'n Vergelykende ondersoek na landskap as woon in die latere poësie van Breyten Breytenbach en Lucebert

Abstract

This thesis compares the later poetry of Breyten Breytenbach and Lucebert from the phenomenological approach of landscape as dwelling. The metaphor of landscape as dwelling is derived from the art philosophy of Martin Heidegger, which emphasises the importance of truth as aletheia (or “disclosure”), the cultural geography of John Wylie, which illuminates the notion of landscape as tension, and the anthropology of Tim Ingold with reference to the dwelling perspective, adopted from Heidegger’s philosophy on dwelling. The thesis destructs the Cartesian idea of landscape, which relates to the constructivist description of landscape as a way of seeing. The destructive reading shows that mortals’ dwelling on earth is inherently part of the landscape, which means that landscape opens up as an expression of Dasein’s fundamental being-in-the-world, rather than a scene looked upon from afar. Furthermore, this thesis uses Ingold’s distinction between the landscape and the taskscape (Ingold, 2000:195), and Heidegger’s notion of the fourfold (Heidegger, 1989:172), to make a desctructive reading of the poets’ work, with specific reference to William Spanos’s destructive criticism. It investigates a number of poems from Breytenbach’s Nine landscapes of our time bequeathed to a beloved (Nege landskappe van ons tye bemaak aan ʼn beminde, 1993), Paper flower (Papierblom, 1998), The wind-catcher (Die windvanger, 2007), The principle of dust (Die beginsel van stof, 2011) and Catalects (Katalekte, 2012), and Lucebert’s Harvests in the roaming garden (Oogsten in de dwaaltuin, 1981), The swamp rider from paradise (De moerasruiter uit het paradijs, 1982), Console the hysterical robot (Troost de hysterische robot, 1989), Of the malt-like profligate (Van de maltentige losbol, 1993) and Of the motionless agitator (Van de roerloze woelgeest, 1994). The analyses focus specifically on the destruction of the traditional landscape idea by emphasising Dasein’s everyday activities, and his/her dis-covering approach toward the elements of the fourfold. The thesis concludes with a comparison of the work of the poets in terms of their destruction of the notion of landscape, the temporality of the taskscape, the taskscape as an ensemble of tasks, and a systematic reading of dwelling.