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Drawing on Nietzsche’s dichotomy between the Apollonian and Dionysian principles pertaining to classic tragedy, in this article, I consider the poem “Fan mail Freddy Mercury” by Marlene van Niekerk, from Kaar (2013) from that perspective. The poem deals with the rock musician Freddy Mercury and from my reading is shown to be exemplifying the Dionysian spirit through Mercury’s movements, his performance and his vocal range. From my reading of the text it is evident that there was a strong fusion of the Apollonian and Dionysian in the life and work of Freddy Mercury. Despite his rebellious spirit and his negation of the faith of his childhood, culture dictated that he be buried in his faith. Van Niekerk, with her insight into the philosophy of Nietzsche, adds another dimension to the poem when she invokes Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s prophetic figure, to be distinguished from the historical god of the Zoroaster faith. The metaphorical language used by the poet suggests her Dionysian playfulness.

This article examines the representation of masculinity in André Brink’s novel, The Rights of Desire. Following a remark in Roger Boylan’s review of the novel in the Boston Review; this analysis concentrates on Brink’s depiction of Afrikaner masculinity and the idea that the character Ruben Olivier represents Brink’s conception of the contemporary Afrikaner male, in particular the older Afrikaner male. This is an attempt at determining the validity of Robert Morrell’s thesis on masculinity, namely that it is about “men making and remaking masculinity, about challenging hegemonic masculinity and reconstituting it.” The question is whether Brink’s portrayal of Afrikaner masculinity confronts the hegemonic and patriarchal power structures associated with Afrikaner men, and whether it provides the reader with a new perspective on Afrikaner masculinity. This article investigates Brink’s representation of firstly, the ways Afrikaner men relate to other men, and secondly, the depiction of Afrikaner men in relation to their social class and to women.

In this essay the emphasis is on the interplay between masculinity and femininity and in particular that of white masculinity versus black femininity, as well as the role played by black female sexuality in the formation of masculine identity in a rural setting in apartheid South Africa. The essay also looks at the representation of the female body and the role of the female body as site of contestation of socio-political assumptions about masculinity and femininity. The text under discussion is Zakes Mda’s The Madonna of Excelsior (2002), which is based on real life events that occurred in the small Free State town of Excelsior in the 1970s.

In this article we undertake a semiotic reading of the Campanile Clock Tower Monument in Port Elizabeth. The monument was built in 1920 to commemorate the arrival of the British Settlers in 1820. The theoretical departure of our analysis is the five narrative codes identified by Roland Barthes in his unconventional reading of Sarrasine. The article shows the extent to which the observer (reader?) is able to encode the monument with new textual possibilities as well as reading it against the grain within a new context. The original symbolism of the monument as a symbol of colonial enterprise and white English-speaking South African identity is also deconstructed in the process.

This article examines Breyten Breytenbach’s representation of the prison, particularly in his collection of prison poems, Die ongedanste dans (“The undanced dance”, 2005). Using Foucault’s seminal work on the birth of the prison as a theoretical point of departure, this analysis shows how Breytenbach describes the buildings, life within prison, past-times in prison, as well as indicate to what extent the language and expressions used by the prisoners have influenced his writing. A central aspect of Foucault’s writing on the prison is the concept of panopticism and in Breytenbach’s poetry there is a definite reference to elements pertaining to this such as constant surveillance and the omnipresence of the wardens. In his poems written in prison there is a definite awareness of the spacing of the body and the exertion of power over the body of the prisoner as other by the wardens, who with their guns and batons are the one wielding the power in prison.