Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
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( ~ ~I'IPI>I(, L S ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ / l ~ ~ ~ / h Tioo Women Critics and South Afiiciln English 1ite1,arji Stlln'les<br />
bliltou, and the South African piay\vright F1.W.D. Manson. Along wi<br />
will gradually gain ground (19 July 1948~).<br />
I with \vIioln she enjoyed a lifelolig friendship--\/an Hcyningen<br />
iigul-c i ~i lhc irni-ile~nentalion of the techriiqucs of practical critic is^^^ in So<br />
T:ilgIish iIepil~-iinents i r Ihc ~ 1940s anti 1050s'.<br />
As regards Van I-Teyningen's attitude to politics, hcr most consistent con<br />
was an opposition to totalitarianism of any fonn. Van ileyningeil was partict<br />
troubled by the support shown by members of the Afrikaans corn^^<br />
Gel-many. Fiercely opposed to all forms of ideological and politic<br />
identified tvith the values of de~nocracy and individual freedom, and dev<br />
considerable !ilne and energy to their defence. 'i'liese commitments are<br />
su~nniarisetl in her. response to the enormons growth ofpro-Nazi ideas an<br />
in South Africa in the early 1940s. In 1941, she published a petition in the Cepe A<br />
whicli was signed by eighteen other colleagues at the !Jlliversity of Stcllenbosch.<br />
petition, ~vhich was also published in the Szl~duy Times, the Cr~pe Srrn and<br />
an independent thinker, Van Heyningen formulated her critical position in<br />
to Matthew Arnold, T.S. Eliot, Q.D. Leavis, and Denys Thompson, and whilst<br />
reeing with individual contributors, the assun~ptions of the Scrzlfiny<br />
remained an important critical touchstone. She owed a principal<br />
bt to F.R. Leavis (with whom she corresponded on a number of<br />
and reiterated his sense of cultural and intellectual decline, and his<br />
wards popular culture. Like Leavis, her efforts were principally directed<br />
training of a critical vanguard capable of appreciating and promoting Great<br />
d resisting cons~~lner culture. Van Hcyningen assigns a central function to<br />
nd interpretation of poetic works. Poetly, like all literature, is valued<br />
difficulty, and because of its transfortnative power. The reading of poetry<br />
wrillen in protest against 'the slavish imitation of foreign methods o of the utmost momerrt ... [flor poetry. partly because it dernaniis so much of<br />
warfare, blind prejudices and bitter intolerance' (1941a:5) amongst the Afrik<br />
speaking com~nunity. The signatories argued for the need to protect 'persotial free<br />
us, of thc whole man. not merely his brain. his emotions or his body. is<br />
perhaps the most valuable activity ofthe human spirit' (1 945: 16).<br />
and autonomy, and rejected excessive state intervention. it also gave an i~<br />
to the role of education:<br />
Being a student nleans, in the first place. studying, acquiring knowledge. for<br />
tlie purpose of translating his knowledge into deeds later on in life. A student<br />
\vho does not study will be a man who does not know. and such al-1 ignorant<br />
person. is of course, tlie best subject of a totalitarian state (194 1a:5).<br />
is a difficult pursuit calling into play 'incessant movement and "vigilance" of the<br />
. brain and emotions' (I 945: 16). , ' and because it is concerned with the proble~n of<br />
'-of its affirmation, 'renewal, and definition in an ever-changing world-the<br />
'is forced to go through the same pi-ocess, to reconsider, to renew, to re-affirm the<br />
lues thatwe live by' (1 945: 16).<br />
Van Heyningen's literary cl-iticism also reveals a pervasive concern with<br />
ividual ~norality and personal responsibility. For her, both life and art are subject to<br />
For Van Heyningen, the training in critical thinking is an important antidote<br />
operation of absolute moral laws: The artist has a prirnary 'duty of giving direction'<br />
against the propagandist tactics of Fascist ideologues. This commitment extended t<br />
946a: 17), in the process disclosing the universal moral order in hislher work. She<br />
the post-war period when as a founder member of The Johannesburg Educatio<br />
League-an organisation established to combat government indoctrination by mea<br />
of pamphlets and letters-Van Heyningen resisted attempts by the Institute<br />
Christian-Nationalist Education to enforce religious and cultural instruction in schoo<br />
Notwithstanding her corn~nit~ne~it to active political involvement, she retained a faith<br />
the inevitable spread of liberal ideas. Responding to a demand by the University<br />
Cape Town's SRC in 1948 that a unilateral decision bemade on the question ofwheth<br />
or not Africans should be allowed to participate in the social and sporting life oft<br />
university, she criticises UCT for 'not lettling] sleeping dogs lie', arguing instead that<br />
what she regards as the modern tendency to blur distinctions between 'good'<br />
'. Macbeth himself, she argues, understands the lie of the witch's claim that<br />
ul, and foul is fair':<br />
That foul is not fair his soul knew in its unknown depths, and the kno~sledge<br />
wrecked liisncrve. and turned him into the insatiable bloody tyrant he became<br />
.... To Shakcspeal-e good and evil were not dead, nor can I think of any great<br />
writer who has not accepted the responsibility. explicitly (11- implicitly. of<br />
choosi~ig between them. and who has not made the affir~~iation of values his<br />
chiefriglit andf~~riction as all artist (1946a: 17)'.<br />
if nothing more is said on the question. non-Europeans will be accepted as Heyningen's nloral preoccupations lead her into difficulties when she attempts to<br />
eq~tals in those places that ire liberal enough not to mind, and the letter oftlic uate the work of an author whose values she feels compelled to reject. In a<br />
law will be carried out in the illiberal places. and that in this way liberal itfeas cussion of the novels of Heniy James, she criticises his implicit acceptance of<br />
moral' and 'dishonourable' (1946~: 16) behaviour, and sums up his achievement in<br />
For ;i siio1-t biogl-aphy of' Mi11 t~cyniugcn. sec [lie in[~-oduclion to the collcctiotl of essays<br />
cdited hy J.A. Bertoud and C.O. (;arcine1.(1969).<br />
For triore on Van Heyningen's Shakespeare criticism. see Johnsoti ( 1996: 159- 161 )