422 research outputs found
Whose story is it anyway? The ethics of narration and the narration of ethics in Summertime and Die Sneeuslaper
No full textIncludes bibliographical references.This dissertation analyses and compares the narrative strategies in J.M. Coetzee’s Summertime and Marlene van Niekerk’s Die sneeuslaper and considers the implications of these strategies for the authors’ exploration of the ethics of writing. Much has been written about the literary oeuvres of both Coetzee and Van Niekerk, including studies of the translations of Van Niekerk’s Afrikaans novels into English. There are few “interlingual” comparative studies of contemporary works in Afrikaans and English, however, and certainly none to my knowledge which compares the work of Coetzee and Van Niekerk. My contribution to the conversation about Coetzee’s and Van Niekerk’s work, but also to an increasingly multilingual and interconnected South African literary criticism, will be a comparison of one recent work by each of these two authors, written in English and Afrikaans respectively. I draw on the theories of Bakhtin, Barthes and Levinas to consider the ethical dimension of texts in which “double-voicedness”, a questioning not only of existence, but of the self is fore grounded in the content and narrative structure; where there is a shift in focus from the author to the reader (“the birth of the reader”) and “utterances” are made with the response of “the other” in mind
J. M. Coetzee in Context and Theory
No full textNobel Laureate and the first author to win the Booker Prize twice, J.M. Coetzee is perhaps the world's leading living novelist writing in English. Including an international roster of world leading critics and novelists, and drawing on new research, this innovative book analyses the whole range of Coetzee's work, from his most recent novels through his memoirs and critical writing. It offers a range of perspectives on his relationship with the historical, political, cultural and social context of South Africa. It also contextualises Coetzee's work in relation to his literary influences, colonial and post-colonial history, the Holocaust and colonial genocides, the 'politics' and meaning of the Nobel prize in South Africa and Coetzee's very public move from South Africa to Australia. Including a major unpublished essay by leading South African novelist André Brink, this book offers the most up-to-date study of Coetzee's work currently available.Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Biographies -- Introduction -- Part I: Context -- 1. Post-Apartheid Literature: A Personal View -- 2. Elizabeth Costello as Post-Apartheid Text -- 3. Coetzee and Gordimer -- 4. Wordsworth and the Recollection of South Africa -- 5. Border Crossings: Self and Text -- 6. Sex, Comedy and Influence: Coetzee's Beckett -- Part II: Theory -- 7. Writing Desire Responsibly -- 8. Literature, History and Folly -- 9. Queer Bodies -- 10. Eating (Dis)Order: From Metaphoric Cannibalism to Cannibalistic Metaphors -- 11. Acts of Mourning -- 12. Sublime Abjection -- 13. Authenticity: Diaries, Chronicles, Records as Index-Simulations -- 14. Disrupting Inauthentic Readings: Coetzee's Strategies -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- YNobel Laureate and the first author to win the Booker Prize twice, J.M. Coetzee is perhaps the world's leading living novelist writing in English. Including an international roster of world leading critics and novelists, and drawing on new research, this innovative book analyses the whole range of Coetzee's work, from his most recent novels through his memoirs and critical writing. It offers a range of perspectives on his relationship with the historical, political, cultural and social context of South Africa. It also contextualises Coetzee's work in relation to his literary influences, colonial and post-colonial history, the Holocaust and colonial genocides, the 'politics' and meaning of the Nobel prize in South Africa and Coetzee's very public move from South Africa to Australia. Including a major unpublished essay by leading South African novelist André Brink, this book offers the most up-to-date study of Coetzee's work currently available.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
Slow man
No full text1st American ed. J. M. Coetzee is an author and academic from South Africa (now an Australian citizen living in South Australia). A novelist and literary critic as well as a translator, Coetzee won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature
Staging John Coetzee / Elizabeth Costello
No full textThis article reflects upon the persona of Elizabeth Costello as performed by John Coetzee in public lectures, articles and the novels Elizabeth Costello and Slow Man. The intimate association between the author and this female character has been the subject of much controversy and the article details the criticisms levelled against Coetzee for his repeated ‘stagings’ of Elizabeth Costello. Whilst there are many political issues raised when a man writes and speaks as a woman, I argue that in the case of Elizabeth Costello this device facilitates a penetrating display of the responsibilities and inevitable failings of writing to be presented. This moves beyond discussions of the ethics of authorship to a religious appreciation of the authorial process
Oltre la «vergogna». Coetzee (ri)legge Kafka
No full textIn "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Life and Times of Michael K." there are indications of Kafka’s influence on Coetzee’s writing: the use of the allegory and the rarefied atmospheres are just some of the echoes of the Bohemian author. In "Elizabeth Costello", Coetzee dedicates a whole chapter ('At the Gate') to Kafka, since the imagery of the main character waiting by the Law’s threshold is very similar to the one Kafka used in "Vor dem Gesetz" and in "Der Prozess". The difference between Kafka’s and Coetzee’s protagonists, beside the shared similarities, is that in Coetzee, characters follow a path, a real Bildung which brings them to the questioning of their own certainties and to the acknowledgment of other beings.
If critics individualised some parallels between "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer", some intertextual references could be found as well in "Disgrace", whose ending appears to demonstrate Coetzee’s possible reading of his own novel as an answer to "Der Prozess". This is the main thesis the author wants to discuss in this article. "Disgrace"’s main character, David Lurie, shares many features with Joseph K., starting with his parable-like life. Coetzee reads and re-invents Kafka, turning his themes inside out
Metáfora viva J.M. Coetzee e a autobiografia como desfiguração.
No full textPrograma de Pós-Graduação em Letras. Departamento de Letras, Instituto de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto.Tomando como objeto o escritor sul-africano J.M. Coetzee e a sua trilogia Cenas da vida na província, objetivamos analisar nesta dissertação como a autobiografia não pode ser recebida como uma representação confiável do sujeito autobiografado, mas como uma metáfora viva presente em todos os textos – sejam eles ficcionais, críticos, ensaísticos –, que é revelada através de um momento especular, em que há uma troca de (re)conhecimento entre autor do texto e autor no texto, ou seja, entre autor e leitor. Ao longo deste estudo, observamos como o escritor J.M. Coetzee coloca seu leitor em um jogo sobre os limites da verdade e ficção; através de sua trilogia de forte cunho autobiográfico, pretendeu-se analisar como o escritor ficcionaliza a própria história, colocando em xeque a autoridade do autor, e, consequentemente, a teoria de que a autobiografia significa uma coincidência e sobreposição perfeita entre vida e obra. Também analisamos como o escritor encontra-se diluído em todos os seus trabalhos publicados, destacando que todo ato da escrita revela o escritor. Para tanto, como aporte decisivo utilizamos as teorias e estudos de Philippe Lejeune, Paul De Man e do próprio escritor e crítico J.M. Coetzee, já que nos permitem abranger os procedimentos e categorias que permeiam entre os estudos das teorias da autobiografia.Taking as object the South African writer JM Coetzee and his trilogy Scenes from provincial life, this work has aimed to analyze how the autobiography cannot be perceived as a reliable representation of its subject, nevertheless as a living metaphor present in all texts - being they fictional, critics, essays -, that is revealed through a specular moment, in which there is an exchange of knowledge/recognition between the author of the text and the author in the text itself, that is, between author and reader. Throughout this study, we have observed how the writer, JM Coetzee, has put his reader in a game concerning the limits between truth and fiction; through its strong autobiographical trilogy, it was intended to analyze how the writer fictionalizes his own story, jeopardizing the authority of the author, and, as a consequence, the theory that the autobiography means a coincidence and a perfect overlap between life and masterpiece. We have also analyzed how the writer is diluted in all his published works, highlighting that every act of writing reveals the writer itself. In order to do so, we have used the theories and studies of Philippe Lejeune, Paul De Man and JM Coetzee itself, as they allow us to cover the procedures and categories permeated across the studies of autobiography theories
Feste Ansichten in his own person: J.M. Coetzee speaks
No full textThree recent books by J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello (2003), Diary of a Bad Year (2007), and Here and Now (2013), have included extensive expressions of opinion. The wide-ranging discussions in these books cover topics from political philosophy, language, animal rights, and paedophilia to music, food, and sport. There is substantial continuity in the opinions expressed, and the characters or personae expressing these views also have a good deal in common. Nevertheless, these opinions are expressed in three explicitly different personae. With each of these books the personae are progressively more closely identifiable with Coetzee himself. Elizabeth Costello, in the book of that name, is a character who crosses gender and national boundaries from her creator. JC in Diary of a Bad Year shares at least some biographical circumstances with Coetzee—land of birth, gender, initials, occupation, for example. Then, in Here and Now, we are presented with what purports transparently to be the author J.M. Coetzee’s own voice in correspondence with Paul Auster. How do I, as a reader and a critic, negotiate this progression? Just how much license does the apparently closer correspondence between author and writing persona give me to believe that I know what Coetzee ‘really’ thinks or believes
OO-Correspondence as Cumulativity
No full textBoth Sympathy constraints and OO-correspondence constraints are types of correspondence constraints, and both can induce opaque phenomena. Yet, Sympathetic constraint interaction is mediated by a special type of correspondence constraints (cumulativity constraints), while OO-correspondence is mediated by ordinary correspondence constraints. This paper argues that cumulative constraints can also be used in OO-correspondence. It is also argued that this is desirable for two reasons: (i) It unifies these two kinds of non-IO-correspondence. (ii) Certain types of OO-correspondence induced opacity that are possible with ordinary correspondence constraints, are excluded if cumulative constraints are used. Cumulative OO-correspondence constraints therefore result in a more restrictive theory.The definitive version of this paper was published in Carpenter, A., Coetzee, A., and de Lacy, P. (Eds.). University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers 26, Papers in Optimality Theory II (2003), pp. 27-57
Feste Ansichten in his Own Person: J.M. Coetzee Speaks
No full textThree recent books by J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello (2003), Diary of a Bad Year (2007), and Here and Now (2013), have included extensive expressions of opinion. The wide-ranging discussions in these books cover topics from political philosophy, language, animal rights, and paedophilia to music, food, and sport. There is substantial continuity in the opinions expressed, and the characters or personae expressing these views also have a good deal in common. Nevertheless, these opinions are expressed in three explicitly different personae. With each of these books the personae are progressively more closely identifiable with Coetzee himself. Elizabeth Costello, in the book of that name, is a character who crosses gender and national boundaries from her creator. JC in Diary of a Bad Year shares at least some biographical circumstances with Coetzee—land of birth, gender, initials, occupation, for example. Then, in Here and Now, we are presented with what purports transparently to be the author J.M. Coetzee’s own voice in correspondence with Paul Auster. How do I, as a reader and a critic, negotiate this progression? Just how much license does the apparently closer correspondence between author and writing persona give me to believe that I know what Coetzee ‘really’ thinks or believes
Die hermeneutiek van die belydenisskrifte
No full textThe hermeneutics of the reformed confessions. The purpose of this article, in the first place, is to honour the work that Prof Gert (Jorrie) Jordaan has done over several decades, especiallyin the field of hermeneutics. Secondly, the article wants to make a contribution regardinganother aspect of hermeneutics, namely the hermeneutics of the reformed confessions. A closerelationship exists between Scripture and the confessions. The confessions is a summary or‘authoritative commentary’ on the core truths of the doctrine in Scripture. They are ecclesiastical documents, authoritative and binding on officials and church members of churches in the reformed tradition. They are commentaries or interpretations, but also need to be interpreted. Due to their unique character and function, the hermeneutics of the confessions is of utmostimportance. The article formulates ten guidelines that are, in the view of the author, essentialfor the contemporary interpretation of the confessions
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