Modernizing Tradition/Traditionalizing Modernity: Reflections on the Dhlomo-Vilakazi Dispute

Abstract

Between June 1938 and July 1939, a dispute took place in the pages of Bantu Studies and The South African Outlook between H. I. E. Dhlomo and B. Wallet Vilakazi, arguably at the time the most eminent figures in the field of Zulu literature. 1 The vituperation produced by the disagreement seems at first to be disproportionate to the subject at hand: the place of rhyme in Zulu poetry. That the argument became overheated was the result of the fact that the two figures involved were rivals, as interpreters of tradition and pathfinders in the development of a modern Zulu literature. But apart from questions of rivalry and temperament, which certainly played a role, the dispute was significant because it touched symptomatically on crucial questions for black writers of the day. 2