in any area of empire where mission work was being done. This subgenre I analyse as an offshoot of the extreme evangelical and abolitionist enthusiasms of the 1830s, with their belief in their divinely mandated mission to fully Christianise the British empire and emancipate all its subjects. In conclusion, this study argues for an understanding of Pringle's work as being intersected by differences in imperial location and status, as well as by a significant degree of instability and contradiction in its representation of the colonial project. Far from being cohered around a teleological liberal vision of an emancipated future, Pringle's work, both prose and poetry, repeatedly reveals a contradiction and contrariety that suggests fundamental irresolution rather than firm conviction. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.