South African Literature and Narrating the Nation

Abstract

Can one talk of a "South African (National) Literature"? Should the political construct of "one nationship" be extended to reading the various literatures in South Africa as one text? An epistemology will be necessary. The forms of knowledge identified by Michel Foucault for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are relevant to the first texts created in South Africa by European writers. The concept nation and nation-ness is investigated briefly, as well as the various language discourses present at the moment. Writing and the text, the signifying practices of signifier and representation, especially regarding travel writing and missionary texts can be seen as seminal. Can we find in these early writings the genealogy of South African literatures, the creation of a nation? Various possibilities have to be taken into account in the writing of a "History of South African Literature", but especially Benedict Anderson's view that the creation of a nation is the narrating of a nation, and Homi K. Bhabha's concepts of texts as national narratives. In this regard the matter of discontinuity arises where colonialism and the missionary enterprise as textual intrusions are posed as possible examples.

Opsomming
Kan mens praat van 'n "Suid-Afrikaanse (Nasionale) letterkunde" Sou die politieke konstruk van "een nasie" uitgebrei kon word tot die lees van die verskeie letterkundes in Suid-Afrika as een teks 'n Epistemologie is nodig. Die vorme van kennis ge"iden­tifiseer deur Michel Foucault vir die sewentiende en agtiende eeue is relevant tot die skepping van die eerste tekste in Suid-Afrika deur Europese skrywers. Die konsep nasie en nasieskap word kortliks ondersoek, sowel as die verskeie taaldiskoerse hier op die oomblik. Skrif en die teks, die tekenpraktyke van betekenaar en representasie, veral met betrekking tot die reisbeskrywing en die sendingteks, kan as seminaal beskou word. Kan ons in hierdie vroee geskrifte die genealogie van Suid-Afrikaanse letterkundes vind, en die skepping van 'n nasie Verskillende moontlikhede meet in ag geneem word by die skryf van 'n "Geskiedenis van die Suid-Afrikaanse letterkunde", maar veral Benedict Anderson se siening dat die skep van 'n nasie oak die narratief daarvan is, en Homi K. Bhabha se konsep van tekste as nasionale narratiewe. Hier ontstaan die kwessie van diskontinui"teite, waar kolonialisme en sendingaksies as tekstuele indringing as moontlike voorbeelde voorgestel word.