Die groteske as Moermatrys van die poëtika van Breyten Breytenbach

DLit, North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 1993The common denominator in the reception of Breyten Breytenbach's poetic texts is their distinctive and linguistically renewing quality. Other studies done during the last three decades have focused on the different facets of this idiolectic poetics; however, these studies merely touched on some components of the poet's work. This study attempts to demonstrate to what degree the element of the grotesque forms the matrix of Breytenbach's poetics. Concepts evolved by Bakhtin as well as concepts pertaining to the grotesque have been employed to establish a theory which might reveal the heuristic essence of the Breytenbach oeuvre. This is the proposition which forms the foundation of this study. First and foremost a theoretical investigation into the essence of the grotesque was done. The grotesque had its origins in painting, but indications of early manifestations were also found in literature. Being inherent to man's thinking and way of life, it was inevitable that the grotesque should find expression in his creative products. It was discovered that a mixture of contrasting, paradoxical and seemingly irreconcilable elements combine to form the elusive core of the grotesque. Both Breyten Breytenbach's painting and writing clearly exhibit this compound of irreconcilable elements as a predisposed process. With the publication of Nege landskappe van ons tye bemaak aan 'n beminde the motto of Horatius: "Ut pictura poesis" once again confirmed the importance of the amalgamation of poetry and painting in this poetical testament. On the linguistic level, the study of Breyten Breytenbach's poetry also shows that in this oeuvre there are clear indications of a characteristically personal use of the language. This novel grammar paradigm was also traced back to a compound of irreconcilable elements on phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic language levels. The grammar of the grotesque thus manifests itself on all language levels; it ignores and extends conventional linguistic structures, values and norms. In the process of grounding this grammar of the grotesque, the necessary vocabulary was created, and a linguistic framework was established to provide the reader with the means to undertake a heuristic exploration of the Breytenbach texts. Thus conventional linguistics has been broadened by the establishment of the grammar of the grotesque, a fulfilment of the most important aim of this study. The grammar of the grotesque is characterized mainly by the amalgamation of language. This implies an interplay between words and/or parts of words. The meaning and value of the grotesque, however, lies in the gap between the incongruent elements, which are in juxtaposition. The presented language construction (s) in the grotesque are thus in dia-logus. This implies that the word is constantly undergoing a process of metamorphosis and transformation. The focus on the word, the logos, hence plays an important role in the theory of the grotesque. It was found that the potential nature of the logos can be exploited expansively and infinitely. It even implies that the angle of incidence, the irruptive nature of the logos, (can) change(s), which is often against the grain of language conventions. In the case of the grotesque, meaning is never fully comprehensible or repeatable; it is always momentary. Conse quently the grotesque word is exposed to a never-ending process of growth and change, which results in logogenesis. This process of language growth and language change means that the poem evolves as language embodiment and takes on a living structure. It was found that this process can be specifically linked to Zen-Buddhism. The conclusion that there are significant similarities between the grotesque and Zen-Buddhism was an important objective of this study. In Breyten Breytenbach' s poetry the language offered is foreign and strange, because he transcends the limitations of linguistic conventions; consequently it is heteroglossive. The reader plays a constructive role in this heteroglossia. In the theory of the grotesque both the writer and the reader are able to cross over the boundaries of acknowledged literary and linguistic conventions and thus broaden the horizons of their expectations. The theory of the grotesque was augmented by concepts which the linguist and literary critic, Mikhail Bakhtin, applied to prose. It was established that this terminology can also be fruitfully applied to poetry. A number of studies on the work of Breyten Breytenbach have revealed some important facets of his poetical art: a surrealistic and Zen-Buddhistic tendency (Stander 1974; Ferreira 1987); anormalization (H.M. Viljoen 1974); decomposition (Vorster 1973); generic blends (De Klerk 1975 and Winterbach 197 4) ; the manifestation of the self (Roodt 1977) and the blending of the other 'selves'; the syntactic and semantic substitution possibilities as a reading mode (Lombard 1983); the constituting hiatus in Breytenbach's texts {Gouws 1988); the synaesthetic interweaving of images {Galloway 1976); paradox {Van der Merwe 1975); the blending of antipoles in word and image {Morkel 1992) and the process of never-ending semiosis in Breytenbach texts {Viljoen 1988). It was eventually found that all these facets constituted a polyphony of reading modes which form part of the umbrella theory of the grotesque. In the process of postulating a theory of the grotesque, a reading and interpretation frame for Breyten Breytenbach's poetry has been formulated, based on linguistic and literary-theoretical principals. The researcher was able to explore heuristically the grotesque nature of three texts chosen at random { 'coitus eruptus', 'was met woorde wunien', and ':is klaps par gel te nar') as textual samples of the accommodating reading possibilities which the theory of the grotesque presents. The study of the texts verified that the grotesque is the matrix of Breyten Breytenbach's poetics.Doctora