'n Metableties-topologiese lesing van nege landskappe van ons tye bemaak aan 'n beminde Van Breyten Breytenbach
Abstract
Since Breyten Breytenbach's literary debut, diverse investigations of his work have been undertaken, all aiming to describe what Andre P. Brink has called an "oopgedroomde" oeuvre - literally, a dreamed-open oeuvre. In such a reality opened up by the dream, apparent appositions are reconciled, innovative juxtapositions are assimilated, poetic and unpoetic means are engaged in dialogue, and strange but fascinating relationships are constructed. This study aimed to create an overarching framework, based in particular on the spatial presentation in nege landskappe van ans tye bemaak aan 'n beminde which would be able to describe Breytenbach's oeuvre in all its variegation and polyphony. Metabletic topology was used to confirm that spatiality is more than Breytenbach's private key to the unlocking of his oeuvre, but is in fact the code of access for his entire idiolect. The use of space in Breytenbach's oeuvre demands of the reader to distrust all traditional poetic assumptions on spatiality. Existing expectations have to be elaborated upon, and the most disparate things linked together; sometimes drastic paradigmatic shifts need to take place. This investigation of the
metabletic-topological nature of spatiality in Breytenbach's poetry has established a reading matrix which may help guide the reader through the apparent intricacies of an oeuvre in which dissimilar things have to be placed in certain juxtapositional relationships. In the same way that topology ignores size and range and rather studies the relationships of variables in continual transformation, nege landskappe deals with a topology that develops along strange lines in order to ultimately establish an idiosyncratic ars poetica. The Harotio-motto "ut pictura poesis" provides a succinct summary of the metabletic topology in nege landskappe. The motto is not only an indication of the transgression of boundaries between painting and poetry, but also implies that a work of art is subject to shifts in perspective, depending on the angle of the approach. Firstly, then, there has to be a
representation, which creates a presentation, which is in turn interpretable, by taking several factors into consideration. This study aimed to investigate how (re)presentation takes place in Breytenbach's poetry and how the reader may go about optimal interpretation. Since metabletics is just as unusual as Breytenbach's poetry and (re)presents in similarly strange ways, it was established as a reading matrix. It is particularly the exploitation and elaboration of the nine landscapes which figure in nege landskappe that made it possible to deploy the metable-tictopological approach as another reading matrix. Gouws has already suggested that the nine physical landscapes are the landscapes of language, cultural processes, politics and ideology, the divine realm, the prison-space, love, existence, history and death. Within each of these spaces a topology operates
which allows for transgression, superimposition, transformation, metamorphosis, and camouflage. The metabletic perspective on each of these topologically charged spaces prevents the total disintegration of the
any interpretation impossible. Ultimately, metabletic topology foregrounds the entire spatial play in nege landskappe and manages to link apparently unrelated things by making everything relative and contingent.
This spatial play is evident throughout nege landskappe: from the title and cover illustration to the whole procede. Through the use of the metabletic-topological reading matrix a significant coherence between the various spaces was uncovered, a coherence in which the most disparate things are connected. An investigation of who the "beminde", the loved, in the title of nege landskappe might refer to, lead to the surmise that it might, among other things, refer to the reader. Through metabletics it was possible to determine that such a beloved
should detach himself from his personal doxa in order to take possession of the unconventional nine spaces which are bequeathed to him. The reading matrix constructed in this study provides insight in these spaces and thus guides the reader to take possession of his inheritance. The apparently incongruous spaces of inside and outside are reconciled through the use of the metabletic-topological reading matrix to simply constitute SPACE,
in which the text, the writer, as well as the reader can be accommodated. The text displays so many topological elements that it may be referred to as a topology. Words and elements of words topologise to the extreme, and only just before total disintegration and the collapse of meaning are they reconnected by means of metabletics.
In this way the expansion of space, which is effected through metabletics, becomes, more than any other textual means, a way of over- and through-the text groping for an imagined text. When Breytenbach then states that only unimaginative people regard language as a means of communication, he most probably implies that language cannot be regarded as the absolute means of communication. Breytenbach's unconventional use of language, which acts in such a metabletictopological manner, is part of his distinctive ars poetica in which the unadorned word uniquely contributes to the creation of new spaces. This study also pointed out that even the para-poetry is included in this ars poetica. Breytenbach's poetry shows no deference for existing conventions, and transgresses through language space even the differences between Eastern and Western philosophy,
in order to create unfamiliar connections and correlations. It is particularly metabletics, which is essentially based on change that contributed to the creation of a reading matrix, which could assist in the interpretation of Breytenbach's unique poetry. This theory was tested on a selection of poems from nege landskappe and it was concluded that a metabletic-topological reading of the text does in fact reconcile the disparate spaces and create a new perception of reality.
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