Browsing by Author "Brink, Andre P"

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    Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie : three moments in the problematics of magic realism
    (1994) Pooley, Simon Preston; Brink, Andre P; Watson, Stephen
    Chapter One begins by outlining the space magic occupies in Western culture, clarifying what I mean by the term "magic". I examine aspects of indigenous American sacred traditions which have influenced and which prefigure magic realism. I review the development of the aesthetic in its Latin American context, touching on the Chronicles, the role of nationalism and erotic rhetoric, the influence of European modernism and the role of the intellectual in Latin American society. Chapter Two examines the development of a realist aesthetic in Europe since the Enlightenment. This review of its manifestations and counter-traditions in European culture is founded upon a discussion of aspects of the philosophy of Kant. I focus on the influence of Surrealism which is particularly illuminating of Latin American magic realism. The impacts of anthropology and psychoanalysis on Latin American writers are also reviewed. Chapter Two includes a review of formulations of magic realism influential in the field of English studies and concludes with a working definition which is used as a basis for the discussions of the three novels analysed in this study. Chapter Three is a study of the development of Alejo Carpentier's version of magic realism culminating in the writing of The Kingdom of this World in 1949. Through using both European and indigenous American techniques and perspectives he hoped to create a literature which could represent the complex realities of Latin American life and establish a mythology for the founding of a unified Latin American identity.
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    Allegories of drought and of gardens in the novels of J.M. Coetzee and Dambudzo Marechera
    (1996) Lilford, Grant Charles ; Brink, Andre P
    This thesis examines the trope of Allegory in the work of two Southern African writers, JM Coetzee and Dambudzo Marechera. It discusses the trope's use in redefining the dominant theme of the dialectic between scarcity and plenty. In much of Southern African literature, this dialectic is expressed allegorically. Drought represents a physical and spiritual lack while gardens represent human attempts to respond to that lack by creating fertility and meaning. The thesis is based on the premise that Southern African literature is best understood from as wide a perspective as possible. Coetzee and Marechera redefine the form and the content of a variety of texts, both African and non-African. In order to study this process of redefinition more closely, I have placed the work of each writer within the context of other genres of writing. Many critics view Marechera's writing as modernistic and European. I attempt to establish his unconscious reliance upon African traditional narrative, particularly the Shona rungano. Marechera uses Shona orature as a mythic pre-text for the more explicitly allegorical sections of his House of Hunger. Similarly, several of Coetzee's novels allegorise concerns around drought found in novels of settlement in Southern Africa. Both writers work within a more global tradition of writing about scarcity and plenty. The garden also appears in Homer, Milton, Rousseau, Voltaire, Dickens and Rushdie, among others, as a site of refuge from poverty and oppression. Contextual chapters examine other texts handling these related themes as background for those chapters which deal with Marechera and Coetzee's work in depth. The thesis makes use of the twentieth-century theory of allegory, particularly as presented by Edwin Honig, Angus Fletcher and Maureen Quilligan. It examines the relationship between consciously allegorical texts, like those written by Coetzee and Marechera, and the unconscious and ubiquitous . use of allegory as an instrument of rhetoric in ostensibly realistic or philosophical texts. Coetzee and Marechera use allegory in critiquing dominant forms of discourse and this thesis uses close critical reading to expose the links between their allegory and its pre-texts.
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    Verses on Auschwitz : images of the Holocaust in modern American poetry
    (1995) Pager, Chet Kelii-Wallraff; Brink, Andre P; Watson, Stephen
    This thesis examines how poetic responses to the Holocaust in America, when they emerged, have differed from the novels addressing the same subject; how the Second World War has challenged, in a way the First World War did not, basic humanistic assumptions regarding the image of man, the role of God, the benefits of civilisation & culture, and the humanising power of art or reason; and how this impact has influenced modern trends in poetry. After an extensive background section documenting the impact the Holocaust and Second World War have made upon the literary imagination, an extensive review is conducted of the varied critical positions and criteria, both aesthetic and ethical, from which American literary responses have been evaluated. Among the major critical positions is the belief that there should be no literary response to the Holocaust; that this literary response must primarily serve to document and testify; that the Holocaust should not be addressed imaginatively by non-victims; and that the Holocaust should not be used as a metaphor to convey some other subject or theme. These and other critical standpoints are discussed in relation to works by ten American poets whose poetry is representative of the ways in which the Holocaust has impacted on the poetic imagination, the breadth of poetic responses to this atrocity, and the range of difficulties and corresponding criticisms which are associated with almost all attempts to respond creatively to the Holocaust. The poets examined are Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Maxine Kumin, Adrienne Rich, Denise Levertov, Stephen Berg, Van Brock, W.D. Snodgrass, William Heyen and Charles Reznikoff. Where illustrative, comparisons to relevant European poets have been made, including Nellie Sachs and Paul Celan. It was concluded that certain poets (Levertov, Rich, Heyen), as well as certain critical standpoints (Ezrahi, Langer, James Young) did more justice to the reality of the Holocaust and the challenges it poses to the literary and poetic imagination. Bibliography: p. 135-140.