Reprisals of Modernity in Black South African 'Mission' Writing

Abstract

The essay challenges the strongly teleological emphasis in the construction of black South African literary history, which has elided many of the aesthetic, historical and political complexities of the literature. It argues that many of the literary texts written in the 'mission' ethos are marked by forms of aesthetic hybridity and subtextual ambiguity which require serious interpretation. A common feature of this writing is its desperate struggle with a sense of accelerated time. It is suggested that written narrative was undertaken as a mode of reprisal which sought to limit and, in some instances, transform the effects of an alien modernity. This undertaking is studied in two groups of texts: those which tell the story of Christian 'emergence' amongst indigenous communities, and those which re-create the traditional past. In the case of the 'Christian' texts, the subtext is found to be more secular than is often assumed, with writers using the theme to develop an active relationship with the historical effects and ideological content of modernity. Similarly, narratives about traditional society (or early colonial encounters) involve attempts to relocate modern subjects in revised versions of the past, or to elicit principles around which alternative models of modernity or even civil society might develop.