Confluences of Lithoko, religious and traditional beliefs and western poetry in modern Sesotho poetry (MSP) : an intertextual perspective.
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Date
2015
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Abstract
From an intertextual perspective, this study analyses the lithoko, religious beliefs and
practices and western poetry confluences in modern Sesotho poetry. In this analysis,
modern Sesotho poetry texts covering a period of seventy-nine years (79) from 1931
to 2010 have been selected. Of the utmost importance in the analysis are the
intertextual manifestations in modern Sesotho poetry. These include the lithoko oralformulaic
style in modern Sesotho poetry which focuses on form, structure and
content. The study also looks into echoes of texts indicative of religious beliefs and
practices (both local and foreign) in modern Sesotho poetry, the host-parasite
relationship between Western poetry and modern Sesotho poetry, the emerging
trends and the evaluation of modern Sesotho poetry in relation to its poeticness or
literariness. In order to address the above intentions of the study, the qualitative library approach
was employed to critically examine the identified intertextual features from the
population of twelve (12) modern Sesotho poetry texts selected through both the
cluster and purposive sampling techniques. The following are the findings of the study on the issues investigated: modern
Sesotho poetry is an intertext as texts from lithoko Christian, traditional beliefs and
practices as well as western poetry are present in it at varying levels of form
structure, content and traditional images in virtually recognizable forms as Barthes
(1981: 39) asserts that the literary position of any text is an intertext in which other
texts are present in varying levels and more or less recognizable forms. Both proto, transitional and open forms attributed to lithoko and western poetry are present in
modern Sesotho poetry. Modern Sesotho poetry has also been found to have diverse emergent trends not
only in terms of structural forms but also in content and linguistic devices in the form
of traditional imagery. As an intertext, modern Sesotho poetry has emerged to be
poetic considering aspects of poetic function and poetic language as elements of
poetry in the evaluation of its poeticness. The study concludes that modern Sesotho
poetry is an intertext which is a text of convergence where the presence of the four
predecessors is manifested at varying levels and in more or less recognizable forms.
Description
Doctor of Philosophy in IsiZulu. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2015.
Keywords
Laudatory poetry, Sotho., Intertextuality in the Bible., Poetry, Modern., Theses -- isiZulu., Modern Sesotho poetry (MSP), Lithoko : Sotho praise-poems