Ideology and the study of South African English poetry

Abstract

Summary Ideology is intricated in South African English poetry and its critical reception in complex ways which demand ongoing examination. In this study I approach the subject along three lines of enquiry. In the first section I trace the development of a materialist critical practice up to the recent challenge it encounters in the work of Michael Chapman. In the second section I attempt to shift this debate onto new ground by reformulating the concept of ideology in post‐modernist terms as a discursive practice rather than, as traditionally conceived, an autonomous body of ideas. In the final section, which forms the bulk of my study, I apply this discursive understanding of ideology to a reading of select poems by English‐speaking white South Africans, from Pringle to Butler.