Implanting the better instincts of civilisation'? Black South Africans and Shakespeare in Victorian Grahamstown
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2172993 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brian Willan (Rhodes University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-14 |
| Publication date | 2014-01-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of African Cultural Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-6815 • E-ISSN: 1469-9346 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13696815.2013.774267 |
| OpenAlex | W2158895166 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 9 |
Recent Shakespearean celebrations have highlighted the connection with South Africa, particularly in the form of the iconic ‘Robben Island Bible’, the volume of Shakespeare's collected works in which political prisoners on Robben Island marked their favourite quotations. This provides my starting point for an investigation into the historical origins of black South African engagement with Shakespeare. I present new evidence on the first recorded performances of Shakespeare by black South Africans – at the Anglican ‘Kafir Institution’ in Grahamstown (Eastern Cape) in the 1860s and 1870s. I see this as not so much a consequence of the inevitable spread of Shakespeare from the metropolitan centre to the far reaches of empire but as arising from a particular conjunction of individuals, ideologies and circumstances, a Shakespeare more chosen than imposed. Andrew's College, Grahamstown), Gabriele Mohale (Historical Papers, University of Witwatersrand) and Liz De Wet (Cory Library, Rhodes University) for their help in tracking down documents and photographs.Notes1. The full passage selected by Nelson Mandela was as follows: ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths,/The valiant never taste of death but once,/Of all the wonders that I yet have heard/It seems to me most strange that men should fear;/Seeing that death, a necessary end,/Will come when it will come.’ For an account of the ‘Robben Island Shakespeare’, and its wider context, part of a growing literature, see particularly Desai (Citation2012).2. In another interview Dr Thornton characterized the Robben Island ‘Bible’ as ‘clearly a wonderful object for bringing Shakespeare into the modern world, showing how he is, in some senses, the conscience of the world’. See Suite101: British Museum Exhibition – Shakespeare: Staging the World, Suite101.com. Accessed August 10, 2012. http://suite101.com/article/british-museum-exhibition-shakespeare-staging-the-world-a410045#ixzz239phr6IQ. Other press reports include John Carlin, ‘To kill or not to kill’, Financial Times, July 13, 2012; ‘British Museum to display Robben Island copy of Shakespeare's works’, Daily Telegraph, July 18, 2012; and ‘British Museum Shakespeare exhibition to include Robben island copy’, Guardian, July 17, 2012.3. An exception is the brief but informative piece by Richard Dowden in the RSC's programme for its Stratford-upon-Avon production of Julius Caesar, noting the translations of Sol Plaatje (into Setswana) and Julius Nyerere (Swahili) as well as providing examples of Mandela's predilection for Shakespeare. For earlier critiques of the idea of Shakespeare's universality, see particularly Drakakis (Citation1985); Taylor (Citation1991); Dollimore and Sinfield (Citation1994); and, from a rather different perspective, Bohannan (Citation1966), the classic study of the reception of Hamlet among a group of Tiv elders in Nigeria.4. Essential reading on the subject of Shakespeare in South Africa includes the following: Johnson (Citation1996); Hofmeyr (Citation2006); Distiller (Citation2005); Bradshaw and Bishop (Citation2009), especially Laurence Wright's chapter, ‘Introduction: South African Shakespeare in the Twentieth Century’ (3–28).5. For the history of the Kafir Institution, see particularly Poland (Citation2008), Chapter 4 ‘The Mullins Institution’. Sir George Grey's education policies are described and analysed by Hodgson (Citation1975) and Peires (Citation1989). Education policy had a significant part to play: ‘The spread of civilization by school-instruction and the encouragement of industrial habits among the Natives of the Border districts are of importance to the political security and social progress of the Colony (Report of Supt.-General of Education for 1870).6. For Robert Mullins, see Nicholls and Charton (Citation1998) and Levick (Citation2004).7. For a fuller treatment of the differences between the Anglican and nonconformist churches in this respect, see Willan (Citation2012, esp. 16–17).8. Hofmeyr (Citation2004) is the essential authority on the peculiar importance of Pilgrim’s Progress in Africa. Lovedale, she writes, was ‘one of the subcontinent's Bunyan epicentres’: ‘Students entering Lovedale were . . . to encounter an environment that was Bunyan-saturated and they were to meet him in both Xhosa and English in an array of forms’ (Hofmeyr Citation2004, 120). I have found no evidence that Shakespeare was performed at any other missionary institution in southern Africa at this time. Zonnebloem College in Cape Town, also run by the Anglican Church, would have been the likeliest venue, but there is no evidence that this was the case (Hodgson (Citation1975), ‘A History of Zonnebloem College’ and personal communication, July 11, 2009).9. Merriman presented copies of Shakespeare to A. Manya (for Arithmetic and Euclid) and to William Philip (Special Prize for English) at the prize-giving on 25 July 1873, after which Macbeth was performed (Journal, July 30, 1873). Further information on Merriman can be found in Whibley (Citation1982) and Goedhals (Citation1982). Merriman's enthusiasm for Shakespeare should be seen in the context of the established church's appropriation of Shakespeare during the course of the nineteenth century, particularly evident at the time of the celebration of the tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth in 1864 (see Foulkes Citation1997, 92–107).10. The absence of any report of the annual prize-giving ceremony in 1874 may be explained by the recent departure (June) of Mullins and his family for England (Levick Citation2004, 122).11. Goedhals (Citation1982) points to Merriman's active involvement in the St Philip's mission, based on reports in the Grahamstown Journal between 1866 and 1868, while Hodgson (Citation1987) provides further information about the St Philip's mission. Mission Field (July 1, 1863) notes the involvement of the ‘young men from the Training Institution in Fort England’ (where the Kafir Institution was then located) several years earlier. In July 1875 it was reported that Turpin was the ‘acting Principal’ of the Kafir Institution, Mullins and his family being away in England (Journal, July 28, 1875; Levick Citation2004, 125–6).12. These observations draw particularly upon the work of Jeff Opland, especially ‘The Xhosa Imbongi as Trickster’ (Opland and McAllister Citation2010) and Opland (Citation1983).13. By the late 1870s, for example, Dale was expressing satisfaction at the demise of what he called ‘the age of sentimentalism’ which had ‘happily passed away’ from ‘the English notions of training natives’, welcoming instead the discipline of ‘the saw, plane, hammer and spade’(speech at Zonnebloem, reported in Cape Argus, May 15, 1877, quoted in Hodgson (Citation1975, 623)).14. An African press emerged in the 1880s and 1890s but contained no signs of any public discourse on Shakespeare – in contrast to the many columns of reports on one other enthusiastically adopted product of colonial Anglicization, cricket. On the retreat from the ‘civilizing mission’ in the Cape, see particularly Bank (Citation1999), 364–83.15. For further detail and analysis of this tradition, see particularly, Willan (Citation2012) and Distiller (Citation2005). Sol Plaatje (1876–1932), a Motswana, translated a number of Shakespeare's plays into Setswana, though only two were published – Comedy of Errors (Diphosho-phosho) in 1930 and Julius Caesar (Dintshontsho tsa bo-Juliuse Kesara) posthumously in 1937. Plaatje was a prolific journalist, the author of an English-language novel, Mhudi as well as one of the founders of the South African Native National Congress (later the ANC) in 1912.16. Plaatje wrote these words in an essay on the subject of the nineteenth-century Barolong chief, Moroka, first published in 1930 (Plaatje Citation1930, reproduced in Willan Citation1996, 406–16).17. Cornelius Lekoko's presence at the Kafir Institution is evident from QPBM 22 (October 1873) and Mission Field (2 December 1878) as well as the report of his pleasure at seeing ‘his old teacher’, Robert Mullins, in Mafeking in June 1900, shortly after the lifting of the siege of Mafeking (Levick Citation2004, 195).18. Dionne and Kapadia (2008, 89) raise similar questions in their Introduction to Native Shakespeares: Indigenous Appropriations on a Global Stage, in response to the RSC's ‘Complete Works’ project in 2006 with its many ‘visiting companies from around the world presenting their versions of the plays’. ‘Does the appropriation of native Shakespeare produce a genuine pluralism’, they ask, ‘as hinted at by the promotional tone of RSC's ambitious project? Or does the appearance of pluralism become a guise to promote an even deeper British imperialism that prospers from many adaptations as signs of his universal importance
Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Civilization · Instinct · Literature · History · Philippine History and Culture
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |