Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-qdpjg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-21T12:20:38.319Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

39 - Literary and cultural criticism in South Africa

from PART VI - SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE: CONTINUITIES AND CONTRASTS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2012

By
David Johnson
Edited by
David Attwell  and
Derek Attridge
David Attwell
Affiliation:
University of York
Derek Attridge
Affiliation:
University of York
Get access

Summary

Nineteenth-century origins

Many enduring characteristics of South African literary and cultural criticism are evident in the very first articles, book and theatre reviews and lectures that appeared in the small-circulation newspapers and periodicals of the Cape. These early newspapers included John Fairbairn and Thomas Pringle's South African Commercial Advertiser (1824–69), William Bridekirk's South African Chronicle (1824–6), Frederick Brooks's South African Grins; or, The Quizzical Depot of General Humbug (1825–6), Joseph Suasso de Lima's De Verzamelaar/The Gleaner (1826–7), C. E. Boniface and C. N. Neethling's Zuid-Afrikaan (1830–71), A. J. Jardine's Cape of Good Hope Literary Gazette (1830–5), and Robert Godlonton's Graham's Town Journal (1831–1919) (Huigen, ‘Neder-landstalige’, pp. 7–11; Lewin Robinson, None Daring). The periodicals of this period – Fairbairn and Pringle's South African Journal (1824), Abraham Faure's Het Nederduytsch Zuid-Afrikaansche Tydschrift (1824–43), Andrew Smith and James Adamson's South African Quarterly Journal (1830–7) and James L. Fitzpatrick's Cape of Good Hope Literary Magazine (1847–8) – were dominated by articles on the natural sciences, history and travel, and there were only occasional pieces of literary or cultural criticism, like Fairbairn's two-part essay ‘On the Writings of Wordsworth’ in the South African Journal (1 [1824], pp. 12–16, and 2 [1824], pp. 107–17), and the anonymous ‘On the Sources of Shakespeare's Plots’ in the Cape of Good Hope Literary Magazine (2, 10 [1848], pp. 571–92).

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of South African Literature , pp. 818 - 837
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adamson, J.Modern Literature: An Address Delivered at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Subscribers to the Public Library, Cape Town: J. H. Collard, 1844.Google Scholar
Attwell, D.Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History, Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Bhabha, H. Interview by Attwell, D., Current Writing 52 (1993).Google Scholar
Biko, S.I Write What I Like, London: Heinemann, 1979.Google Scholar
Bleek, W. H. I. ‘On Inquiries into Australian Aboriginal Folklore’, Cape Monthly Magazine 9 (1874).Google Scholar
Bosman, F. C. L.Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Cape Town: HAUM, 1928.Google Scholar
Brown, D., and Dyk, B. (eds.). Exchanges: South African Writing in Transition, Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Calhoun, C. ‘Nationalism and the Public Sphere’, in Weintraub, J. and Kumar, K. (eds.), Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy, University of Chicago Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Carusi, A. ‘The Postcolonial Other as a Problem for Political Action’, Journal of Literary Studies 7:3–4 (1993).Google Scholar
Chrisman, L. ‘Inventing Post-Colonial Theory: Polemical Observations’, Pretexts 5:1–2 (1995).Google Scholar
Coetzee, A.Marxisme en die Afrikaanse Letterkunde, Bellville: University of the Western Cape Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Cope, J.The Adversary Within: Dissident Writers in Afrikaans, Cape Town: David Philip, 1982.Google Scholar
Couzens, T. ‘Criticism of South African Literature’, Work in Progress 2 (1977).Google Scholar
Couzens, T.The New African: A Study of the Life and Work of H. I. E. Dhlomo, Johannesburg: Ravan, 1985.Google Scholar
Dubow, S.A Commonwealth of Knowledge: Science, Sensibility, and White South Africa, 1820–2000, Oxford University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Eberly, R. A.Citizen Critics: Literary Public Spheres, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Eberly, R. A.English in Africa, special issue on ‘H. I. E. Dhlomo’, 4:2 (1977).Google Scholar
Fletcher, J.The Story of Theatre in South Africa: A Guide to its History from 1780–1930, Cape Town: Vlaeberg, 1994.Google Scholar
Gérard, A.Four African Literatures: Xhosa, Sotho, Zulu, Amharic, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Gardner, M.South African Literary Magazines 1956–1978, Johannesburg: Warren Sieberts, 2004.Google Scholar
Hirson, B.The Cape Town Intellectuals: Ruth Schechter and her Circle, 1907–34, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Hofmeyr, I. ‘Building a Nation from Words: Afrikaans Language, Literature and Ethnic Identity, 1902–1924’, in Marks, S. and Trapido, S. (eds.), The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century South Africa, London and New York: Longman, 1987.Google Scholar
Hofmeyr, I. ‘Problems of Creative Writers: A Reply’, Work in Progress 2 (1977).Google Scholar
Huigen, S. ‘Nederlandstalige Suid-Afrikaanse Letterkunde, 1652 tot 1925’, in Coller, H. P. (ed.), Perspektief en Profiel: 'n Afrikaanse Literatuurgeskiedenis, vol. III, Pretoria: Van Schaik, 2005.Google Scholar
Johnson, D.Shakespeare and South Africa, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, D. ‘Violence and Philosophy: Jack Cade, A. W. Schlegel, and Nathaniel Merriman’, in Joughin, J. (ed.), Philosophical Shakespeares, London: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar
Jordan, A. C.Towards an African Literature: The Emergence of Literary Form in English, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Kannemeyer, J. C.Geskiedenis van die Afrikaanse Literatuur, 2 vols., Cape Town and Pretoria: Academica, 1978, 1983.Google Scholar
Kannemeyer, J. C.Die Koléperas van Kees Konyn, Emmerentia: Taurus, 1983.Google Scholar
Kirkwood, M. ‘The Colonizer: A Critique of the English South African Culture Theory’, in Wilhelm, P. and Polley, J. (eds.), Poetry 74, Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1976.Google Scholar
Kock, L. ‘Postcolonial Analysis and the Question of Critical Disablement’, Current Writing 5:2 (1993).Google Scholar
Kok, I., and Press, K. (eds.). Spring is Rebellious, Cape Town: Buchu, 1990.Google Scholar
Lewin Robinson, A. M.None Daring to make us Afraid: A Study of the English Periodical Literature of the Cape from 1824–1834, Cape Town: Maskew Miller, 1962.Google Scholar
Lockett, C. ‘Feminisms and Writing in English in South Africa’, Current Writing 2:1 (1990).Google Scholar
Makgoba, M. W. (ed.). African Renaissance: The New Struggle, Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1999.Google Scholar
Masilela, N.The Cultural Modernity of H. I. E. Dhlomo, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007.Google Scholar
McClintock, A. ‘The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term “Postcolonialism”’, Social Text 31/32 (1992).Google Scholar
McClintock, A., and Nixon, R.. ‘No Names Apart: The Separation of Word and History in Derrida's “Le Dernier mot du racisme”’, Critical Inquiry 13:1 (1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merriman, N.On the Study of Shakespeare, Grahamstown: General Institute, 1857.Google Scholar
Merriman, N.Shakespeare as Bearing on English History, Grahamstown: General Institute, 1858.Google Scholar
Merrington, P. ‘A Staggered Orientalism: The Cape-to-Cairo Imaginary’, Poetics Today 22:2 (2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moloka, E., and Roux, E. le (eds.). Problematising the African Renaissance, Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa, 2000.Google Scholar
Moran, S.Representing Bushmen: South Africa and the Origin of Language, NewYork: University of Rochester Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Mutloatse, M.Forced Landing: Africa South – Contemporary Writings, Johannesburg: Ravan, 1980.Google Scholar
Negt, O., and Kluge, A.. Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere [1972], trans. Labanyi, P., Daniel, J. Owen and Oksiloff, A., Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Nkosi, L.Home and Exile, London: Longman, 1965.Google Scholar
Opland, J. ‘Fighting with the Pen: The Appropriation of the Press by Early Xhosa Writers’, in Draper, J. A. (ed.), Orality, Literacy, and Colonialism in Southern Africa, Pietermaritzburg: Cluster, 2003.Google Scholar
Opland, J. ‘The First Novel in Xhosa’, Research in African Literatures 38:4 (2007).Google Scholar
Opland, J.Xhosa Poets and Poetry, Cape Town: David Philip, 1998.Google Scholar
Opland, J., and Nyamende, A. (eds. and trans.). Isaac Williams Wauchope, Selected Writings 1874–1916, Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 2008.Google Scholar
Parry, B. ‘The Postcolonial: Conceptual Category or Chimera?’, Yearbook of English Studies 27 (1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandwith, C. ‘Dora Taylor: South African Marxist’, English in Africa 29:2 (2002).Google Scholar
Sole, K. ‘Culture, Politics and the Black Writer: A Critical Look at Prevailing Assumptions’, English in Africa 10:1 (1983).Google Scholar
Sole, K. ‘Problems of Creative Writers in South Africa’, Work in Progress 1 (1977).Google Scholar
Sole, K. ‘South Africa Passes the Posts’, Alternation 4:1 (1997).Google Scholar
Stapleton, R. J. (ed.). Poetry of the Cape of Good Hope Selected from the Periodical Journals of the Colony, Cape Town: G. Greig, 1828.Google Scholar
Vaughan, M. ‘A Critique in the English-Speaking Universities of South Africa’, Critical Arts 3:2 (1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Visser, N. (ed.). ‘Postcoloniality of a Special Type: Theory and its Appropriations in South Africa’, Yearbook of English Studies 27 (1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vuuren, H. ‘Introduction: Literary Historiography, with specific reference to the problems of the South African context’, Journal of Literary Studies 10:3–4 (1994).Google Scholar
Watson, S. (ed.). Guy Butler: Essays and Lectures 1949–1991, Cape Town: David Philip, 1994.Google Scholar
Willan, B. (ed.). Sol Plaatje: Selected Writings, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Willemse, H.Aan die Ander Kant: Swart Afrikaanse Skrywers in die Afrikaanse Letterkunde, Pretoria: Protea, 2007.Google Scholar
Wyk, J.Constructs of Identity and Difference in South African Literature, Durban: University of Durban-Westville, 1995.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×