Doctoral Degrees (Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French) by Subject "Bibi Slippers"

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    Die bydrae van nie-artistieke praktyke tot die literêre sukses van eksemplariese Afrikaanse tekste. 'n Ondersoek na beeldvorming
    (University of the Free State, 2019) Erasmus-Alt, Joanita; Van Coller, H. P.
    English: As one of the symbolic aspects of human existence, art is inextricably linked to the material aspects of this existence. The result is that art has, for quite some time now, no longer been flourishing in isolation; rather, it has become part of a larger system in which economic principles also have an important part to play. The literary field is thus structured around two opposing poles: the economic and the artistic. Whereas the economic pole is engaged in a struggle to obtain economic capital ‒ the struggle in which particularly the media play an important part ‒ the artistic pole, for its part, strives to gain symbolic capital, which is the capital of legitimation. In this pole the prestige, fame, esteem, literary prizes and translations of the author’s work are decisive factors. Based on the premise that critics’ literary views differ, there are two main kinds of adjudication, namely intrinsic evaluations and extrinsic evaluations. Intrinsic evaluations are conducted in terms of specific artistic considerations that have a bearing on those formal characteristics that qualify a text to be classified as literature. The extrinsic evaluation, on the other hand, focuses on considerations, such as the standing of the text within a tradition and how the work is received. In this thesis the focus has been on extrinsic adjudication, that is, on the elements and role players that were involved in the process of literary canonisation. Because the image that is created of a book or an author must, as it were, take precedence over either the texts or the authors themselves, the creation of a credible image is of cardinal importance in the adjudication process. As a result of increasing mediatisation, the iconic value of information that is both sensational and serves to construct a particular image of an author, is just as important as the message itself. Therefore, the issue as to precisely what it is that determines the value of a literary work leads to a rejection of the allegation that so-called non-artistic considerations have no role to play in theorists and critics’ statements about literature. To illustrate this trend, the researcher identified four authors whose work enjoyed unparalleled popularity almost directly after publication: Dalene Matthee (Kringe in ʼn Bos, 1984), Marita van der Vyver (Griet skryf ʼn sprokie, 1992), Francois Smith (Kamphoer, 2014) and Bibi Slippers (Fotostaatmasjien, 2016). These texts represent different decades in Afrikaans literature – decades during which different artistic (and critical) paradigms and poetics were current. Comparison of the different texts, the image construction process involved, their marketing and their reception thus provided a broader empirical base from which to generalise inferences. This study is a descriptive study that has endeavoured, by means of both quantitative and qualitative methods, to investigate the strengthening influence of image construction as a form of symbolic capital in enhancing the success of the chosen texts. The thesis was premised on an empirical-institutional approach, one that was preceded by a theoretical orientation and a study of the relevant published research data and available digital material. One of the aims of the study was to investigate the production of symbolic value. In that conceptions of literature as ideological, socially bound viewpoints were deemed to be desirable in a study of this nature, a reconstructive approach was coupled with the institutional approach. The aim of the reconstructive approach is to reconstruct and systematise authors’ or a particular society’s conceptions of literature at a particular juncture. The study of mediation in the process of image construction ‒ with specific reference to the role of various agents (the editor, the publishing organisation, literary critics, the media), literary prizes/awards, translations and other cultural strategies ‒ can potentially throw light not only on the extent to which the various role players in the system have contributed to the success of the chosen texts but also on the particular ways in which these role players have done so.