Umabatha: Zulu play or Shakespeare translation?

There can be few recent theatrical productions in greater need of interpretative effort than Welcome Msomi’s Umabatha. From its inception debate has raged over the cultural status of the production: was it an authentic expression of Zulu culture, or a tacky piece of ‘blacksploitation’? – to use Russell Vandenbroucke’s term. Was the production pleasing evidence of Shakespeare’s universality, a gift to the colonies returning joyfully to the motherland with interest accruing? Could it perhaps be a case of Zulu culture triumphing over Shakespeare, native invention swamping and overwhelming a colonially-imposed ‘high culture’? Was the show performing ‘Africa’ for the world and, if so, was this the way Africa ought to be represented in the twentieth century? Or were we perhaps looking at a fetishized theatrical commodity, wrenched from any authentic cultural roots, and circulating aimlessly but profitably through a globalised theatrical cosmopolis? Such speculative questions – and there are many others – have regularly jostled each other in the bulky heritage of Umabatha’s reception history. The central problem underlying this chapter is whether it might not be possible to define a basis for a more objective response to some of them, so that the issues involved no longer rest quite so slackly in the realm of mere critical opinion

Archdeacon Merriman, ‘Caliban’, and the Cattle-Killing of 1856–57

[From the introduction]: Did Archdeacon Merriman accept that Mhlakaza was Wilhelm Goliath? The short answer is that we don’t know. However, historical problems sometimes yield, or at least buckle slightly, when approached from unusual, tangential perspectives.I believe it can be shown that in the terrible aftermath of the Cattle-Killing, Nathaniel Merriman was brooding on his former servant, Wilhelm Goliath, and that evidence of this preoccupation emerges indirectly in a very open and unexpected forum: a public lecture on Shakespeare

'Iron on iron': modernism engaging apartheid in some South African railway poems

Modernism tends to be criticised, internationally, as politically conservative. The objection is often valid, although the charge says little about the quality of artistic achievement involved. This article argues that the alliance between Modernism and political conservatism is by no means a necessary one, and that there are instances where modernist vision has been used to convey substantive political insight, effective social critique and solid resistance. To illustrate the contrast,the article juxtaposes the abstract Modernism associated with Ben Nicholson and World War 2, with a neglected strain of South African railway poetry which uses modernist techniques to effect a powerful critique of South Africa’s apartheid dispensation. The article sustains a distinction between universalising modernist art that requires ethical work from its audiences to achieve artistic completion, and art in which modernist vision performs the requisite ethical work within its own formal constraints. Four very different South African railway poems, by Dennis Brutus, John Hendrickse, Alan Paton, and Leonard Koza, are examined and contextualised to demonstrate ways in which a modernist vision has been used to portray the social disruptions caused by apartheid. Modernist techniques are used to turn railway experience into a metonym for massive social disruption,without betraying the social reality of the transport technology involved

Nathaniel Merriman's lecture: "On the study of Shakspeare".

Nathaniel Merriman’s lectures on Shakespeare were published in 1857 and 1858. The first, “On the Study of Shakspeare,” was delivered in the Court House, Grahamstown on the 2nd September 1857 to an audience of more than four hundred and fifty people. The second, “Shakspeare, as Bearing on English History,” was given in the same venue two months later, on Friday, 6 November 1857, and was also well attended. The lectures were published under the auspices of the Committee of “The General Institute,” which sponsored the lectures, and printed at the Anglo-African Office in the High Street. The two lectures and their context are little known in Shakespeare studies because the original pamphlets are rare. The first lecture appears in Mendelssohn’s South African Bibliography (1910), while the second is picked up only in the 1979 revision of that work. Copies of “On the Study of Shakspeare” are held by the Mendelssohn Library in the Library of Parliament, Cape Town; by The South African Library, Cape Town; and in the Oppenheimer Collection, Johannesburg. Copies of “Shakspeare, as Bearing on English History” are held by the Mendelssohn Library; by the University of the Witwatersrand Library, Johannesburg; and by the Kimberley Public Library. The purpose of preparing annotated editions of these lectures is to make them more accessible to scholars and draw them further into the mainstream of international discussion on colonial Shakespeare

Mussolini's moment: Roy Sargeant directs The Merchant of Venice at Maynardville, January, 2007

What an inspired choice of play for this year’s Maynardville offering! With the national scene strewn with trials and rumours of trials, all of them vital to the quality of life citizens of this fair city beneath the beautiful mountain (‘Belmont’) may hope to enjoy in the future, Shakespeare’s cliff-hanger about the use and abuse of the law couldn’t be more apt

Language and value: towards accepting a richer linguistic ecology for South Africa

Language policy debate is often obscured by two factors: failure to acknowledge different time-frames attending contrasting positions, and failure to recognise that ordinary people are motivated by their perceived best interests in the present. This article argues that the key to more general public acceptance of linguistic ecological diversity in South Africa is to shift the emphasis from policy development to practical language cultivation issues. Provide the requisite cultivation support, and acceptance of a revitalised future for African languages becomes more assured. It should also be understood that the modernisation of African languages in South Africa has a political dimension concerning which South African language commentators are strangely silent. This political thrust may not be entirely congruent with the concerns of those whose brief for African languages is primarily cultural or ecological – if, indeed, they are even aware of it. Finally, it needs to be recognised that language development under conditions of controlled influence, as in the civil service or schooling, is potentially achievable (with whatever difficulty), but that this must be complemented by authentic contemporary intellectual work published in African languages if the linguistic dimension of the African Renaissance is to take off

English Academy Lecture Guy Butler's South Africanism: ‘Being present where you are’

preprintA peer-reviewed lecture delivered at Rhodes University on the occasion of the presentation to Professor Wright of the English Academy's Gold Medal, 16 November 2011. Guy Butler (1918-2001) has been gone some ten years. This lecture sets out to illuminate the thinking behind his important role in South Africa's national life. The institutions he created continue to make vital cultural contributions in South Africa's efforts to make sense of its own complex historical make-up, working towards a happier, richer, and more equal future. However, despite what he achieved, there is little surety that today the rationale informing his massive effort to foster processes of artistic and cultural endeavour has been appreciated or accurately understood

The humanities, vocationalism and the public good: exploring 'the Hamlet factor'

This paper argues that the social mission of the humanities is no longer well understood by the public, sometimes not even by the very institutions seeking to attract students to these disciplines, the universities. It becomes difficult to argue for the cogency of research in the humanities, let alone for a specific national research agenda, when the general relation between the humanities and society is widely mistaken. To address such misapprehensions, the discussion outlines as clearly as possible the characteristic procedures of the humanities, the manner in which they inform individual and social transformation, and the contemporary predicament which makes them more rather than less needed in society’s repertoire of educational resources. With this understanding in place, the paper then puts forward suggestions for strengthening research in the humanities as part of a broader programme to renovate the humanities in the South African education system

Hill of Fools: a South African Romeo and Juliet?

What kind of debt does Hill of Fools owe to Shakespeare? Look up ‘Peteni’ in the Companion to South African English Literature (1986) and you will be told that Hill of Fools is “loosely based on the story of Romeo and Juliet” (155). Scan the first newspaper reviews (see “The Early Reception of Hill of Fools” in this volume) and it is noticeable that a great many journalists focus on the Shakespeare connection as a means of introducing the book to their readers. One of the publisher’s readers, Henry Chakava, urged before publication that once all references to tribe or tribalism had been excised “the result will be a Romeo and Juliet type story much more superior to Weep Not Child.” The author himself reportedly described the book as “a black Romeo and Juliet drama” (Tribune Reporter 1988). And, indeed, some kind of parallel is patent to anyone who reads Hill of Fools with Shakespeare’s play in mind