Schreiner versus Schreiner: A Contest of Value

Abstract

This article seeks to establish the aesthetic criteria in terms of which certain texts gain access to the South African literary canon while others are excluded. I have attempted to identify the aesthetic which has resulted in the valorisation of Olive Schreiner's Story of an African Farm over her earliest completed novel Undine, and hope, thereby, to begin to distinguish the literary values which have informed the construction of the South African canon as a whole.

Opsomming
Hierdie artikel het ten doel die bepaling van kriteria vir die estetiek waarvolgens sekere tekste toegang verkry tot die Suid-Afrikaanse literere kanon, terwyl ander uitgesluit word. Die oogmerk is om die estetiek te identifiseer wat tot die valorisering van Olive Schreiner se Story of an African Farm gelei het eerder as die valorisering van haar eerste voltooide roman, Undine. Sodoende word gehoop om die literere waardes te begin on­derskei wat die konstruksie van die Suid-Afrikaanse kanon in die geheel ten grondslag le.