Metaphysical balm and the poet as legislator

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dc.contributor.advisorHambidge, Joanen_ZA
dc.contributor.authorBetty, Michèle Anneen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2016-06-09T11:18:53Z
dc.date.available2016-06-09T11:18:53Z
dc.date.issued2015en_ZA
dc.description.abstractThis essay was born of a desire to understand the relationship between poetry and politics in a meaningful and current way. The twentieth century has seen atrocities that have taken place on an unprecedented scale: times of historical and social extremity, states of exile, censorship, military occupation, political persecution, torture, warfare, assassination, apartheid and, more recently, forms of violent terrorism. This essay will consider the function of poetry in a world overcome and consumed by violence. The essay will begin with a consideration of the political function of the ideas expressed in Percy Bysshe Shelley's A Defence of Poetry (hereinafter A Defence). Shelley's notion of the promise of art and what it de facto delivers, and his ideas on the significance of poems in the context of politics will be examined. The essay will then consider the views of the Russian Formalists on how to establish the "literariness" of a text and the ability of a text to "defamiliarise", as well as the devices that can be used by a poet to achieve literariness and defamiliarisation. It will touch on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and his concepts of folk humour and grotesque realism in a text. Carolyn Forché's idea of poetry as a witness of a lived experience, as enunciated in her text Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness, will be discussed. Thereafter, the essay will consider Viljoen and Van der Merwe's notions of liminality in literature, as expounded in their text Beyond the Threshold, and their explanation of how language can act as a transformative vehicle. In order to illustrate these concepts practically, the essay will analyse two South African poetry collections, namely: Nathan Trantraal's Chokers en Survivors and Oswald Mtshali's Sounds of a Cowhide Drum. The analyses will reveal what distinguishes mere resistance poetry and political diatribe from poetry that is lasting and effective.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationBetty, M. A. (2015). <i>Metaphysical balm and the poet as legislator</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,School of Languages and Literatures. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19969en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationBetty, Michèle Anne. <i>"Metaphysical balm and the poet as legislator."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,School of Languages and Literatures, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19969en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationBetty, M. 2015. Metaphysical balm and the poet as legislator. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Betty, Michèle Anne AB - This essay was born of a desire to understand the relationship between poetry and politics in a meaningful and current way. The twentieth century has seen atrocities that have taken place on an unprecedented scale: times of historical and social extremity, states of exile, censorship, military occupation, political persecution, torture, warfare, assassination, apartheid and, more recently, forms of violent terrorism. This essay will consider the function of poetry in a world overcome and consumed by violence. The essay will begin with a consideration of the political function of the ideas expressed in Percy Bysshe Shelley's A Defence of Poetry (hereinafter A Defence). Shelley's notion of the promise of art and what it de facto delivers, and his ideas on the significance of poems in the context of politics will be examined. The essay will then consider the views of the Russian Formalists on how to establish the "literariness" of a text and the ability of a text to "defamiliarise", as well as the devices that can be used by a poet to achieve literariness and defamiliarisation. It will touch on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and his concepts of folk humour and grotesque realism in a text. Carolyn Forché's idea of poetry as a witness of a lived experience, as enunciated in her text Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness, will be discussed. Thereafter, the essay will consider Viljoen and Van der Merwe's notions of liminality in literature, as expounded in their text Beyond the Threshold, and their explanation of how language can act as a transformative vehicle. In order to illustrate these concepts practically, the essay will analyse two South African poetry collections, namely: Nathan Trantraal's Chokers en Survivors and Oswald Mtshali's Sounds of a Cowhide Drum. The analyses will reveal what distinguishes mere resistance poetry and political diatribe from poetry that is lasting and effective. DA - 2015 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2015 T1 - Metaphysical balm and the poet as legislator TI - Metaphysical balm and the poet as legislator UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19969 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/19969
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationBetty MA. Metaphysical balm and the poet as legislator. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,School of Languages and Literatures, 2015 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19969en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentSchool of Languages and Literaturesen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherCreative Writingen_ZA
dc.titleMetaphysical balm and the poet as legislatoren_ZA
dc.typeMaster Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelMasters
dc.type.qualificationnameMAen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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