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Elements of Romanticism in The Story of an African Farm

Despite, or perhaps because of, the enthusiastic reception which greeted it when it was first published in I883, The Story of an African Farm has been largely ignored by critics in this century. It is passed over quickly, almost as an embarrassment by most modern South African critics as though any expression of interest, let alone approbation, would brand them as jingoistic and unrespectable in literary circles. Uys Krige, for instance, begins his introduction to Olive Schreiner: A Selection by beating the novel soundly, apparently to demonstrate his objectivity about South African literature so that he may later, with a clear conscience eulogise Olive SchreinerÂ·s Thoughts on South Africa with its strongly pro-Boer predisposition. Dan Jacobson's Introduction to the Penguin edition of The Story of an African Farm, is like most criticism, chiefly biographical. As Jacobson admits, it is extraordinarily difficult for South Africans to evaluate Olive Schreiner's work: "She was in my experience and I cannot pretend otherwise."1 Apart from this and the few biographical studies, Olive Schreiner has been pressed into the service of feminism, her novels have been picked over to furnish quotable fragments which support the feminist viewpoint. To some extent this pursuit is justifiable. Olive Schreiner certainly did, throughout her life, expouse the cause of women's rights, and her novels and stories reflect this concern. But their interest is wider than this. The Story of an African Farm is not just a feminist tract; it deserves recognition on other grounds.