Achieving form in autobiography
Literator
| Field | Value | |
| Title | Achieving form in autobiography Die bereik van vorm in outobiografie | |
| Creator | Meihuizen, Nicholas (Nick) | |
| Description | This article argues that, unlike biographies which tend to follow patterns based on conventional expectations, salient autobiographies achieve forms unique to themselves. The article draws on ideas from contemporary formalists such as Peter McDonald and Angela Leighton but also considers ideas on significant form stemming from earlier writers and critics such as P.N. Furbank and Willa Cather. In extracting from these writers the elements of what they consider comprise achieved form, the article does not seek to provide a rigid means of objectively testing the formal attributes of a piece of writing. It rather offers qualitative reminders of the need to be alert to the importance of form, even if the precise nature of this importance is not possible to define. Form is involved in meaning, and this continuously opens up possibilities regarding the reader’s relationship with the work in question. French genetic critic Debray Genette distinguishes between ‘semantic effect’ (the direct telling involved in writing) and ‘semiological effect’ (the indirect signification involved). It is the latter, the article argues in summation, which gives a work its singular nature, producing a form that is not predictable but suggestive, imaginative. In hierdie artikel word geargumenteer dat prominenteoutobiografieë vormlike eienskappe ontwikkel wat uniek is aan hulself, anders as biografieëwat gewoonlik patrone gebaseer op konvensionele verwagtinge navolg. Die artikel maakgebruik van idees van kontemporêre formaliste soos Peter McDonald, maar oorweeg ooksienings oor betekenisvolle vormgewing uit die werk van vroeëre skrywers en kritici soos P.N. Furbank en Willa Cather. Hoewel elemente uitgelig word wat hierdie skrywers asgrondliggend aan die daarstelling van afgeronde vorm beskou, is dit nie die bedoeling om’n rigiede werkswyse waaraan die vormlike kenmerke van ’n teks getoets kan word, aan diehand te doen nie. Die bedoeling is eerder ’n appèl om vanuit ’n kwalitatiewe vertrekpuntingestel te wees op die belang van die vormlike, selfs al kan die presiese aard hiervan nie altydomskryf word nie. Vorm is deel van betekenis, en hierdie gegewe skep voortdurend nuwemoontlikhede vir die leser se verhouding met die spesifieke werk. Debray Genette, beoefenaarvan die Franse genetiese kritiek, onderskei tussen ‘semantiese effek’ (dit wat direk gesê wordin die skryfwerk) en ‘semiologiese effek’ (die indirekte be-tekening). Die slotsom waartoe dieartikel kom, is dat dit laasgenoemde is wat aan ’n werk ’n eiesoortige aard gee en vorm totstand bring wat nie voorspelbaar is nie, maar eerder suggestief en verbeeldingryk. | |
| Publisher | AOSIS | |
| Date | 2014-12-15 | |
| Identifier | 10.4102/lit.v35i2.1143 | |
| Source | Literator; Vol 35, No 2 (2014); 7 pages Literator; Vol 35, No 2 (2014); 7 pages 2219-8237 0258-2279 | |
| Language | eng | |
| Relation |
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:
https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/1143/1621
https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/1143/1622
https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/1143/1623
https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/1143/1602
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