Abstract
The main focus of this thesis is to examine how identity and culture are conceived and articulated in a representative selection of contemporary South African poetry. In the introductory chapter, an examination is made of the concepts of identity and culture, in the course of which the polarities of inside and outside, self and other, personal and political, subjective and objective, are carefully examined. Then, through close textual reference to relevant poems considered under the titles “Poetry of the Self”, “Black Consciousness Poetry”, “The Poetry of Revolution”, “Worker Poetry” and “Feminist Poetry”, the thesis attempts, by tracing the dialectical relationship of these polarities, to analyse how each putative body of poetry conceives and articulates cultural identity. The concluding chapter of the thesis, titled “Towards a New Aesthetics”, argues that current research into the relationship between identity and culture opens the way to a “new” aesthetics, a new literary-critical practice, one that takes into cognisance the intersubjective complexities that shape cultural expression.