Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1959764
R. M. Gilete
Summary In English literature, we sometimes find biblical messages that have been adapted to the contemporary reader, and may be interpreted as veiled religious instructions such as John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. The present study delves into this idea by presenting and comparing John Dryden’s neoclassical poem, “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”, with C.S. Lewis’s fantasy heptalogy, The Chronicles of Narnia. Both texts contain the Christian doctrine of faith and morals and fulfil the requirements for the Catholic catechism, given their respective historic and cultural context. The way that Dryden and Lewis incorporate music in their texts follows a common pattern that serves as a unifying factor for this structured analysis, and justifies a comparative study.
{"title":"Contemporaneity, Religious Instruction and Music in Dryden’s “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” and C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia*","authors":"R. M. Gilete","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1959764","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1959764","url":null,"abstract":"Summary In English literature, we sometimes find biblical messages that have been adapted to the contemporary reader, and may be interpreted as veiled religious instructions such as John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. The present study delves into this idea by presenting and comparing John Dryden’s neoclassical poem, “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”, with C.S. Lewis’s fantasy heptalogy, The Chronicles of Narnia. Both texts contain the Christian doctrine of faith and morals and fulfil the requirements for the Catholic catechism, given their respective historic and cultural context. The way that Dryden and Lewis incorporate music in their texts follows a common pattern that serves as a unifying factor for this structured analysis, and justifies a comparative study.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80564719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1959758
Florence Ndiyah
Summary Although it is oppressive to women, polygamy is still relevant in many contemporary African societies, where the culturally acceptable identity of a woman is as a wife and mother, as demonstrated in Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives (2015). To overcome the challenges of their daily lives, polygynous wives must search for resources elsewhere, since mental health facilities are comparatively few in Africa, and that seeking professional help is often the exception. At the end of her novel, Shoneyin keeps Baba Segi’s three uneducated wives in the repressive marriage she has depicted, even though their husband permits them to leave. Bolanle, the educated, fourth wife, decides to divorce. While the man’s domination is customary in a patriarchal culture, the woman’s freedom and emotional well-being are subject to conditions laid down by her society, but ones which she can control through her response to subjugation. This article uses Aaron Antonovsky’s theory of salotugenesis and its principles of the Generalised Resistance Resources (GRRs) to demonstrate how Iya Segi and Bolanle, respectively Baba Segi’s first and last wives, cope or crumble in the face of stressors. Emphasis is on the GRRs of ego strength, co-wife bonding, co-wife rank, joy in children, economic freedom, and education and skills.
{"title":"The Emotional Well-being of African Wives: Perceiving the Generalised Resistance Resources (GRRs) in Stress Management by Co-wives in Lola Shoneyin’s Novel The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives","authors":"Florence Ndiyah","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1959758","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1959758","url":null,"abstract":"Summary Although it is oppressive to women, polygamy is still relevant in many contemporary African societies, where the culturally acceptable identity of a woman is as a wife and mother, as demonstrated in Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives (2015). To overcome the challenges of their daily lives, polygynous wives must search for resources elsewhere, since mental health facilities are comparatively few in Africa, and that seeking professional help is often the exception. At the end of her novel, Shoneyin keeps Baba Segi’s three uneducated wives in the repressive marriage she has depicted, even though their husband permits them to leave. Bolanle, the educated, fourth wife, decides to divorce. While the man’s domination is customary in a patriarchal culture, the woman’s freedom and emotional well-being are subject to conditions laid down by her society, but ones which she can control through her response to subjugation. This article uses Aaron Antonovsky’s theory of salotugenesis and its principles of the Generalised Resistance Resources (GRRs) to demonstrate how Iya Segi and Bolanle, respectively Baba Segi’s first and last wives, cope or crumble in the face of stressors. Emphasis is on the GRRs of ego strength, co-wife bonding, co-wife rank, joy in children, economic freedom, and education and skills.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88919187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1959763
Mthulisi Mathuthu
Summary This article argues that while the state succeeded in framing Gukurahundi as suppression of armed rebellion with the help of some artists, Ndebele musicians also successfully counter-framed the carnage as genocide using subversive metaphors and analogies. It demonstrates that Ndebele musicians were among the earliest public sponsors of the genocide frame. In framing theory, metaphor is one of the key framing devices; as such, this article is a case-based comparative examination of metaphorical framing and counter-framing of selected songs. It uses songs by Lovemore Majayivana (Inhlanzi Yesiziba and U Tshaka) and Ebony Sheik (Isavungu-zane) but also touches on the broader context and deeper insights provided by other artists such as Thomas Mapfumo and Patrick Mukwamba.
{"title":"Subversive Verses: How Ndebele Musicians Counter-Framed the State Propaganda on The Gukurahundi Genocide","authors":"Mthulisi Mathuthu","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1959763","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1959763","url":null,"abstract":"Summary This article argues that while the state succeeded in framing Gukurahundi as suppression of armed rebellion with the help of some artists, Ndebele musicians also successfully counter-framed the carnage as genocide using subversive metaphors and analogies. It demonstrates that Ndebele musicians were among the earliest public sponsors of the genocide frame. In framing theory, metaphor is one of the key framing devices; as such, this article is a case-based comparative examination of metaphorical framing and counter-framing of selected songs. It uses songs by Lovemore Majayivana (Inhlanzi Yesiziba and U Tshaka) and Ebony Sheik (Isavungu-zane) but also touches on the broader context and deeper insights provided by other artists such as Thomas Mapfumo and Patrick Mukwamba.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88161646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1959760
J. Murray
Summary This article explores how two authors represent female characters who engage with the impending climate catastrophe by exposing and challenging anthropocentrism, albeit in very different ways. The selected novels, Weather by Jenny Offill, and The Last Migration by Charlotte McConaghy, were published in 2020 and 2021 respectively. Both novels were met with significant critical acclaim and both announce their central authorial impetuses in their titles. Offill’s main character, Lizzie, lives a life of middle class privilege with her husband and young son in New York while McConaghy’s protagonist, Franny, has lost her husband and child and scrapes a living as she moves between Ireland, Australia and Greenland. I use a theoretical framework that can broadly be described as feminist ecocriticism as a lens for my analysis and I mobilise conceptual interventions by scholars working in a range of fields related to climate change and critical animal studies. I will explore how the female characters in my selected novels navigate the impending climate catastrophe and I will argue that scholars can gain insight into their experiences by paying close attention to how the authors challenge anthropocentrism in their representations of these experiences. In order to work towards staunching the damage human beings are doing to the natural world, we need to build interactions that honour, respect and affirm the lives of all inhabitants with whom we share the earth. The relationships I investigate in this article mostly fall far short of these goals and these failures can be traced back to the stubborn insistence or, at times, unquestioned assumption, that human beings have greater value than the rest of the world we inhabit. This inability to relate meaningfully and empathetically to the rest of the natural world allows humans to wreak the havoc that has resulted in the contemporary climate crisis. I will illustrate that the glimmers of hope that the texts do offer can be found in the instances where the human characters at least attempt respectful interactions with their nonhuman counterparts in ways that honour and affirm the value of their animal lives.
{"title":"Women Navigating the Climate Catastrophe: Challenging Anthropocentrism in Selected Fiction","authors":"J. Murray","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1959760","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1959760","url":null,"abstract":"Summary This article explores how two authors represent female characters who engage with the impending climate catastrophe by exposing and challenging anthropocentrism, albeit in very different ways. The selected novels, Weather by Jenny Offill, and The Last Migration by Charlotte McConaghy, were published in 2020 and 2021 respectively. Both novels were met with significant critical acclaim and both announce their central authorial impetuses in their titles. Offill’s main character, Lizzie, lives a life of middle class privilege with her husband and young son in New York while McConaghy’s protagonist, Franny, has lost her husband and child and scrapes a living as she moves between Ireland, Australia and Greenland. I use a theoretical framework that can broadly be described as feminist ecocriticism as a lens for my analysis and I mobilise conceptual interventions by scholars working in a range of fields related to climate change and critical animal studies. I will explore how the female characters in my selected novels navigate the impending climate catastrophe and I will argue that scholars can gain insight into their experiences by paying close attention to how the authors challenge anthropocentrism in their representations of these experiences. In order to work towards staunching the damage human beings are doing to the natural world, we need to build interactions that honour, respect and affirm the lives of all inhabitants with whom we share the earth. The relationships I investigate in this article mostly fall far short of these goals and these failures can be traced back to the stubborn insistence or, at times, unquestioned assumption, that human beings have greater value than the rest of the world we inhabit. This inability to relate meaningfully and empathetically to the rest of the natural world allows humans to wreak the havoc that has resulted in the contemporary climate crisis. I will illustrate that the glimmers of hope that the texts do offer can be found in the instances where the human characters at least attempt respectful interactions with their nonhuman counterparts in ways that honour and affirm the value of their animal lives.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88191603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1959770
{"title":"Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1959770","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1959770","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74730414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1959759
Harry Sewlall
Summary Chinua Achebe’s animus against the creator of Heart of Darkness did not simply end with the charge of racism but extended to anti-Semitism and xenophobia as well. The term “xenophobia”, which is imbricated in the dialectics of race and language, features strongly in the current politics of diaspora and identity. Conventional scholarship on Conrad’s short fiction “Amy Foster” has followed two predominant strands, namely, the extreme loneliness of Yanko Goorall, the central protagonist of this seemingly mis-titled story, and his inability to communicate in a foreign land. This article, from the hermeneutic space afforded by postcoloniality, postulates the construct of “race”, as understood in the nineteenth century, as a major catalyst in the breakdown in the marriage of Yanko and Amy. It holds to the view that the tragedy of the former is not so much the outcome of a lack of communication between a castaway and his local English wife, but is predetermined in the face of an ethnocentric, if not rampantly “racist” insular, parochial community. The article concludes that the story is Conrad’s study of the racist recesses of the human psyche which manifest in discrimination against the other. Displaced geographically, culturally and linguistically, Yanko (like Conrad himself) is a metonymic inscription of alterity, whose attempts to reclaim his linguistic and cultural identity end in tragedy.
{"title":"“Race”, Language and Xenophobia in Joseph Conrad’s “Amy Foster”","authors":"Harry Sewlall","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1959759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1959759","url":null,"abstract":"Summary Chinua Achebe’s animus against the creator of Heart of Darkness did not simply end with the charge of racism but extended to anti-Semitism and xenophobia as well. The term “xenophobia”, which is imbricated in the dialectics of race and language, features strongly in the current politics of diaspora and identity. Conventional scholarship on Conrad’s short fiction “Amy Foster” has followed two predominant strands, namely, the extreme loneliness of Yanko Goorall, the central protagonist of this seemingly mis-titled story, and his inability to communicate in a foreign land. This article, from the hermeneutic space afforded by postcoloniality, postulates the construct of “race”, as understood in the nineteenth century, as a major catalyst in the breakdown in the marriage of Yanko and Amy. It holds to the view that the tragedy of the former is not so much the outcome of a lack of communication between a castaway and his local English wife, but is predetermined in the face of an ethnocentric, if not rampantly “racist” insular, parochial community. The article concludes that the story is Conrad’s study of the racist recesses of the human psyche which manifest in discrimination against the other. Displaced geographically, culturally and linguistically, Yanko (like Conrad himself) is a metonymic inscription of alterity, whose attempts to reclaim his linguistic and cultural identity end in tragedy.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81672575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1959761
Mzukisi J. Lento
Summary In an essay titled “Of our spiritual strivings”, W.E.B. Du Bois coined and elaborated the concept of “double consciousness” to refer to the ambiguity of being black and American. The ambivalence and unstable identities suggested by the term imply living a life characterised by seemingly irreconcilable dualities. On the one hand, blacks are entitled to become Americans because the slave labour they were forced to provide created the material and economic basis of modern America. On the other hand, the black people who created the wealth of the American nation find themselves marginalised or occupying low-paying jobs, leading to the condition of double consciousness being seen as a hindrance to the progress of the black race. In the American South, before the emancipation of slaves, black people were raped, racially segregated, lynched, and denied equal opportunities. Du Bois explains the ruthless experiences that the Negroes endured because of double consciousness as he asserts that the feeling of both belonging and not belonging to America often sent black people to court; thus, false gods invoking false means of salvation. At times blacks felt ashamed of themselves. Du Bois perceives the evil experiences endured by black people as concretised in the musical form of the Negro Spirituals. An analysis of selected songs suggests that these songs are the most beautiful expression of human experience because the songs manifest an awareness of the self that is more than the two-ness implied in the concept of double consciousness. The paradox indicated above confirms double consciousness as on one level a source of evil experiences of the Negroes, and on another, positive level, the condition that enabled them to fashion new discourses of resistances in order to express their desire to escape slavery. This article uses Gilroy’s notion of the ambiguity of modernity in fashioning identities of the Black Atlantic in order to rethink the idea of double consciousness, and at the same time amplify the multiple ways in which black people experienced slavery in America.
{"title":"Rethinking the Concept of Double Consciousness in Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folks (1903)","authors":"Mzukisi J. Lento","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1959761","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1959761","url":null,"abstract":"Summary In an essay titled “Of our spiritual strivings”, W.E.B. Du Bois coined and elaborated the concept of “double consciousness” to refer to the ambiguity of being black and American. The ambivalence and unstable identities suggested by the term imply living a life characterised by seemingly irreconcilable dualities. On the one hand, blacks are entitled to become Americans because the slave labour they were forced to provide created the material and economic basis of modern America. On the other hand, the black people who created the wealth of the American nation find themselves marginalised or occupying low-paying jobs, leading to the condition of double consciousness being seen as a hindrance to the progress of the black race. In the American South, before the emancipation of slaves, black people were raped, racially segregated, lynched, and denied equal opportunities. Du Bois explains the ruthless experiences that the Negroes endured because of double consciousness as he asserts that the feeling of both belonging and not belonging to America often sent black people to court; thus, false gods invoking false means of salvation. At times blacks felt ashamed of themselves. Du Bois perceives the evil experiences endured by black people as concretised in the musical form of the Negro Spirituals. An analysis of selected songs suggests that these songs are the most beautiful expression of human experience because the songs manifest an awareness of the self that is more than the two-ness implied in the concept of double consciousness. The paradox indicated above confirms double consciousness as on one level a source of evil experiences of the Negroes, and on another, positive level, the condition that enabled them to fashion new discourses of resistances in order to express their desire to escape slavery. This article uses Gilroy’s notion of the ambiguity of modernity in fashioning identities of the Black Atlantic in order to rethink the idea of double consciousness, and at the same time amplify the multiple ways in which black people experienced slavery in America.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88162332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1959762
Neil Van Heerden
Summary This article offers a reading of Sally Andrew’s debut murder mystery novel, Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery (2015), from the angle of critical food studies. The article explores how the novel’s depiction of food relates to notions of masculinity and power against the backdrop of widespread gender-based violence in South Africa today. I argue that the protagonist and narrator’s reverent, restorative relationship with food represents a gentle yet powerful feminine counternarrative to the violent masculinities of subjugation embodied in Fanie’s dogmatic religious ideology, Dirk’s oppressive military indoctrination, and Cornelius’s cruel hunting practices. Beyond providing mere escapism, this supposedly “popular” novel can therefore be seen as delivering sharp, timely social commentary.
{"title":"Food, Masculinity and Gender-based Violence in Sally Andrew’s Recipes for Love and Murder (2015)","authors":"Neil Van Heerden","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1959762","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1959762","url":null,"abstract":"Summary This article offers a reading of Sally Andrew’s debut murder mystery novel, Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery (2015), from the angle of critical food studies. The article explores how the novel’s depiction of food relates to notions of masculinity and power against the backdrop of widespread gender-based violence in South Africa today. I argue that the protagonist and narrator’s reverent, restorative relationship with food represents a gentle yet powerful feminine counternarrative to the violent masculinities of subjugation embodied in Fanie’s dogmatic religious ideology, Dirk’s oppressive military indoctrination, and Cornelius’s cruel hunting practices. Beyond providing mere escapism, this supposedly “popular” novel can therefore be seen as delivering sharp, timely social commentary.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81735214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial Note","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1939574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1939574","url":null,"abstract":"(2021). Editorial Note. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, Representations and Rhetoric of Genocide in African Popular Cultures, pp. 146-147.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138496159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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