Towards a poetics for African language literatures (in South Africa)

Abstract

Midst the diversity of thoughts in general literary studies one fact emerging clearly is the attack against/defence of the presupposition of the autonomy of the text. African criticial canons centring (just after the colonial era) on the assertion of the African Presence and rejecting ‘western’ norms, still in practice used these while lately leaning towards a Marxian paradigm; in so doing it recognizes ‘extra-literary’ determining factors. In local African language literature studies, it was found inter alia that a unique paradigm free of ‘western’ influence is hard to find. A systems model is proposed to allow scholars to take extra- textual factors into account that have determined our literatures. Certain properties, especialy textual, need to be contextualized; two studies that suit this purpose are reviewed in order to move towards the ideal of a poetics for African language literature in South Africa.