The Poetry of Belonging: Episodic Memory and the Shades

Abstract

Neural science and cognitive psychology have in recent years established the fundamental importance of episodic memory in the formation of an individual’s personal and social identity. These models of understanding help to explain the widespread prevalence of the shades in numerous cultural and literary traditions, including those in contemporary South Africa. This paper applies these findings to the appearance of the shades in the work of poets as diverse as Homer, Dante, Hardy and Vilakazi, and argues that a fuller recognition of the universality of the shades challenges the inward and spiritual apartheid of individuals in a globalised world fissured by recalcitrant identity politics.

Keywords:

• episodic memory
• identity
• poetry
• the shades
• belonging
• postcolonial

Notes on Contributor

Chris Mann's poems have focused on people (South Africans), places (Heartlands), science (Seeing the Cosmos in a Grain of Sand), cereals, fruit and vegetables (The Horn of Plenty), animals (Lifelines), adolescence (Take your Time), faith (Epiphanies) and love (Rudiments of Grace). He is currently working on a book of poems that link classical Greek and Roman myths with contemporary South African beliefs and has started recording a group of forty song-poems with fellow musicians. He believes literature is continuous with but not a surrogate for direct sociopolitical action. While working at The Valley Trust, he and others established a piped water supply and woodlots in the valley, thereby relieving to some extent the crushing burden of water and fuel collection borne by women. He also lead a labour intensive public works project which with others acted as a catalyst for the establishment of the national public works programme. Generic collections include First Poems, New Shades and Kites, and NAF plays Thuthula and The Ballad of Dirk de Bruin.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. There are a number of internet sites that provide botanical information about impepho, and images and recordings of various African-initiated faith movements in South Africa, including Isaiah Shembe’s AmaNazaretha church.

2. Further transcultural research is required to illustrate the similarities and differences in shade cultures extant in parts of the world not mentioned above.