Guy Butler in post-Apartheid South Africa: Reassessing a Literary Life

2007. Submitted for PhD, University of Cape Town.   Guy Butler was a substantial public figure in South Africa over the second half of the twentieth century: performer of chameleon literary roles (professor, poet, playwright, autobiographer and historian), cultural politician, opponent of apartheid legislation. Nevertheless, his is not a familiar name to the majority of South Africans, and where he is known, Butler remains a problematic figure. On the one hand, he has been criticised for expressing dated or even “colonial” ideas, or for lacking radical political conviction; on the other hand, he is often seen as a “grand old man” in South African literature rather than as a writer for a new generation of readers. These views do not take into account those elements in Butler’s writing that were (and still are) subversive, intellectually compelling and of enduring literary value; nor do they consider the complex private man behind the public persona. Butler’s response to the South African situation presents us with a challenge – to acknowledge frankly those elements in his life and work that distance him from us, without losing sight of the significance they hold. The current study makes use of Butler’s private correspondence and unpublished material from the National English Literary Museum archives in Grahamstown, and combines the biographical insight gained from this documentation with criticism of his published work in every genre to offer a more balanced explication of Butler’s life and work than has yet been achieved. It consists of three parts, each addressing a key aspect of both his literary output and his place in the South African literary-cultural establishment. The first considers the various “personae” of Guy Butler; the second, his sustained (and in some ways controversial) attempt to balance the conflicting demands of the rational and the irrational; and the third, his preoccupation with the relationship of the individual to history. In conclusion, Butler is shown to be the kind of liberal who redeems liberalism from its perceived state of derision. His lifelong quest for “synthesis” enhances our understanding of literature and cultural politics, both under apartheid and in post-liberation South Africa.

 

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