An exploration of how Professional Learning Communities can contribute to the development of teachers’ capabilities and valued functionings in teaching environmental content knowledge in the Life and Living strand in Grade 8 Natural Sciences
- Authors: Thomas, Kgomotso Emily
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Teachers -- Training of -- South Africa , Teachers -- In-service training -- South Africa , Science teachers -- In-service training -- South Africa , Science -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- South Africa , Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92584 , vital:30739
- Description: The study explored how professional learning communities can contribute to the development of teachers’ capabilities and achievement of valued functionings related to teaching environmental content knowledge in the Life and Living strand in Grade 8 Natural Sciences. This is in the context of the Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statement (CAPS), which is a content-referenced curriculum that requires active and critical approaches to learning, and to environment and sustainability content. This study is designed as a qualitative case study of a professional support forum (PSF) in the Mahikeng sub-district, in North West. The study made use of questionnaires, observations, interviews and document analysis as data generation methods. The Capability Approach was used as a theoretical and conceptual framework to explore teachers’ valued functionings, as well as the conversion factors related to those functionings. A functioning is defined as what a person values to be or do, hence the term valued beings and doings has been used interchangeably with the term valued functionings throughout the study. The analysis of data was done in three phases. Phase one analysis was inductive with the data from questionnaires, classroom observations, document analysis (work schedules and lesson plans or preparation books). The purpose of this phase was to answer the first research sub-question of how teachers teach environmental content. Phase two was a deductive analysis, and the purpose was to present teachers’ valued beings and doings in teaching environmental content, and in belonging to the PSF. The last phase of analysis was abductive, and it employed the theoretical framework of Sen’s Capability Approach to get a deeper understanding of factors that either enabled or constrained teachers’ valued beings and doings associated with their capabilities. The study found that teachers have gaps in their environmental content knowledge in the Life and Living strand grade 8 Natural Sciences. This was mainly as a result of teachers not having relevant qualifications, and/or not having any professional development in teaching the environmental content knowledge. Secondly, teachers used traditional methods which were teacher-centred to teach environmental content knowledge. The gaps in the environmental content knowledge were constraints to how the teachers taught environmental content in their classrooms. Teachers’ valued beings and doings related to teaching environmental content were discussed under the three conversion factors of the capability approach: personal, social and environmental conversion factors. The study found that teachers’ qualifications, experiences, passion for environmental content topics, level of confidence, teaching and learning resources, learners’ interest and participation, support, classroom and schools’ environment were among conversion factors that either enabled or constrained teachers’ valued functionings in teaching environmental content Findings also revealed that teachers have different valued functionings related to belonging to the PSF: shared responsibilities, shared values and vision, collaboration, and discussion of subject content. The conversion factors related to these functionings were found to be learning space, time and duration of the PSF, activities in the PSF, teaching and learning resources, teaching experience, and facilitation. The study recommends that teachers’ professional development programmes should promote subject content discussions as well as group and individual learning. They should also create supportive conditions that will expand teachers’ capabilities in teaching environmental content knowldge. Lastly, the teachers’ professional development programmes should explicitly take into account teachers’ valued functionings and conversion factors that can enable teachers to develop their professional capabilities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Thomas, Kgomotso Emily
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Teachers -- Training of -- South Africa , Teachers -- In-service training -- South Africa , Science teachers -- In-service training -- South Africa , Science -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- South Africa , Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92584 , vital:30739
- Description: The study explored how professional learning communities can contribute to the development of teachers’ capabilities and achievement of valued functionings related to teaching environmental content knowledge in the Life and Living strand in Grade 8 Natural Sciences. This is in the context of the Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statement (CAPS), which is a content-referenced curriculum that requires active and critical approaches to learning, and to environment and sustainability content. This study is designed as a qualitative case study of a professional support forum (PSF) in the Mahikeng sub-district, in North West. The study made use of questionnaires, observations, interviews and document analysis as data generation methods. The Capability Approach was used as a theoretical and conceptual framework to explore teachers’ valued functionings, as well as the conversion factors related to those functionings. A functioning is defined as what a person values to be or do, hence the term valued beings and doings has been used interchangeably with the term valued functionings throughout the study. The analysis of data was done in three phases. Phase one analysis was inductive with the data from questionnaires, classroom observations, document analysis (work schedules and lesson plans or preparation books). The purpose of this phase was to answer the first research sub-question of how teachers teach environmental content. Phase two was a deductive analysis, and the purpose was to present teachers’ valued beings and doings in teaching environmental content, and in belonging to the PSF. The last phase of analysis was abductive, and it employed the theoretical framework of Sen’s Capability Approach to get a deeper understanding of factors that either enabled or constrained teachers’ valued beings and doings associated with their capabilities. The study found that teachers have gaps in their environmental content knowledge in the Life and Living strand grade 8 Natural Sciences. This was mainly as a result of teachers not having relevant qualifications, and/or not having any professional development in teaching the environmental content knowledge. Secondly, teachers used traditional methods which were teacher-centred to teach environmental content knowledge. The gaps in the environmental content knowledge were constraints to how the teachers taught environmental content in their classrooms. Teachers’ valued beings and doings related to teaching environmental content were discussed under the three conversion factors of the capability approach: personal, social and environmental conversion factors. The study found that teachers’ qualifications, experiences, passion for environmental content topics, level of confidence, teaching and learning resources, learners’ interest and participation, support, classroom and schools’ environment were among conversion factors that either enabled or constrained teachers’ valued functionings in teaching environmental content Findings also revealed that teachers have different valued functionings related to belonging to the PSF: shared responsibilities, shared values and vision, collaboration, and discussion of subject content. The conversion factors related to these functionings were found to be learning space, time and duration of the PSF, activities in the PSF, teaching and learning resources, teaching experience, and facilitation. The study recommends that teachers’ professional development programmes should promote subject content discussions as well as group and individual learning. They should also create supportive conditions that will expand teachers’ capabilities in teaching environmental content knowldge. Lastly, the teachers’ professional development programmes should explicitly take into account teachers’ valued functionings and conversion factors that can enable teachers to develop their professional capabilities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Participation in the anti-sexual violence silent protest: a sexual citizenship perspective
- Authors: Chitiki, Elizabeth
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Sex crimes Campus violence -- South Africa -- Prevention Rape victims -- Services for -- Political aspects -- South Africa Anti-rape movement Rape -- Case studies Sexual orientation
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62917 , vital:28310
- Description: There is a growing body of research on sexual citizenship that focuses attention on gender and which bridges the gap between public and private life in order to rethink citizenship from a feminist perspective. This is in contrast to understandings of citizenship that promote policies of sexual regulation and a heteronormative ideal of citizenship. My research takes the form of a qualitative case study. Using data from two focus group discussions, fifteen personal diaries, as well as social media posts, I analyse participation in the Silent Protest, an annual anti-rape protest, through the lens of sexual citizenship. I look at how participation in the protest promotes or inhibits inclusive and process-based understandings of sexual violence and sexualities issues. Data were analysed using thematic analysis and the results of the analysis are presented into two parts. The first part of the analysis discusses the politics of affect and witnessing as two processes through which allies’ understandings of sexual violence are shaped. The second part of analysis shows that the Silent Protest contributes to people’s knowledge and understandings of sexual violence in relation to sexualities in a range of ways. Examples of inclusive understandings are: (1) insights about rape in relation to gender and heteronormative inequalities, culture and patriarchal dominance; (2) understanding of critical sexual citizenship in relation to sexual violence; and (3) understanding of politics of recognition (the need for recognition of the importance of safe spaces for formal and informal support for victim-survivors and recognition of victim-survivors’ identities). However, some of the understandings are limited to emotion and affect dynamics. In some ways, therefore, the Silent Protest fails to promote understandings significant to inclusive citizenship, including understandings of entitlements to non-discriminatory sexual health care services and legal services.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Chitiki, Elizabeth
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Sex crimes Campus violence -- South Africa -- Prevention Rape victims -- Services for -- Political aspects -- South Africa Anti-rape movement Rape -- Case studies Sexual orientation
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62917 , vital:28310
- Description: There is a growing body of research on sexual citizenship that focuses attention on gender and which bridges the gap between public and private life in order to rethink citizenship from a feminist perspective. This is in contrast to understandings of citizenship that promote policies of sexual regulation and a heteronormative ideal of citizenship. My research takes the form of a qualitative case study. Using data from two focus group discussions, fifteen personal diaries, as well as social media posts, I analyse participation in the Silent Protest, an annual anti-rape protest, through the lens of sexual citizenship. I look at how participation in the protest promotes or inhibits inclusive and process-based understandings of sexual violence and sexualities issues. Data were analysed using thematic analysis and the results of the analysis are presented into two parts. The first part of the analysis discusses the politics of affect and witnessing as two processes through which allies’ understandings of sexual violence are shaped. The second part of analysis shows that the Silent Protest contributes to people’s knowledge and understandings of sexual violence in relation to sexualities in a range of ways. Examples of inclusive understandings are: (1) insights about rape in relation to gender and heteronormative inequalities, culture and patriarchal dominance; (2) understanding of critical sexual citizenship in relation to sexual violence; and (3) understanding of politics of recognition (the need for recognition of the importance of safe spaces for formal and informal support for victim-survivors and recognition of victim-survivors’ identities). However, some of the understandings are limited to emotion and affect dynamics. In some ways, therefore, the Silent Protest fails to promote understandings significant to inclusive citizenship, including understandings of entitlements to non-discriminatory sexual health care services and legal services.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Rural livelihoods at Dwesa/Cwebe: poverty, development and natural resource use on the Wild Coast, South Africa
- Authors: Timmermans, Herman Gerald
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Poverty -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural poor -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Land reform -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Citizen participation , Conservation of natural resources -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Income distribution -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Household surveys -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4767 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007174 , Poverty -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural poor -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Land reform -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Citizen participation , Conservation of natural resources -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Income distribution -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Household surveys -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: This thesis uses the sustainable rural livelihoods framework to investigate the livelihoods of communities residing adjacent to a remote protected area on the Wild Coast. The communities living in the area are among the poorest in South Africa and are largely dependent on migrant remittances and state welfare grants for their survival. Soon after South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, the communities lodged a land claim against the protected area on the basis of past removals. In 2001, their land rights to the protected area were restored, opening up new avenues for the development of the area. It is argued that livelihood systems in the area are complex, varied and dynamic, and that for development to be sustainable, it needs to be informed by a thorough understanding of the many factors that shape the context in which livelihoods are generated. The research is based primarily on 'in-depth' micro-studies of two villages in the area - Ntubeni and Cwebe. It includes a detailed assessment of the extent and distribution of poverty and the various factors that make households vulnerable to livelihood shocks. The role of the rich and diverse natural resource base, the property rights associated with it, and the under-development of infrastructure and services in the area, are discussed in relation to livelihood prospects. A systems approach is used to examine the various ways in which livestock husbandry, cropping, natural resource use, employment and welfare dependence interact. Finally, the thesis examines in some detail the distribution of household assets, livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes between the two villages, and between households in different income groups.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
- Authors: Timmermans, Herman Gerald
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Poverty -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural poor -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Land reform -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Citizen participation , Conservation of natural resources -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Income distribution -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Household surveys -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4767 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007174 , Poverty -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural poor -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Land reform -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Citizen participation , Conservation of natural resources -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Income distribution -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Household surveys -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: This thesis uses the sustainable rural livelihoods framework to investigate the livelihoods of communities residing adjacent to a remote protected area on the Wild Coast. The communities living in the area are among the poorest in South Africa and are largely dependent on migrant remittances and state welfare grants for their survival. Soon after South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, the communities lodged a land claim against the protected area on the basis of past removals. In 2001, their land rights to the protected area were restored, opening up new avenues for the development of the area. It is argued that livelihood systems in the area are complex, varied and dynamic, and that for development to be sustainable, it needs to be informed by a thorough understanding of the many factors that shape the context in which livelihoods are generated. The research is based primarily on 'in-depth' micro-studies of two villages in the area - Ntubeni and Cwebe. It includes a detailed assessment of the extent and distribution of poverty and the various factors that make households vulnerable to livelihood shocks. The role of the rich and diverse natural resource base, the property rights associated with it, and the under-development of infrastructure and services in the area, are discussed in relation to livelihood prospects. A systems approach is used to examine the various ways in which livestock husbandry, cropping, natural resource use, employment and welfare dependence interact. Finally, the thesis examines in some detail the distribution of household assets, livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes between the two villages, and between households in different income groups.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
An informed community's perception of the impact of digital technology on the credibility of news photography
- Authors: Làzaro, Angelique Maria
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Photojournalism -- Moral and ethical aspects , Digital media , Photojournalists , Photography -- Digital techniques
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3451 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002905 , Photojournalism -- Moral and ethical aspects , Digital media , Photojournalists , Photography -- Digital techniques
- Description: South African photojournalists’ perception of digital technology’s impact on the credibility of news photographs is investigated in this study. Digital technology has the capabilities to produce “manipulated” photographs that appear realistic and credible. Credibility is dependent on a variety of factors including codes of realism and codes of production, which fit conventional codes of photographic representation. Manipulation is the act of deviating from accepted codes of photographic representation that may jeopardise the credibility of news photography. This thesis proposes a new theoretical framework that encompasses existing theories of semiotics, ideology, naturalism, realism and credibility. These theories underpin the definitions and discussion on manipulation and credibility. A descriptive survey is used which attempts to discover photojournalists’ views towards credibility. This research draws on qualitative research methods using a largely qualitative questionnaire, which generates both qualitative and quantitative data. The questions are formulated around two case studies of digitally manipulated photographs. The trends and responses in the research data are connected and discussed. The findings of this study are discussed in terms of credibility, awareness of the digital changes, the reason for the changes, the role of a caption, deletion techniques and background changes. The empirical situation is analysed in relation to the theoretical discussions and this study’s theorisation of photographic representation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
- Authors: Làzaro, Angelique Maria
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Photojournalism -- Moral and ethical aspects , Digital media , Photojournalists , Photography -- Digital techniques
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3451 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002905 , Photojournalism -- Moral and ethical aspects , Digital media , Photojournalists , Photography -- Digital techniques
- Description: South African photojournalists’ perception of digital technology’s impact on the credibility of news photographs is investigated in this study. Digital technology has the capabilities to produce “manipulated” photographs that appear realistic and credible. Credibility is dependent on a variety of factors including codes of realism and codes of production, which fit conventional codes of photographic representation. Manipulation is the act of deviating from accepted codes of photographic representation that may jeopardise the credibility of news photography. This thesis proposes a new theoretical framework that encompasses existing theories of semiotics, ideology, naturalism, realism and credibility. These theories underpin the definitions and discussion on manipulation and credibility. A descriptive survey is used which attempts to discover photojournalists’ views towards credibility. This research draws on qualitative research methods using a largely qualitative questionnaire, which generates both qualitative and quantitative data. The questions are formulated around two case studies of digitally manipulated photographs. The trends and responses in the research data are connected and discussed. The findings of this study are discussed in terms of credibility, awareness of the digital changes, the reason for the changes, the role of a caption, deletion techniques and background changes. The empirical situation is analysed in relation to the theoretical discussions and this study’s theorisation of photographic representation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
Women's understandings and experiences of empowerment in an organisation: a qualitative feminist approach
- Authors: Jamieson, Sally Anne
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: Employee empowerment , Women -- Employment -- Social aspects , Feminism , Psychology, Industrial
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2997 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002506 , Employee empowerment , Women -- Employment -- Social aspects , Feminism , Psychology, Industrial
- Description: This study explores women's understandings and experiences of empowerment so that they could empower themselves by using their own knowledge to see through factors that serve to disempower them. At a time when empowerment and its future is under intense discussion in South Africa, it seems wise to move away from quantitative studies which do not facilitate the development of comprehensive theory in industrial psychology. This study provides a qualitative feminist analysis of women's understandings and experiences of empowerment in an organisation. Written protocols, interviews and a workshop were used as data collection tools and seven women from one organisation participated in the study. The research revealed that women understand and experience empowerment in a number of ways. These understandings and experiences are affected by various factors: organisational factors; personal characteristics and abilities; their relationship with others at work and at home; and societal factors such as double standards for men and women and role expectations. The breadth and scope of the results imply that any attempt to empower women should include relational, motivational and feminist perspectives on power and empowerment. In addition, the results indicate that providing a space in which the women could explore the network of disempowering practices in their lives, was empowering for the women. Through the process of the research, the participants' understandings of empowerment evolved from viewing empowerment as something that is predominantly external (for example, influenced by others and organisational factors) to something that is internal (for example, influenced by motivational factors). This study cautions against seeing empowerment as something that is solely internal because by doing so women are placing the responsibility of empowerment upon themselves thus setting themselves up for failure. However, through the process of seeing empowerment as internal, the women were able to move towards a feminist understanding of empowerment in which not only is empowerment external ("out there") or internal ("within") but includes acknowledging one's own responsibility in empowerment as well as external societal factors that serve to hamper women.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1999
- Authors: Jamieson, Sally Anne
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: Employee empowerment , Women -- Employment -- Social aspects , Feminism , Psychology, Industrial
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2997 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002506 , Employee empowerment , Women -- Employment -- Social aspects , Feminism , Psychology, Industrial
- Description: This study explores women's understandings and experiences of empowerment so that they could empower themselves by using their own knowledge to see through factors that serve to disempower them. At a time when empowerment and its future is under intense discussion in South Africa, it seems wise to move away from quantitative studies which do not facilitate the development of comprehensive theory in industrial psychology. This study provides a qualitative feminist analysis of women's understandings and experiences of empowerment in an organisation. Written protocols, interviews and a workshop were used as data collection tools and seven women from one organisation participated in the study. The research revealed that women understand and experience empowerment in a number of ways. These understandings and experiences are affected by various factors: organisational factors; personal characteristics and abilities; their relationship with others at work and at home; and societal factors such as double standards for men and women and role expectations. The breadth and scope of the results imply that any attempt to empower women should include relational, motivational and feminist perspectives on power and empowerment. In addition, the results indicate that providing a space in which the women could explore the network of disempowering practices in their lives, was empowering for the women. Through the process of the research, the participants' understandings of empowerment evolved from viewing empowerment as something that is predominantly external (for example, influenced by others and organisational factors) to something that is internal (for example, influenced by motivational factors). This study cautions against seeing empowerment as something that is solely internal because by doing so women are placing the responsibility of empowerment upon themselves thus setting themselves up for failure. However, through the process of seeing empowerment as internal, the women were able to move towards a feminist understanding of empowerment in which not only is empowerment external ("out there") or internal ("within") but includes acknowledging one's own responsibility in empowerment as well as external societal factors that serve to hamper women.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1999
Aspects of imagery, syntax and metrics in the poetry of George Herbert
- Authors: Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning
- Date: 1977
- Subjects: Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2294 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011613 , Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Description: I intend In this thesis to examine some central features of George Herbert's art - aspects of his imagery syntax and metrics. These topics have been chosen because they encompass large areas of his poetic practice, ramifying as they do into questions of theme, tone and structure. Even a partial. survey of Herbert' s imagery, such as the one I attempt to offer, should enable the reader to judge the range of experience that Herbert brings to bear upon a comparatively circumscribed number of themes, (The "Affliction " poems, for example, are wonderfully diverse, although they have a common thematic centre). A brief examination of the traditions within which Herbert's manipulation of imagery falls should allow one also to judge his resourcefulness, especially in the composites of emblem and symbol he devises on occasion; which in the concluding analyses I attempt to show the structural significance of image patterns in representative poems from The Temple. Thus Chapter I falls into three sections: a brief discussion of emblematic and symbolic traditions together with Herbert 's place in relation to them, a deliberately selective glance over some images (a full examination is far beyond the scope of this thesis), and finally some close analyses of poems in the course of which I try to show the imagery operating as a structural and coordinating device. In Chapter II, I move on to the closely related area of syntax, examining Herbert's formulation of his material, and finding - amongst other things - that there is evidence of "grammatical" imagery where the disposition of a sentence provides a concrete embodiment of the theme. This interrelationship of imagery and syntax (and of imagery and metrics) is a corollory of poetry's organic nature, and in order to stress the mutual collaboration of these features, I have subjected a single poem, "The Flower" to an analysis from three different angles, assuming that each approach will further illuminate the others. All the lyrics would yield riches if treated in this way but my limits of space have naturally precluded so elaborate an undertaking. Even In the analyses of poems that are treated only once, I have been at pains to allow in a glimmering of topics other than that in hand, so as to enlarge the scope of my examination. Although the material in Chapter II is designed to highlight the structural, tonal and thematic effects of syntax in turn, such divisions remain theoretical rather than actual, for they combine almost indivorcibly into a complex whole. Chapter III is patterned like Chapter I in that it moves from a general survey of Herbert's metrics, his rhyme and his stanzaic design, to further close analyses of his metrical procedures in particular lyrics. Both here and in the preceding chapters I have undertaken to look at Herbert's work in close detail, because, as I have already suggested, his is an art of compression, of telescoping a whole range of meanings into the neatest and most compact shape. Given the differences in mode and intention, his poetry often puts one in mind of Jane Austen's fiction - at least in the profundity it achieves within a consciously limited scale and a critical magnifying glass seems to me to be the most apposite aid for such a study as I have undertaken.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1977
- Authors: Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning
- Date: 1977
- Subjects: Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2294 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011613 , Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Description: I intend In this thesis to examine some central features of George Herbert's art - aspects of his imagery syntax and metrics. These topics have been chosen because they encompass large areas of his poetic practice, ramifying as they do into questions of theme, tone and structure. Even a partial. survey of Herbert' s imagery, such as the one I attempt to offer, should enable the reader to judge the range of experience that Herbert brings to bear upon a comparatively circumscribed number of themes, (The "Affliction " poems, for example, are wonderfully diverse, although they have a common thematic centre). A brief examination of the traditions within which Herbert's manipulation of imagery falls should allow one also to judge his resourcefulness, especially in the composites of emblem and symbol he devises on occasion; which in the concluding analyses I attempt to show the structural significance of image patterns in representative poems from The Temple. Thus Chapter I falls into three sections: a brief discussion of emblematic and symbolic traditions together with Herbert 's place in relation to them, a deliberately selective glance over some images (a full examination is far beyond the scope of this thesis), and finally some close analyses of poems in the course of which I try to show the imagery operating as a structural and coordinating device. In Chapter II, I move on to the closely related area of syntax, examining Herbert's formulation of his material, and finding - amongst other things - that there is evidence of "grammatical" imagery where the disposition of a sentence provides a concrete embodiment of the theme. This interrelationship of imagery and syntax (and of imagery and metrics) is a corollory of poetry's organic nature, and in order to stress the mutual collaboration of these features, I have subjected a single poem, "The Flower" to an analysis from three different angles, assuming that each approach will further illuminate the others. All the lyrics would yield riches if treated in this way but my limits of space have naturally precluded so elaborate an undertaking. Even In the analyses of poems that are treated only once, I have been at pains to allow in a glimmering of topics other than that in hand, so as to enlarge the scope of my examination. Although the material in Chapter II is designed to highlight the structural, tonal and thematic effects of syntax in turn, such divisions remain theoretical rather than actual, for they combine almost indivorcibly into a complex whole. Chapter III is patterned like Chapter I in that it moves from a general survey of Herbert's metrics, his rhyme and his stanzaic design, to further close analyses of his metrical procedures in particular lyrics. Both here and in the preceding chapters I have undertaken to look at Herbert's work in close detail, because, as I have already suggested, his is an art of compression, of telescoping a whole range of meanings into the neatest and most compact shape. Given the differences in mode and intention, his poetry often puts one in mind of Jane Austen's fiction - at least in the profundity it achieves within a consciously limited scale and a critical magnifying glass seems to me to be the most apposite aid for such a study as I have undertaken.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1977
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