Books by Helize van Vuuren
A Necklace of Springbok Ears, 2016
This work contains the results of a somewhat variegated, long-standing project that focussed on t... more This work contains the results of a somewhat variegated, long-standing project that focussed on the narratives, myths and poetry of the /Xam and other Bushmen, as well as their interface with South African literature in general, but primarily Afrikaans literature.
Today, the primary source of further information on these first inhabitants is the Bleek and Lloyd digital /Xam archive housed at the University of Cape Town. A multitude of recorded oral narratives, myths and fragments of narratives are contained here, recorded in /Xam and translated into English, given by various informants (available online as The Digital Bleek and Lloyd at http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/).
But then there is also the less well known four-volume /Xam archive, recorded and compiled in Afrikaans – what had come to be the second language of the /Xam – as Boesman-stories (‘Bushman Stories’) by GR von Wielligh (1919-1921; republished in two volumes in 2009 and 2010). A conscious study of this body of work and similar lesser-known texts on, about and inspired by the Bushmen has been the motivating force behind the present volume. My aim is both to describe and analyse the ideological dimensions of the texts. This means asking: How are these first people portrayed? What implicit attitudes do the authors have towards their subjects? How does the reading of these recorded oral narratives influence the contemporary view? What do contemporary readers make of these narratives and myths?
When my research project began in 1994, there was at best meagre evidence in the then extant South African literary histories of the Bushman oral tradition. It was as if these first South African people had never existed, silently forgotten or banished from official and academic recognition. The watershed came after the founding of the new South African democracy in 1994; this led to more, and more inclusive literary histories.
In 1996, Michael Chapman published his single-authored Southern African literatures, which included sixteen pages on ‘Bushman (San) songs and stories’ (Chapman 1996:21-37 – between three and four percent of the 430 text pages). In 2012, there followed the encyclopaedic, team-written The Cambridge History of South African Literature, edited by David Attwell and Derek Attridge. They opened their literary history with twenty-two pages covering the /Xam narratives from the Bleek and Lloyd collection (Attwell & Attridge 2012:19-41, between two and three percent of 837 text pages). Both parties – Chapman in 1996, as well as Attwell and Attridge in 2012 – also allocated a handful of further pages covering other Southern African oral traditions.
What seems absent is a consciousness of Bushmen myths and narratives as preceding South African literature. In many ways, this consciousness is already present in Von Wielligh’s texts. He recorded the /Xam narratives through the medium of Afrikaans, his mother tongue, and the language of bilingualism for the /Xam and Khoi. Through intercultural communication, the /Xam had acquired Afrikaans as their second language early on in the period of colonisation. In the same way, many farm-children and farmers had acquired /Xam.
In Margo and Martin Russell’s Afrikaners of the Kalahari: white minority in a black state (1979), intermarriage between Bushmen women and white men is described as a common occurrence in that border region of Southern Africa. The peaceful co-existence in the thirstlands of the northern countryside was thus a well-kept secret of which most scholars today are still seemingly ignorant, emphasising only the genocide and physical strife between the races. Certainly, when one reads Von Wielligh’s non-mythical Bushman stories in volumes 3 and 4, set for the most part in the years 1795-1860, the emphasis is not on genocide but on the peaceful collective hunting parties on the other side of the Orange River, the bartering of leopard skins, dogs, and the like, with Bushmen working voluntarily for farmers ‘to see what it is like’ (as does the brother of Von Wielligh’s main informant, Old Bles). Von Wielligh describes peaceful conversations with the /Xam in their own region (Bushmanland, now Northern Cape), between informants and farmers, and with the young land surveyor, Von Wielligh, and others. That the milieu was different for the non-South African Bleek and Lloyd is clear: they were interviewing their /Xam informants in Cape Town, far from their /Xam homelands, and without having, at first, a language in common.
Coming from a background rooted in Afrikaans literature, it has always struck me that various layers of meaning in certain Afrikaans texts cannot be understood without the necessary informational background. These types of texts demand the highest degree of interdisciplinary knowledge to unlock different layers of meaning. Two pertinent examples in the focus of this book are Dwaalstories (1927) by Eugène Marais and Von Wielligh’s myths of origin (1919-1921), often relegated to the genre of ‘children’s stories’. Text-orientated literary analysis, which still holds sway, seems inadequate to the task of identifying and explaining the layers of meaning in these texts. These ‘texts’ are transcriptions of oral narratives, from one language to another, which originally served communal purposes in a way that, apart from prayer in European societies, has little precedent in Western culture. However, the higher the degree of multidisciplinary knowledge gained of the Bushmen (socio-politics, history, anthropology, botany, zoology, rock art, water management and even palaeoanthropology), the more are the significant meanings embedded in these texts revealed.
Although seemingly disparate at first glance, the contents of this study hang together as in a “necklace of springbok ears” (in Von Wielligh 1919, first /Xam myth of origin). The cover illustration is a very rare photo featuring such dried ears that have been made into a dancing rattle. The /Xam custom of using dried springbok ears for bodily adornment and musical instruments presumably ceased when springbok became scarce due to the onslaught of colonial hunting parties and the fencing of land. The last dancing rattle, photographed in the Kirby collection, has now crumbled to dust. Yet the binding string serves as a useful metaphor of the interconnectedness between literary texts discussed here and their relation to the culture of the First People.
Before the advent of settlers in their areas, the Bushmen were spread in many multilingual groups. These ranged from the mountains of the Cederberg up to the Orange River; from the Tugela into the Drakensberg; and from the Waterberg to the Limpopo River. Through intercultural connection, the Cape-Dutch (later Afrikaans) trekboers learnt the “Bushman veld lore” (Smith 1966:6), and ways of living on the land. This knowledge has left its indelible marks in a distinct stream of Afrikaans literature, and is perhaps its central core. It starts with GR von Wielligh in the 19th century and continues via Eugène N Marais, PJ Schoeman, Karel Schoeman, DJ Opperman, Wilma Stockenström, Antjie Krog to Piet van Rooyen and others in the late 20th century. This stream, specifically in poetry and fiction, is discussed in the following chapters.
South African literary historians still tend to segregate oral traditions from the mainstream ‘literary’ content in their publications. My aim in this monograph is to illustrate, inter alia, that the compartmentalisation, in certain literatures and among certain writers, does not exist. The fragility of a divide between a /Xam origin myth and Opperman’s ‘Vuurbees’ (‘Fire Beast’) is, for instance, clear evidence thereof. I hope that this study will, by contrast, show the underlying connection between the native oral and the literary traditions.
The integrated /Xam worldview – the cosmology embedded in the /Xam myths as recorded by Von Wielligh – seems to share much with contemporary consciousness: in order to survive, humankind needs to recognise the interdependence of all life.
Tristia in perspektief [Tristia in perspective]. 1989. Kaapstad: Vlaeberg., 1989
NP van Wyk Louw's final collection of poetry in TRISTIA (1962), links via its title to predeces... more NP van Wyk Louw's final collection of poetry in TRISTIA (1962), links via its title to predecessors in world literature, Ovidius and Mandelstam. Because of the philosophical and intellectual calibre of these poems they are challenging, not the least because of their rootedness in a particularly broad international literary tradition of seminal predecessors.
The poetry is read here within historical context, and against a literary-comparativist framework. The aim is better understanding of many of the highly complex, reader-resistant ("duister") modernist poems, especially "Groot ode"["Great ode"].
Books co-edited by Helize van Vuuren
Co-edited with Willie Burger, 2002, monograph with critical studies on the work of Karel Schoeman
Books (chapters in) by Helize van Vuuren
Op die wyse van die taal (De Vries, A & Gilfillan, R, eds.). Cape Town: Vlaeberg. 1989:193-199.
"Springbok", a singularly prophetic poem by DJ Opperman from 1963 (DOLOSSE), predicts white genoc... more "Springbok", a singularly prophetic poem by DJ Opperman from 1963 (DOLOSSE), predicts white genocide as the eventual result of apartheid. The poem works on two levels, describing the incomprehensible zoological phenomenon of thousands of springbok committing mass destruction by driving into the sea, as well as the incomprehensible group destruction inherent in the Afrikaner nationalist apartheid ideology of 1948 to 1994. In translation the poem reads as follows:
Astral powers in their blood
and grass salts determined
that from desert and plain
as one large herd they meet
and maul around for days in clouds of dust
till suddenly one sniffs the course, followed by the rest
and stands no resistance
thundering over veld and hill
claw and horns flattening
all away in their surge
each so ready for self-sacrifice
that over dongas and through rivers they chase
and fall unstoppably into the sea:
"We were summoned to an important date
with death"
Vanaf sy geboorte in 1914 (distrik Dundee) tot 1945 was Diederik Johannes Opperman gevestig in Na... more Vanaf sy geboorte in 1914 (distrik Dundee) tot 1945 was Diederik Johannes Opperman gevestig in Natal. Na voltooiing van sy M.A. oor die Afrikaanse letterkundige kritiek tot 1922 (1935) aan die Universiteit van Natal in Pietermaritzburg, werk hy as onderwyser in dieselfde stad. Behalwe vir 'n kort periode in Johannesburg hierná, bring hy die res van sy lewe in die Wes-Kaap deur, aanvanklik as joernalis by Die Huisgenoot in Kaapstad, en later (1949Kaapstad, en later ( -1959 as dosent in Afrikaanse en Nederlandse letterkunde aan die plaaslike universiteit. Sy doseerwerk behels veral die Middelnederlandse en sewentiende eeuse Nederlandse letterkunde, 'n spesialisasie wat saam met sy sterk historiese belangstelling 'n duidelike voedingsbron is vir sy poësie. Hiernaas konsentreer hy op die werk van sy digterlike voorgangers, die Digters van Dertig (1953),'n studie waarop hy promoveer. Van 1947 tot aan die einde van sy lewe was Opperman ook aktief werksaam as bloemleser van die Afrikaanse poësie, veral in die voortdurend bygewerkte uitgawes van Groot verseboek. Hiermee, sowel as deur sy aktiewe betrokkenheid by die tydskrif Standpunte, en deur sy sleutelrol as manuskrip-keurder vir Nasionale Pers, en later Human & Rousseau en Tafelberg, het daar van Opperman besondere invloed uitgegaan, vanaf die veertiger-tot die sewentigerjare, as kanoniseerder van die Afrikaanse poësie. Tussen 1960 tot 1979 werk hy as professor in Afrikaanse letterkund e aan die Universiteit van Stellenbosch, waar hy die innoverende en unieke "Letterkundige laboratorium" instel as deel van die spesialisasie in letterkunde, 'n soort werkswinkel in die Afrikaanse poësie vir ontluikende digters en kritici. Gedurende 1976 verkeer hy sewe maande lank as gevolg van lewersirose in 'n komatose toestand, waaruit hy moeisaam maar merkwaardig genoeg herstel, en waaroor die outobiografiese bundel, Komas uit 'n bamboesstok (1979), handel. Hoewel hy in 1981, ná reise deur Suider-Afrika, nóg 'n versameling gedigte onder die titel Sonklong oor Afrika aan die voltooi was, veroorsaak beroerte en totale verswakking dat dié versameling nooit finaal georden of gepubliseer is nie. (Dit word onder embargo bewaar in die Dokumente-sentrum van die universiteitsbiblioteek op Stellenbosch). Die digter sterf in 1985 op Stellenbosch, en laat 'n oeuvre agter wat bestaan uit nege digbundels (die fokus van hierdie opstel), drie versdramas en drie versamelbundels literêr-kritiese opstelle. I As Opperman in 1945 relatief láát debuteer met Heilige beeste, is Van Wyk Louw, hoewel chronologies 'n tydgenoot reeds 'n gevestigde digter met Alleenspraak (1935), Die halwe kring (1937), Raka (1941) en Gestaltes en diere (1942), en het W.E.G. Louw ook al meer as 'n dekade te vore opspraak verwek met die belydenisverse in Die ryke dwaas (1934) (opgevolg met Terugtog, 1940, en Adam en ander gedigte, 1944). Ook Uys Krige en I.D. du Plessis het teen dié tyd al heelwat bundels gepubliseer. Hoewel Heilige beeste nog duidelik spore van interaksie met voorgangers dra (veral in die bieg-kwaliteit van sommige van die liefdesverse), is die vernuwende van dié oeuvre ook reeds aantoonbaar aanwesig in die Afrika-gesentreerdheid (in die tradisie van Marais en Leipoldt) en konkrete aardsgerigtheid (met veral Natalse gegewens), in die historiese bewussyn (vergelyk "Shaka" en "Nagskip langs Afrika"), en in die voorkeur vir die gestaltevers of objektivering, asook 'n ander taalregister waarin die konkrete, die gewone en die wetenskaplike woord (weg van die verhewe, metafisiese en 'mooi' woord van Dertig) sentraal staan. Oorskouend kan 'n mens sê dat Opperman se werk ruweg in twee fases verdeel kan word. Die eerste fase, wat tematies fokus op die stad (die "grysland"), sowel as die wêreld van die Zoeloe en Natal, en sterk histories gerig is, kry ons in Heilige beeste (1945), Negester oor Ninevé (1947), Joernaal van Jorik (1949) en Engel uit die klip (1950). Wat vorm betref, is die gedigte in dié fase besonder vormvas, daar is 'n groot verskeidenheid van tradisionele digvorme wat aangewend word (kwatryn, sonnet, die distigon-vers, die epos, ensovoorts.) Blom en baaierd (1956) kan gesien word as 'n oorgangsbundel na die volgende fase, veral getipeer deur 'n merkbare tematiese verskuiwing, wég van die stadsproblematiek en 'n intenser fokus op die aktuele -die rasseverhoudinge in Suid-Afrika. Die lang-uitgesponne epiese asook literêr-historiese gedig bereik in Opperman se oeuvre hier 'n hoogtepunt met "Staking op die suikerplantasie", "Kroniek van Kristien" en "Blom van die baaierd". Hierop volg wat ruweg die tweede fase genoem kan word, gekenmerk deur toenemende kultuurpessimisme (met geweld en rassekonflik in die fokus) en 'n ondergangsmotief (met siekte, dood, en verganklikheid as sentrale topoï) in Dolosse (1963), ), en Edms.Bpk (1970. Ook vormlik tree daar 'n verandering in -die gedigte neig om korter te wees en daar is 'n subtiele, maar merkbare neiging weg van die streng rymvaste vorm, in die rigting van die vrye vers en die eksperimentele (vergelyk "Safari", "Unopus", "Visvangplekke op die Plaat" en "Ruimtesentrum, Houston"). Die oeuvre word afgesluit met Komas uit 'n bamboesstok .
Sluiswagter by die dam van stemme, 2002
Jy sit die woord op papier, en dan gaan hy uit in die donker, en dan is daar net stilte daarna." ... more Jy sit die woord op papier, en dan gaan hy uit in die donker, en dan is daar net stilte daarna." Karel Schoeman Inleiding Daar bestaan nie 'n enkele boeklengte studie oor die oeuvre van Karel Schoeman nie. Die rede hiervoor is waarskynlik, naas die klein Afrikaanse lesersmark, deels geleë in die verwikkeldheidsgraad van sy latere werk, en die elitistiese aard daarvan. Oor die vergelykbare, komplekse oeuvre van J.M. Coetzee, wie se romans reëlmatig met veral die latere romans van Schoeman vergelyk word, kan die leser sigself egter rig tot talryke boeklengte studies. In 'n Afrikaanse letterkunde waar die populêre en toeganklike steeds nader aan die sentrum beweeg, skrywers en uitgewers steeds karnavalesker raak in hul pogings om ten alle koste boeke te verkoop en geld te maak, is die enigmatiese, byna asketiese figuur van Karel Schoeman en sy werk nog nooit gekoppel aan trompetgeskal of sensasie nie. Die rede hiervoor is ook nie dat sy werk nie erkenning geniet nie: hy het al drie keer die Hertzog-prys vir prosa ontvang asook talle ander belangrike literêre pryse 1 , 'n Orde vir Voortreflike Diens van President Mandela in 1999, en in 2000 'n eredoktorsgraad van die Universiteit van Kaapstad. Des te eienaardiger is dit dat daar nie deeglike langer studies oor sy werk is nie. Miskien lê die rede ook deels in sy aversie vir die "geslote baan van akademiese navorsing" (1986: 2) en sy grinterigheid teenoor akademiese gedoe? Karel Schoeman (1939-) 2 se romans is vir die fynproewer, en die geduldige leser. Veral sy latere werk het 'n sterk psigologiese inslag, waaraan daar nog weinig aandag gegee is in die resepsie. Dit konfronteer die leser met die tragiek van die geskiedenis, met skeefgeloopte interkulturele verhoudinge, met die ontstaan van 'n Afrikaanse identiteit en die Afrikaanse taal. Veral in die laaste deel van sy oeuvre, vanaf 'n Ander land, is die fokus toenemend op (Suid-)Afrika, en die verganklikheid van menswees. Sy oeuvre is groot van omvang en besonder veelsydig: sonder vertalings is daar ruweg vyf en vyftig bekende gepubliseerde titels van boeklengte. Schoeman is historikus 3 sowel as romansier, daarbenewens vertaler 4 uit Iers 5 , Duits, Nederlands en Engels, essayis 6 , asook skrywer van reisbeskrywings 7 , gefiksionaliseerde lewensverhale 8 en televisie-tekste 9 . Ek neem
Sluiswagter by die dam van stemme, 2002
Die afgelope dekade het Piet van Rooyen drie romans en 'n outobiografiese werk gepubliseer waarin... more Die afgelope dekade het Piet van Rooyen drie romans en 'n outobiografiese werk gepubliseer waarin die Ju/'hoan boesmans 2 van Namibië sentraal figureer: óf as die gemeenskap onder wie hy ontwikkelingswerk gedoen het in Agter 'n eland aan, óf as romankarakters. Aangesien hierdie fokus in sy werk nou volgens eie segge afgesluit is (Van Rooyen, 2001c: 6), fokus ek in hierdie profiel op dié vier belangwekkende en samehangende tekste. Hierby laat ek sy twee vroeë digbundels, Draak op die erf (1973) en Rondom 'n boorvuur (1983), wat ook hier en daar boesmanmateriaal bevat, buite beskouing. Ook die roman Die brandende man (2002) en die digbundel Goedsmoeds (2002) wat nie tematies aansluit by die oeuvre gefokus op die boesmans waarmee Van Rooyen naam gemaak het nie, en van mindere allooi is, laat ek buite bespreking. Neerslag van Ju/'hoansi kultuur en mitologie Die outobiografiese teks Agter 'n eland aan bied insig in die skrywer se ervaring van, en sy perspektief op die Namibiese Ju/'hoan (vroeër !Kung). Hy werk van 1990 tot 1991 vir die Nyae Nyae Ontwikkelingstigting in die noordooste van Namibië. Sy hooftaak, uiteindelik tevergeefs, was om as plaasvervanger vir John Marshall te help met die vestiging van beesboerdery onder die Ju/'hoan in die Nyae Nyae Reservaat. Sy kollegas indertyd was die antropoloë Megan Biesele en Claire Richie, asook die linguis Patrick Dickens, wat hul lewens gewy het aan ontwikkelingswerk onder die Ju/'hoan. Hier leer hy die ontwortelde Ju/'hoan se leefruimte en tradisionele kultuur, hul hui-dige situasie en die relatiewe uitsigloosheid daarvan intiem ken. Agter 'n eland aan bevat baie van die feite en rumateriaal waaruit die drie romans ontstaan het, en waarop hulle kreatief voortbou. Die fiksionele oeuvre word dus aansienlik verhelder deur 'n intertekstuele lesing saam met dié
Krog's striving towards a new syncretic South African identity develops in her later oeuvre on tw... more Krog's striving towards a new syncretic South African identity develops in her later oeuvre on two fronts: thematically in terms of content, and with relation to form, in terms of the increasing use of an African-based orally orientated poetics. At the basis of her poetics lies the aim to "revolutionise" the language through transgressing taboos, while her "translation as transformation" project is at the basis of a search for a common humanity.
Met die aanvang van die sestigerjare het Afrikaans al oor 'n gevestigde digterlike tradisie beskik.
The Courage of ||kabbo: Celebrating the 100th anniversary of "Specimens of Bushman folklore''. , Apr 2014
women": the blossoming of the uintjieblom he !kaui /k' a //kwa § /ne /ha: !k?e a:, he !k?e ŋ //kw... more women": the blossoming of the uintjieblom he !kaui /k' a //kwa § /ne /ha: !k?e a:, he !k?e ŋ //kwa § /ne //ke:n hi: he, o !kaui, i. ŋ then the wild onion leaves come out for the people, on account of it (rain), and the people digging feed themselves with the wild onions. (Bleek 1956: 414)
Perspektief en profiel (nuwe uitgebreide uitgawe), Jan 31, 2018
A substantially reworked, redesigned and added profile, to allow for numerous new works by the au... more A substantially reworked, redesigned and added profile, to allow for numerous new works by the author since the first profile on her was published in 1999, mainly based on her prize-winning and polemic first novel, TRIOMF (1995). This profile includes challenging new works in all genres, AGAAT, DIE SNEEUSLAPER, MEMORANDUM, KAAR, and others.
Van Schaik, Jan 31, 2015
Tussen 1994 en 2001 het Piet van Rooyen drie romans en 'n outobiografiese werk gepubliseer waarin... more Tussen 1994 en 2001 het Piet van Rooyen drie romans en 'n outobiografiese werk gepubliseer waarin die Ju/'hoan boesmans 2 van Namibië sentraal figureer: óf as die gemeenskap onder wie hy ontwikkelingswerk gedoen het in Agter 'n eland aan, óf as romankarakters. Weens hul besondere kwaliteit en oorspronklikheid (ook weerspieël in die pryse aan die skrywer toegeken in 1993, 1994 en 1998) fokus ek in hierdie profiel op dié vier belangwekkende en samehangende tekste.
Translations/Vertalings by Helize van Vuuren
Draft, 2025
This is Benn's very last poem before his death-he had virulent cancer and clearly knew he was dyi... more This is Benn's very last poem before his death-he had virulent cancer and clearly knew he was dying. A death poem in the genre of Buddhist poets. Death came to him four months later. Droste in the poem is Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797-1848), poet, novelist and composer of classical music.
Gebore in Warschau op 3 Januarie 1891, sterf die digter op 27 Desember 1938 aan tifus in 'n Stali... more Gebore in Warschau op 3 Januarie 1891, sterf die digter op 27 Desember 1938 aan tifus in 'n Stalinistiese transitkamp naby Vladivlostock. Hy was sewe-en-veertig jaar oud. Paul Celan [1920-1970] het hom sy "broer" genoem, en van sy laatverse uit Voronesz in Duits vertaal. Daarnaas het Celan ook 'n digbundel geskryf opgedra aan sy nagedagtenis, Die Niemandsrose (1963). Hieronder volg 'n handvol memorabele verse-in-vertaling,deur Mandelstam geskryf tussen 1910 en 1937.
Draft, 2024
Klippe, bome, woorde - alles dui vir Celan op vervlegting, ontreddering en verrotting. In die omg... more Klippe, bome, woorde - alles dui vir Celan op vervlegting, ontreddering en verrotting. In die omgewing, in die tyd en sy ontreddering, in die taal en sy aangetastheid deur die politieke "verrotting". Tussen die Duits van kort na W.O II, en Afrikaans in die huidige bestek, skyn daar nie 'n groot onderskeid nie...
Draft, 2023
D.J. Opperman's seminal poem, "Vuurbees" in a newly revised Spanish translation by José Manuel de... more D.J. Opperman's seminal poem, "Vuurbees" in a newly revised Spanish translation by José Manuel de Prada-Samper, dated 16 December 2023.
As fitting for Louw between 1950 to 1958 and any writer living in exile, are these lines from Ovi... more As fitting for Louw between 1950 to 1958 and any writer living in exile, are these lines from Ovid's Tristia. NP van Wyk Louw (1906-1970) completed a first typescript of Tristia in July 1957, and submitted it to the printers in Cape Town when he visited South Africa in December 1957 from his domicile in Amsterdam 1950-1958, for a job interview at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Sometime in 1958 he withdrew the first Tristia collection from the Cape Town publishing house, and sat with it for another four and a half years. During this period he wrote about twenty new poems, scrapped the dedication to his erstwhile maitresse, poet-painter Sheila Cussons, dedicated it instead to his children (with most evidence of the earlier love relationship removed), and published it finally in December 1962 under the same title.
Clear from his manuscripts lodged at the Stellenbosch University''s Documents Centre, the second Tristia has a different structure and different content page, differently arranged, with even a different dedication.There are sections of overlap, but the tone of the second Tristia is more austerely intellectual, human warmth cut-away, shriven to a skeletal bone compared to that of the first typescript.
A more singular history of poetic (self-?)censorship, as this one, by the most highly-regarded Afrikaans poet of the twentieth century, is hard to imagine.The bulk of the poems contained in TRISTIA were written during his Amsterdam domicile, mainly between 1950 and 1957. After 1962 no new collections were published. although he only died eight years later in 1970.
This means that the poet Louw silenced his own poetic voice (or was silenced), and became "monddood" as a leading poet of major prize-winning collections. Not as in Ovid's case through exile in Tomis but through exile in his own homeland, beleagured by conservatism and apartheid. He henceforth quenched his own poetic voice (although a few single poems trickled through here and there, ephemerally). Henceforth, like Ovid in exile, he wrote and read "only for himself".
Strangely enough, the erstwhile maitresse and poet-painter Sheila Cussons's poetic output (who started in 1946 as young promising Afrikaans poet), exploded into a flurry of many multi-facetted collections, and she forged a gigantic often prize-winning oeuvre, but only subsequent to his death in 1970.
Afrikaanse vertaling van Hölderlin-gedig, uit 1804, na sy ervaring van Bordeaux, Frankryk. Gepubl... more Afrikaanse vertaling van Hölderlin-gedig, uit 1804, na sy ervaring van Bordeaux, Frankryk. Gepubliseer in 1805. In die tyd geskryf van sy psigiese agteruitgang, kort voor sy opname in een van die eerste institute vir psigies-kranklikes se versorging.
Dis 'n besonder helder liriese gedig, elegies, met in die twee helftes die sonnigs-somerse beskrywing van die eerste deel van 'n lewe, met daarna die winterse tweede helfte daarvan. Die "blomme vir die winter" weerklink in Louw se mid-neëntien vyftig geskrewe hoorspel, "Blomme vir die winter", waarin duidelike spore te vind is van verwerking van die digter se jarelange veehouding met sy digter-maitresse, Sheila Cussons, wat ook later weens psigiese versteurdheid geinstitusionaliseerd was (Potgieter 2022).
Die Hölderlin-gedig skakel ook met sy ander Bordeaux-gedig uit dieselfde periode van die digter se lewe, "Andenken", waarin die "bruin vroue van Bordeaux" figureer. Op dié manier skakel die vers ook met NP van Wyk Louw se liriese verse oor die "bruin van aarde" in Provence en die Mediterreneë.
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Books by Helize van Vuuren
Today, the primary source of further information on these first inhabitants is the Bleek and Lloyd digital /Xam archive housed at the University of Cape Town. A multitude of recorded oral narratives, myths and fragments of narratives are contained here, recorded in /Xam and translated into English, given by various informants (available online as The Digital Bleek and Lloyd at http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/).
But then there is also the less well known four-volume /Xam archive, recorded and compiled in Afrikaans – what had come to be the second language of the /Xam – as Boesman-stories (‘Bushman Stories’) by GR von Wielligh (1919-1921; republished in two volumes in 2009 and 2010). A conscious study of this body of work and similar lesser-known texts on, about and inspired by the Bushmen has been the motivating force behind the present volume. My aim is both to describe and analyse the ideological dimensions of the texts. This means asking: How are these first people portrayed? What implicit attitudes do the authors have towards their subjects? How does the reading of these recorded oral narratives influence the contemporary view? What do contemporary readers make of these narratives and myths?
When my research project began in 1994, there was at best meagre evidence in the then extant South African literary histories of the Bushman oral tradition. It was as if these first South African people had never existed, silently forgotten or banished from official and academic recognition. The watershed came after the founding of the new South African democracy in 1994; this led to more, and more inclusive literary histories.
In 1996, Michael Chapman published his single-authored Southern African literatures, which included sixteen pages on ‘Bushman (San) songs and stories’ (Chapman 1996:21-37 – between three and four percent of the 430 text pages). In 2012, there followed the encyclopaedic, team-written The Cambridge History of South African Literature, edited by David Attwell and Derek Attridge. They opened their literary history with twenty-two pages covering the /Xam narratives from the Bleek and Lloyd collection (Attwell & Attridge 2012:19-41, between two and three percent of 837 text pages). Both parties – Chapman in 1996, as well as Attwell and Attridge in 2012 – also allocated a handful of further pages covering other Southern African oral traditions.
What seems absent is a consciousness of Bushmen myths and narratives as preceding South African literature. In many ways, this consciousness is already present in Von Wielligh’s texts. He recorded the /Xam narratives through the medium of Afrikaans, his mother tongue, and the language of bilingualism for the /Xam and Khoi. Through intercultural communication, the /Xam had acquired Afrikaans as their second language early on in the period of colonisation. In the same way, many farm-children and farmers had acquired /Xam.
In Margo and Martin Russell’s Afrikaners of the Kalahari: white minority in a black state (1979), intermarriage between Bushmen women and white men is described as a common occurrence in that border region of Southern Africa. The peaceful co-existence in the thirstlands of the northern countryside was thus a well-kept secret of which most scholars today are still seemingly ignorant, emphasising only the genocide and physical strife between the races. Certainly, when one reads Von Wielligh’s non-mythical Bushman stories in volumes 3 and 4, set for the most part in the years 1795-1860, the emphasis is not on genocide but on the peaceful collective hunting parties on the other side of the Orange River, the bartering of leopard skins, dogs, and the like, with Bushmen working voluntarily for farmers ‘to see what it is like’ (as does the brother of Von Wielligh’s main informant, Old Bles). Von Wielligh describes peaceful conversations with the /Xam in their own region (Bushmanland, now Northern Cape), between informants and farmers, and with the young land surveyor, Von Wielligh, and others. That the milieu was different for the non-South African Bleek and Lloyd is clear: they were interviewing their /Xam informants in Cape Town, far from their /Xam homelands, and without having, at first, a language in common.
Coming from a background rooted in Afrikaans literature, it has always struck me that various layers of meaning in certain Afrikaans texts cannot be understood without the necessary informational background. These types of texts demand the highest degree of interdisciplinary knowledge to unlock different layers of meaning. Two pertinent examples in the focus of this book are Dwaalstories (1927) by Eugène Marais and Von Wielligh’s myths of origin (1919-1921), often relegated to the genre of ‘children’s stories’. Text-orientated literary analysis, which still holds sway, seems inadequate to the task of identifying and explaining the layers of meaning in these texts. These ‘texts’ are transcriptions of oral narratives, from one language to another, which originally served communal purposes in a way that, apart from prayer in European societies, has little precedent in Western culture. However, the higher the degree of multidisciplinary knowledge gained of the Bushmen (socio-politics, history, anthropology, botany, zoology, rock art, water management and even palaeoanthropology), the more are the significant meanings embedded in these texts revealed.
Although seemingly disparate at first glance, the contents of this study hang together as in a “necklace of springbok ears” (in Von Wielligh 1919, first /Xam myth of origin). The cover illustration is a very rare photo featuring such dried ears that have been made into a dancing rattle. The /Xam custom of using dried springbok ears for bodily adornment and musical instruments presumably ceased when springbok became scarce due to the onslaught of colonial hunting parties and the fencing of land. The last dancing rattle, photographed in the Kirby collection, has now crumbled to dust. Yet the binding string serves as a useful metaphor of the interconnectedness between literary texts discussed here and their relation to the culture of the First People.
Before the advent of settlers in their areas, the Bushmen were spread in many multilingual groups. These ranged from the mountains of the Cederberg up to the Orange River; from the Tugela into the Drakensberg; and from the Waterberg to the Limpopo River. Through intercultural connection, the Cape-Dutch (later Afrikaans) trekboers learnt the “Bushman veld lore” (Smith 1966:6), and ways of living on the land. This knowledge has left its indelible marks in a distinct stream of Afrikaans literature, and is perhaps its central core. It starts with GR von Wielligh in the 19th century and continues via Eugène N Marais, PJ Schoeman, Karel Schoeman, DJ Opperman, Wilma Stockenström, Antjie Krog to Piet van Rooyen and others in the late 20th century. This stream, specifically in poetry and fiction, is discussed in the following chapters.
South African literary historians still tend to segregate oral traditions from the mainstream ‘literary’ content in their publications. My aim in this monograph is to illustrate, inter alia, that the compartmentalisation, in certain literatures and among certain writers, does not exist. The fragility of a divide between a /Xam origin myth and Opperman’s ‘Vuurbees’ (‘Fire Beast’) is, for instance, clear evidence thereof. I hope that this study will, by contrast, show the underlying connection between the native oral and the literary traditions.
The integrated /Xam worldview – the cosmology embedded in the /Xam myths as recorded by Von Wielligh – seems to share much with contemporary consciousness: in order to survive, humankind needs to recognise the interdependence of all life.
The poetry is read here within historical context, and against a literary-comparativist framework. The aim is better understanding of many of the highly complex, reader-resistant ("duister") modernist poems, especially "Groot ode"["Great ode"].
Books co-edited by Helize van Vuuren
Books (chapters in) by Helize van Vuuren
Astral powers in their blood
and grass salts determined
that from desert and plain
as one large herd they meet
and maul around for days in clouds of dust
till suddenly one sniffs the course, followed by the rest
and stands no resistance
thundering over veld and hill
claw and horns flattening
all away in their surge
each so ready for self-sacrifice
that over dongas and through rivers they chase
and fall unstoppably into the sea:
"We were summoned to an important date
with death"
Translations/Vertalings by Helize van Vuuren
Sometime in 1958 he withdrew the first Tristia collection from the Cape Town publishing house, and sat with it for another four and a half years. During this period he wrote about twenty new poems, scrapped the dedication to his erstwhile maitresse, poet-painter Sheila Cussons, dedicated it instead to his children (with most evidence of the earlier love relationship removed), and published it finally in December 1962 under the same title.
Clear from his manuscripts lodged at the Stellenbosch University''s Documents Centre, the second Tristia has a different structure and different content page, differently arranged, with even a different dedication.There are sections of overlap, but the tone of the second Tristia is more austerely intellectual, human warmth cut-away, shriven to a skeletal bone compared to that of the first typescript.
A more singular history of poetic (self-?)censorship, as this one, by the most highly-regarded Afrikaans poet of the twentieth century, is hard to imagine.The bulk of the poems contained in TRISTIA were written during his Amsterdam domicile, mainly between 1950 and 1957. After 1962 no new collections were published. although he only died eight years later in 1970.
This means that the poet Louw silenced his own poetic voice (or was silenced), and became "monddood" as a leading poet of major prize-winning collections. Not as in Ovid's case through exile in Tomis but through exile in his own homeland, beleagured by conservatism and apartheid. He henceforth quenched his own poetic voice (although a few single poems trickled through here and there, ephemerally). Henceforth, like Ovid in exile, he wrote and read "only for himself".
Strangely enough, the erstwhile maitresse and poet-painter Sheila Cussons's poetic output (who started in 1946 as young promising Afrikaans poet), exploded into a flurry of many multi-facetted collections, and she forged a gigantic often prize-winning oeuvre, but only subsequent to his death in 1970.
Dis 'n besonder helder liriese gedig, elegies, met in die twee helftes die sonnigs-somerse beskrywing van die eerste deel van 'n lewe, met daarna die winterse tweede helfte daarvan. Die "blomme vir die winter" weerklink in Louw se mid-neëntien vyftig geskrewe hoorspel, "Blomme vir die winter", waarin duidelike spore te vind is van verwerking van die digter se jarelange veehouding met sy digter-maitresse, Sheila Cussons, wat ook later weens psigiese versteurdheid geinstitusionaliseerd was (Potgieter 2022).
Die Hölderlin-gedig skakel ook met sy ander Bordeaux-gedig uit dieselfde periode van die digter se lewe, "Andenken", waarin die "bruin vroue van Bordeaux" figureer. Op dié manier skakel die vers ook met NP van Wyk Louw se liriese verse oor die "bruin van aarde" in Provence en die Mediterreneë.
Today, the primary source of further information on these first inhabitants is the Bleek and Lloyd digital /Xam archive housed at the University of Cape Town. A multitude of recorded oral narratives, myths and fragments of narratives are contained here, recorded in /Xam and translated into English, given by various informants (available online as The Digital Bleek and Lloyd at http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/).
But then there is also the less well known four-volume /Xam archive, recorded and compiled in Afrikaans – what had come to be the second language of the /Xam – as Boesman-stories (‘Bushman Stories’) by GR von Wielligh (1919-1921; republished in two volumes in 2009 and 2010). A conscious study of this body of work and similar lesser-known texts on, about and inspired by the Bushmen has been the motivating force behind the present volume. My aim is both to describe and analyse the ideological dimensions of the texts. This means asking: How are these first people portrayed? What implicit attitudes do the authors have towards their subjects? How does the reading of these recorded oral narratives influence the contemporary view? What do contemporary readers make of these narratives and myths?
When my research project began in 1994, there was at best meagre evidence in the then extant South African literary histories of the Bushman oral tradition. It was as if these first South African people had never existed, silently forgotten or banished from official and academic recognition. The watershed came after the founding of the new South African democracy in 1994; this led to more, and more inclusive literary histories.
In 1996, Michael Chapman published his single-authored Southern African literatures, which included sixteen pages on ‘Bushman (San) songs and stories’ (Chapman 1996:21-37 – between three and four percent of the 430 text pages). In 2012, there followed the encyclopaedic, team-written The Cambridge History of South African Literature, edited by David Attwell and Derek Attridge. They opened their literary history with twenty-two pages covering the /Xam narratives from the Bleek and Lloyd collection (Attwell & Attridge 2012:19-41, between two and three percent of 837 text pages). Both parties – Chapman in 1996, as well as Attwell and Attridge in 2012 – also allocated a handful of further pages covering other Southern African oral traditions.
What seems absent is a consciousness of Bushmen myths and narratives as preceding South African literature. In many ways, this consciousness is already present in Von Wielligh’s texts. He recorded the /Xam narratives through the medium of Afrikaans, his mother tongue, and the language of bilingualism for the /Xam and Khoi. Through intercultural communication, the /Xam had acquired Afrikaans as their second language early on in the period of colonisation. In the same way, many farm-children and farmers had acquired /Xam.
In Margo and Martin Russell’s Afrikaners of the Kalahari: white minority in a black state (1979), intermarriage between Bushmen women and white men is described as a common occurrence in that border region of Southern Africa. The peaceful co-existence in the thirstlands of the northern countryside was thus a well-kept secret of which most scholars today are still seemingly ignorant, emphasising only the genocide and physical strife between the races. Certainly, when one reads Von Wielligh’s non-mythical Bushman stories in volumes 3 and 4, set for the most part in the years 1795-1860, the emphasis is not on genocide but on the peaceful collective hunting parties on the other side of the Orange River, the bartering of leopard skins, dogs, and the like, with Bushmen working voluntarily for farmers ‘to see what it is like’ (as does the brother of Von Wielligh’s main informant, Old Bles). Von Wielligh describes peaceful conversations with the /Xam in their own region (Bushmanland, now Northern Cape), between informants and farmers, and with the young land surveyor, Von Wielligh, and others. That the milieu was different for the non-South African Bleek and Lloyd is clear: they were interviewing their /Xam informants in Cape Town, far from their /Xam homelands, and without having, at first, a language in common.
Coming from a background rooted in Afrikaans literature, it has always struck me that various layers of meaning in certain Afrikaans texts cannot be understood without the necessary informational background. These types of texts demand the highest degree of interdisciplinary knowledge to unlock different layers of meaning. Two pertinent examples in the focus of this book are Dwaalstories (1927) by Eugène Marais and Von Wielligh’s myths of origin (1919-1921), often relegated to the genre of ‘children’s stories’. Text-orientated literary analysis, which still holds sway, seems inadequate to the task of identifying and explaining the layers of meaning in these texts. These ‘texts’ are transcriptions of oral narratives, from one language to another, which originally served communal purposes in a way that, apart from prayer in European societies, has little precedent in Western culture. However, the higher the degree of multidisciplinary knowledge gained of the Bushmen (socio-politics, history, anthropology, botany, zoology, rock art, water management and even palaeoanthropology), the more are the significant meanings embedded in these texts revealed.
Although seemingly disparate at first glance, the contents of this study hang together as in a “necklace of springbok ears” (in Von Wielligh 1919, first /Xam myth of origin). The cover illustration is a very rare photo featuring such dried ears that have been made into a dancing rattle. The /Xam custom of using dried springbok ears for bodily adornment and musical instruments presumably ceased when springbok became scarce due to the onslaught of colonial hunting parties and the fencing of land. The last dancing rattle, photographed in the Kirby collection, has now crumbled to dust. Yet the binding string serves as a useful metaphor of the interconnectedness between literary texts discussed here and their relation to the culture of the First People.
Before the advent of settlers in their areas, the Bushmen were spread in many multilingual groups. These ranged from the mountains of the Cederberg up to the Orange River; from the Tugela into the Drakensberg; and from the Waterberg to the Limpopo River. Through intercultural connection, the Cape-Dutch (later Afrikaans) trekboers learnt the “Bushman veld lore” (Smith 1966:6), and ways of living on the land. This knowledge has left its indelible marks in a distinct stream of Afrikaans literature, and is perhaps its central core. It starts with GR von Wielligh in the 19th century and continues via Eugène N Marais, PJ Schoeman, Karel Schoeman, DJ Opperman, Wilma Stockenström, Antjie Krog to Piet van Rooyen and others in the late 20th century. This stream, specifically in poetry and fiction, is discussed in the following chapters.
South African literary historians still tend to segregate oral traditions from the mainstream ‘literary’ content in their publications. My aim in this monograph is to illustrate, inter alia, that the compartmentalisation, in certain literatures and among certain writers, does not exist. The fragility of a divide between a /Xam origin myth and Opperman’s ‘Vuurbees’ (‘Fire Beast’) is, for instance, clear evidence thereof. I hope that this study will, by contrast, show the underlying connection between the native oral and the literary traditions.
The integrated /Xam worldview – the cosmology embedded in the /Xam myths as recorded by Von Wielligh – seems to share much with contemporary consciousness: in order to survive, humankind needs to recognise the interdependence of all life.
The poetry is read here within historical context, and against a literary-comparativist framework. The aim is better understanding of many of the highly complex, reader-resistant ("duister") modernist poems, especially "Groot ode"["Great ode"].
Astral powers in their blood
and grass salts determined
that from desert and plain
as one large herd they meet
and maul around for days in clouds of dust
till suddenly one sniffs the course, followed by the rest
and stands no resistance
thundering over veld and hill
claw and horns flattening
all away in their surge
each so ready for self-sacrifice
that over dongas and through rivers they chase
and fall unstoppably into the sea:
"We were summoned to an important date
with death"
Sometime in 1958 he withdrew the first Tristia collection from the Cape Town publishing house, and sat with it for another four and a half years. During this period he wrote about twenty new poems, scrapped the dedication to his erstwhile maitresse, poet-painter Sheila Cussons, dedicated it instead to his children (with most evidence of the earlier love relationship removed), and published it finally in December 1962 under the same title.
Clear from his manuscripts lodged at the Stellenbosch University''s Documents Centre, the second Tristia has a different structure and different content page, differently arranged, with even a different dedication.There are sections of overlap, but the tone of the second Tristia is more austerely intellectual, human warmth cut-away, shriven to a skeletal bone compared to that of the first typescript.
A more singular history of poetic (self-?)censorship, as this one, by the most highly-regarded Afrikaans poet of the twentieth century, is hard to imagine.The bulk of the poems contained in TRISTIA were written during his Amsterdam domicile, mainly between 1950 and 1957. After 1962 no new collections were published. although he only died eight years later in 1970.
This means that the poet Louw silenced his own poetic voice (or was silenced), and became "monddood" as a leading poet of major prize-winning collections. Not as in Ovid's case through exile in Tomis but through exile in his own homeland, beleagured by conservatism and apartheid. He henceforth quenched his own poetic voice (although a few single poems trickled through here and there, ephemerally). Henceforth, like Ovid in exile, he wrote and read "only for himself".
Strangely enough, the erstwhile maitresse and poet-painter Sheila Cussons's poetic output (who started in 1946 as young promising Afrikaans poet), exploded into a flurry of many multi-facetted collections, and she forged a gigantic often prize-winning oeuvre, but only subsequent to his death in 1970.
Dis 'n besonder helder liriese gedig, elegies, met in die twee helftes die sonnigs-somerse beskrywing van die eerste deel van 'n lewe, met daarna die winterse tweede helfte daarvan. Die "blomme vir die winter" weerklink in Louw se mid-neëntien vyftig geskrewe hoorspel, "Blomme vir die winter", waarin duidelike spore te vind is van verwerking van die digter se jarelange veehouding met sy digter-maitresse, Sheila Cussons, wat ook later weens psigiese versteurdheid geinstitusionaliseerd was (Potgieter 2022).
Die Hölderlin-gedig skakel ook met sy ander Bordeaux-gedig uit dieselfde periode van die digter se lewe, "Andenken", waarin die "bruin vroue van Bordeaux" figureer. Op dié manier skakel die vers ook met NP van Wyk Louw se liriese verse oor die "bruin van aarde" in Provence en die Mediterreneë.
Celan sterf aan eie hand in April 1970, Sachs in Mei van dieselfde jaar: "mond(e) suigend aan die dood", soos Sachs dit formuleer in 'n ander gedig, "Mund": "Mund/saugend am Tod", want "sterwe/ betrek sy eie standpunt uit swye/ en die uitgedoofde oog".
In Kafka's short mountain trip one hears "Wenn niemand kommt, dann kommt eben niemand. Ich habe niemandem etwas Böses getan..." ["When nobody comes, then comes nobody. I have done nobody any harm..."] and " Ich wurde ganz gern - warum denn nicht - einen Ausflug mit einer Gesellschaft von lauter Niemand machen. Natürlich ins Gebirge, wohin denn sonst" [I would love to make a trip into the mountains, why not. In the company of absolutely nobody. Naturally in the mountain, wherever else?]
(deur Osip Mandelstam opgeneem in Das Wort und die Kultur [Die Woord en die Kultuur, 1921).
Deur Ralph Dutli in Duits vertaal, in sy nota by Mandelstam se “Griffel-ode“.
(uit die tweetalig Russies-Duitse "Tristia. Gedichte 1916-1925" van Mandelstam, gepubliseer in 1993).
Opnuut vertaal in Afrikaans (verbeterde, rymende vertaling, en meer letterlik korrek) op 21 Julie 2023.
Dié vers staan in die tradisie van doodsgedigte, laaste gedigte, soos bekend in Taoisme. Hierdie merkwaardige kort vers van Derschawin sluit by sodanige tradisie aan. Soos enige slot (soos "Groot ode" van NP van Wyk Louw wat as slotgedig in sy Afrikaanse TRISTIA, 1962, wat die eerste slotgedig in die TRISTIA-tikskrif, "Mei-fees in Amsterdam 1950" vervang het. Hiermee, in 1962, het hy die kern van sy bundel, die lewendige 'hart' daarvan, meteen en gewelddadig uitgeruk, soos die res van die bundel wat insgelyks rondgeskommel en ook gedepersonaliseer is van die katalitiese invloed van sy verhouding met Sheila Cussons, wat intens bevrugtend ingewerk het op sy kreatiewe "vloedgolf in die bloed", om met Rilke se derde elegie uit die Duineser Elegien te praat).
Oor Babij Jar rys daar geen denkmaal./
'n Steil hang - die een, ongekerfde grafsteen/.
Ek het angs./
Ek is oud nou,/
so oud soos die Joodse volk./
Ek glo, ek is nou/
'n Jood (...).
Breytenbach se vers, ongebundeld, het ook so 'n elegiese toon (met Valiant Swart se "Die Sonvanger" wat in dié "son"-"net" deurbreek na dié wat alles reeds verloor het (die "oujongbruide" en "verhaalverlaters"). Net 'n Isis klein-kers "vlammetjie woorde" toon nog 'n bewerige teken van lewe.
Written during medical and psychiatric treatment towards the end of his life.
Bitter kos (indien nie bitteramandels nie, dan bitterkruie) behoort by die Paasmaaltyd - ter herinnering aan bitterhede gely deur die Joodse volk in Egipte, skryf Barbara Wiedemann, en verwys ook na Jeremia I:11 - "Verder het die woord van die Here tot my gekom en gesê: Wat sien jy, Jeremia? En ek antwoord: Ek sien 'n amandeltak.
vers12: Toe sê die Here vir my: Jy het goed gesien, want Ek is wakker oor my woord om dit te volbring.
Aan twee vroue val moontlik hier te dink by die gebruik van "jul het gedrieë deur die aand geloop": sy dooie moeder, vermoor in 'n Nazi-vernietigingskamp, en sy nuwe Franse vrou, Giséle, met wie hy in ballingskap in Parys getroud is.
I
Stemming from increasing interest in Holocaust literature, 'it has been suggested that testimony is the literary--or discursive-mode par excellence of our times' (Felman & Laub 1992:4). Since November 1995 when the Truth and Reconciliation Commis- sion started its work under Bishop Desmond Tutu, testimony has become part of the fabric of a South Africa trying to come to grips with its past. The efficacy of the healing power of this painfully slow process was recently remarked upon by dr. Sean Kaliski: 'It will take decades, generations, and people will assimilate the truths of this country piece by piece' (Krog 1997:5). IIKabbo and Rooizak's testimonies can be seen as part of the truths of South Africa's history. The contending voices and identi- ties encapsulated in these testimonies illustrate something ofthe historical and socio- political tensions in this multicultural community.
Dingaan and Retief, at a little fire, laugh
for their small misunderstanding about 'grass';
Kruger, Kitchener, Carter...at the large braai laugh
over a 'piece of venison'!
Paul Celan’s poem “Du liegst im großen Gelausche” (You lie in great auricle), was written in 1967 but only published in his posthumous collection, Schneepart (Snow Part) (2007 English translation by Fairley):
You lie in the great auricle, groved round, snowed round.
Go to the Spree, go to the Havel, go to the butchers’ hooks, to the red impaled apples from Sweden –
The table of gifts draws near, It turns round an Eden –
The man was made sieve, the woman had to swim, the sow, for herself, for no one, for everyone –
The Landwehrkanal won’t sound. Nothing’s still.
This poem, its original highly problematic reception, and the clarification afforded by the insights which Peter Szondi’s posthumously published essay of 1972 offer the reader, is taken as the departure point for the paper. Szondi clarified the background of the poem as the poet’s Berlin visit at the end of 1967. Celan was housed in the guest quarters of the Art Academy, which overlooked the snow-covered bushes of the Tiergarten. During Celan and Szondi’s short city visit they saw a Christmas market with red Swedish Christmas wreaths, made with leaves and red apples, near the Eden apartments. This Eden building was the original military headquarters where Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht had been held before they were murdered, with Luxemburg’s corpse later thrown into the Landwehrkanal. Based on the reception of Celan’s poem as set out by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1986), an implicit argument is gradually forged in this article for taking into consideration (as part of the readerly and interpretative processes) of the specific geographical, politico-historical and autobiographical contexts for the genesis of especially difficult poems. This consideration is often highly relevant, even revelatory, for greater understanding of such poems, as Szondi’s unfinished essay makes abundantly clear.
It is stressed that Celan and Opperman lived in totally different political contexts. Celan increasingly suffered depressive episodes as a psychologically traumatised survivor of a Jewish concentration camp and was eventually driven to suicide in 1970, whereas Opperman was a privileged white poet living under the South African apartheid regime. In many ways these contexts may be read as diametrically opposed. Opperman’s illness and depression were a direct result of intensely personal conditions, mostly psychological, which drove him to alcohol abuse, and eventually to liver cirrhosis in 1976. The disease brought about a seven-month long period of hallucinations during which he drifted in and out ofcomas. His last work, Komas uit ’n bamboesstok (Comas from a bamboo cane), 1979, written during his recuperation afterwards, offer (inter alia) the recollection of these hallucinations, and a joyous rediscovery of life – after having hovered near death for many months.
The eventual focus of the article is the atypical nature of D.J. Opperman’s late work, with specific focus on the poem “Vuurbees” (Fire ox; my translation) in Dolosse (1963). A small excursion is made along the way with a short overview of various Afrikaans poems depicting caves by Wilma Stockenström, Barend J. Toerien and N.P. Van Wyk Louw. Louw’s lengthy metaphysical poem “Groot ode” [“Great ode”, translation Van Vuuren, 2002:7-11] in Tristia (1962), is the most seminal metaphysical “cave poem” in Afrikaans poetry. This poem was written after Louw’s visit in June 1955 to the prehistoric Altamira cave in northern Spain, and feasibly functioned as an intertext for Opperman when he wrote “Vuurbees”. The two poets had a lifelong relationship of poetical competition – one poet’s publications stimulating counter-poems on the same topic in a different style, form and register by the other:
The buffalo knows no metaphysics: he seeks the sweet grass and the waterhole, will rough-up calves, maul an enemy with his horns, sniff the cow, hide from hail, but asks no questions about tomorrow – the buffalo knows no metaphysics.
Man alone finds in his wandering between today, the future and the past the narrow crack to caves of reason: makes a knife, a fire, creates gods, thinks about dying, mumbles prayers and as exorcism paints upon a wall of his cave the buffalo;
the buffalo of the metaphysics: the fire ox in himself follows by force his drives and dreams to the very end, and stimuli to the brain become pyramids, the Last Supper, wheel, chrome, projectiles, products of the atom, et cetera.And before his insane stare, shaken, man realises he will not retreat from the all-annihilating battlefield – shattered already lies the Parthenon and Hiroshima in the evil beauty of violence. The buffalo knows no metaphysics. (my translation)
Archival research of the Opperman manuscripts at the University of Stellenbosch revealed the creative spark for the enigmatic “narrow crack to caves of reason” (originally “die spleet tot grotte/ van die rede”, which is far richer in implications in Afrikaans, suggesting through the use of “rede” both “speech” and “reason”, human attributes lacking in animals). Opperman found the intertext in an anthropological text by the American poet-anthropologist Loren Eiseley (1962:9): “Indeed it must have been a narrow crack that man squeezed through when he entered his own mind […] man was not lost totally from reality amidst the glooms of his own powerful imagination.”
A further surprising finding is that there are two late-work phases in Opperman’s oeuvre, which differ substantially in tone, style and versification. This pattern of two totally distinct late-work phases in one and the same author does not fit the pattern of late work as described previously, mainly by Adorno and Said. Although the Dolosseperiod does correspond with a well-known late-work style and register described by them (darkly pessimistic, cut-to-the-bone language, described here as his katabasis or descent into a psychological abyss), the last late phase in the 1979 collection, Komas uit ’n bamboesstok (Comas from a bamboo cane), constitutes quite the opposite (an anabasis, or joyous ascent, towards the light). Also particularly remarkable is the intertextuality with the much younger poet Breyten Breytenbach (a former student of Opperman’s at the University of Cape Town in the late 1950s), specifically Breytenbach’s explicit foregrounding of the autobiographical persona in his ars poetica in Die ysterkoei moet sweet (The iron cow must sweat) of 1964. At the time of Breytenbach’s debut in 1964 this new poetical approach revolutionised Afrikaans poetical practice, as it went against the taboo of searching for the “person behind the text” formulated in Van Wyk Louw’s New Formalist Die mens agter die boek (The person behind the book) of 1958.
Central to my argument is that late work and late style are determined by historical and geographical context, as well as by the autobiography of the poet. In this article the focus is thus also on these two phenomena (context and autobiography), and not only on literary texts. An essay by Jung utilising psychoanalytic methods to analyse a painting by Picasso, as well as Changeux’s neuroscientific research on brain patterns which influence creative work, are used alongside well-known examples of prehistoric French rock art (mainly from the Lascaux and Peche Merle caves) in an analysis of “Vuurbees”. Ultimately the main motifs in this poem are the supposed origin of human language, human consciousness as well as conscience, in the first cave. Remarkably, both Celan’s and Opperman’s seminal poems have the motifs of human violence of man against man, as well as conscience (or lack thereof) at their centres. Accentuated in both poems is the brute animal nature inherent to mankind, capable of reason and creativity, but equally capable of destruction and murder.
Keywords: D.J. Opperman; “Vuurbees” (Fire-ox); Dolosse; late work; Paul Celan; “Du liegst im großen Gelausche” (You lie in the great auricle); Peter Szondi; Theodor Adorno; Edward Said; Komas uit ’n bamboesstok (Comas from a bamboo cane); N.P. Van Wyk Louw; prehistoric rock art; cave poems; “Groot ode” (Great ode); anabasis; katabasis
Remove yourself from the white anger of my eye -
you have already decapitated me.
(from"Black head", Engel uit die klip/Angel from stone).
In 2016 ,with steadily intensifying student and worker protests, these lines resound louder by the day. His vision of apartheid ideology as incestuous inbreeding, is at the heart of the poem "Egipties/Egyptian" (Opperman 1979, Komas/Comas), set intertextually in Calvino's Perinthia, built to portray harmony, but where all carefully planned order has warped into disorder and horror:
In Perinthia's streets today you encounter cripples, dwarfs, hunch-backs, obese men, bearded women. But the worst cannot be seen: guttural howls are heard from cellars and lofts, where families hide children with three heads or with six legs....the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters (1979:113).
J.S. Bach’s Passacaglia and Walter Benjamin’s Das Passagen-Werk – literary montage as mosaic in Memorandum. A story with paintings (2006)
The conclusion of Agaat (2004) suggests the cosmopolitan ideological stance in memorandum through metafictional comments. Proceeding to Memorandum, it is read as constituting, inter alia, an in memoriam for the initiator and co-contributor to the book, the painter Adriaan van Zyl. He was roughly the same age as Walter Benjamin, in his late forties, when his promising artistic career ended abruptly with his death in September 2006 (shortly after the production of the book). Van Niekerk's surface narrative of a terminally ill cancer patient, is accompanied by Van Zyl's reproductions of his Tygerberg “Hospital Series 2004-2006”, with the last painting, “The waiting room”, left incomplete, due to his death. The short narrative text is also highly philosophical, suggesting concern with the whole of western culture and humanity’s future.
In Memorandum Van Niekerk set a daunting task for herself (as formulated through the fictive beginning writer, Wiid, at the start of “Memorandum 3”): to translate Bach’s Passacaglia and fugue in D Minor (BMW 582) into prose and plausibly to write a smaller, Afrikaans version of
Walter Benjamin’s Das Passagen-Werk (1983), a text in which the architecture of a city and reflections upon it, determine the structure of the narrative. Benjamin’s text is woven around a mosaic of quotations, with his own comments interspersed. This incomplete work overwhelms the reader with its volume and strange textual apparatus. Van Niekerk’s narrative has the same effect with its word lists, addenda, copious footnotes plus memoranda in different graphic formats. Incompleteness, discontinuity, a yearning forward to completion, is the absent presence. Yet both texts get caught up in the artists’deaths (Benjamin’s and Van Zyl’s). Incompleteness is a permanent characteristic of both texts.
Benjamin (1892–1940) identified three consecutive steps for the production of good prose: firstly a musical level, on which it is composed, thereafter an architectonic one, on which it is built, and eventually a textile level, on which it is woven (1972:102). Benjamin’s oeuvre is an important intertext for Memorandum and identifying the separate levels of composition, structuring (or building) and weaving is a useful tool for understanding the narrative text.
The musical level on which it is composed, corresponds to the twenty variations constituting Bach’s Passacaglia (Mulbury 1972c). Van Niekerk’s narrative is “composed” around the nocturnal dialogue between the dying patients X and Y on the night of 5 October 2005, with Wiid listening in as another patient in the same ward (presumably an oncology ward). Each variation is centered around a certain hour of the night, starting at nine, and ending at around six o’clock in the morning. Following on the permutation logic in Bach’s iconic composition, Van Niekerk strives for a similar classic text with her narrative. For architectonic structure the author of Memorandum uses topoi from Benjamin’s convolutes (the flâneur, the poet-writer, the collector, eternal return, catacombs, dream city and dream house, the streets of the city, literary history, and mirrors, Benjamin 1983:81). The textile design, upon which it is woven, has to do with the weaving through of detailed references to fill each of the topoi. For the ideal house, city and building, she uses especially Joseph Rykwert’s Adam’s house in paradise, but also Idea of a town and The seduction of place; for the dehumanizing of modern medicinal practice, Ivan Ilich’s “Hospitality and pain” and Limits to medicine; Gaston Bachelard’s The poetics of space for the idea of bird nests as ideal homes; Friedrich Nietzsche’s Ecce homo for the nature of the ideal reader, and Benjamin’s Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiel for ideas on the nature of tragedy and contemplation of death. To complicate matters, thematic content also deals with urban architectural designs, music and textiles (mosaics, nest weaving and Mexican quipo). In Van Niekerk’s text the consciousness of a multitude of micro- and macrospheres (Sloterdijk 2004) replace Benjamin’s prophetic cultural consciousness of a dawning new technological era (1970:219-254). The narrative text is organised like a highly dense, non- hierarchical neural network.
In Memorandum (an infinitely shorter text than Das Passagen-Werk) the reader finds a similar montage technique of a mosaic of citations throughout. In his central section on Baudelaire Benjamin remarks: “The poet has made his dwelling in space itself, one could say – or in the abyss” (1999:352). Van Niekerk’s Memorandum ties onto this idea, via Heidegger – Wiid, as archetypal poet, experiences “Unheimlichkeit” intensely in the hospital, and even at home in his desolate flat. The similarity between Bach and Benjamin’s greatest works, Passacaglia and Das Passagen- Werk, is not by accident. In both works walking, wandering or flâneurship plays a central role (“passe”=walk and “calle”=street, while “passage” in French refers to walkways between small shops, or arcades). Similarly there is a walking up and down passageways at the opening and in the cyclical ending of Memorandum. In Van Niekerk’s narrative the suggested presence of a multitude of spheres (Debray 1995; Sloterdijk 2004) replace Benjamin’s prophetic cultural consciousness of the dawning of a new technological era (1970:219-254). Benjamin’s Paris is juxtaposed with Van Niekerk’s Parow, a large northern suburb of Cape Town, complete with prostitutes, street vendors and crowds, a large hospital and shops. There is also a feasible link
between Bach’s baroque music and Benjamin’s study of baroque literature in Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (1928).
KEY WORDS: Marlene van Niekerk, Memorandum, Agaat, Afrikaans literature, South African literature, Bach’s Passacaglia, Benjamin’s Das Passagen-Werk, metatextuality, literary montage, mosaics
OPSOMMING
Van Niekerk se Memorandum-narratief is ’n gedenkskrif vir die elegies-realistiese skilder, Adriaan van Zyl, wat in September 2006 sterf – soos Walter Benjamin in sy laat veertigs en insgelyks met sy kunstenaarsloopbaan onderbreek. Van Niekerk stel in Memorandum vir haarself ’n uitdagende taak (soos Wiid dit formuleer aan die begin van “Memorandum 3”): om Bach se Passacaglia en fuga in C Mineur (BWV 582) (± 1715) te “vertaal” in prosa en om ’n kleiner, Afrikaanse weergawe van Benjamin se Das Passagen-Werk (1983) te skryf. Die struktuur van Benjamin se teks word bepaal deur die argitektuur van die stad Parys, en besinning daaroor ingeweef rondom ’n enorme mosaïek van aanhalings. Soos Benjamin se onvoltooide werk oorweldig met sy volume en vreemde tekstuele apparatuur, so ook Van Niekerk se teks met sy woordelyste, addenda, voetnote plus drie memoranda in verskillende grafiese vorme. Onvoltooidheid, onafheid, uitreik na later en na voltooiing, is die afwesige aanwesigheid. Maar albei tekste word in die toekoms wat wag, onvermydelik gefnuik deur die dood van die kunstenaar (van Benjamin en van Adriaan van Zyl plus die fiktiewe skrywer, Wiid). Van Zyl se laaste skildery, “Die wagkamer” word onvoltooid in die Afrikaanse gesamentlike werk ingesluit. Die onvoltooidheid merk die Duitse sowel as Afrikaanse tekste met die dood.
TREFWOORDE: Marlene van Niekerk, Memorandum, Agaat, Afrikaanse letterkunde, Suid- Afrikaanse letterkunde, Bach se Passacaglia, Benjamin se Das Passagen- Werk, metatekstualiteit, literêre montage, mosaïekwerk
J.M. Coetzee’s Summertime (2009) as late work
Theodor W. Adorno’s 1937 German contribution on late style in Beethoven (“Spätstils Beethoven”), accentuates the shattering of genre conventions as the “first law” governing this type of work. Its “subjectivity” is also in the foreground, plus abnormal syntax which often produces a strongly polyphonic landscape, interspersed with fragments of isolated poetry. According to Adorno the striking quality of late work emerges from the particular relationship between the subjectivity of the artist and the negotiation of conventions. It is this relationship that brings about the extraordinary quality of some late works. Furthermore, in the present article, the surprising appearance of numerous anachronisms is linked to the specific relationship in Summertime between the “subjectivity” or authorial presence and the shattering or slippage of conventions.
Keeping in mind Adorno's perspective on late work, a reception study was done of how literary critics received Summertime. Although most critics struggle with the genre slippage or crossovers in the more recent Coetzee texts, only Marcus (2009:115) links this characteristic to aspects of late style. Critics mention the manipulation of a variety of narratorial perspectives, while Meek (2009) utilises the well-known Coetzee technique of doubling (as in the Nobel Prize speech “He and his man”).
Kannemeyer’s biography (2012) is discussed with reference to the fictionalised writer’s biography that Coetzee purports to offer in Summertime. The slippage over each other and mixture of autobiographical and biographical conventions receives attention. Also addressed is whether the encyclopaedic biography by the Afrikaans author with the “correct facts of J.M. Coetzee’s life” necessarily produces a clearer picture of the writer’s life than the picture of the emotional world and its texture and emotional landscape produced in Summertime. The rhetorical question is posed which text will be read again and savoured for the quality of its prose (although the biographical research work clearly has its place and function).
Comparing Kannemeyer’s factual biographical account of Coetzee’s life and Coetzee’s half-fictionalised version accentuates the fact that Coetzee was not only completing Dusklands during the period in focus in Summertime, but was also finalising his translation of Marcellus Emants’s Een nagelaten bekentenis (1894), as A posthumous confession. Both books were published internationally for the first time in 1975 (Dusklands appearing at Ravan Press in South Africa a year earlier), roughly the period when Summertime ends. The Coetzee text thus also plays ironically on the idea of a “confession after death” (with the centrality of the concept of confession well established in Coetzee’s ars poetica), comprising as it does fragments, fictionalised or not, from the writer’s diaries of 1972–1975 framing the text.
The important aspect of the language motif in this semi-fictional (auto)biographical text includes tentative suggestions via the case of extinct Khoi and San languages, of language death also for Afrikaans in the future. This is tenuously linked to the poet Breyten Breytenbach as a contemporary South African Afrikaans writer of Coetzee’s generation. Seemingly throwaway references throughout the text to the Afrikaans poet, his political imprisonment and the effect of his writing in Afrikaans as a “vernacular or dialect” versus Coetzee’s choice for the “world language” of English, suggest thought-provoking links between the two writers. Firstly, for a noticeable shift in Coetzee’s thinking during this late work phase about English as his “first language” in which he writes, and which he learnt from books, versus his “mother tongue”, or rather his “father’s tongue”, which he learnt as child and on Voëlfontein in the Karoo. He states that he was reading Derrida’s book on the mother tongue issue, and since living in Australia started feeling uncomfortable with the “Anglo weltanschauung” (letter 27 May 2009 in Here and now, 2013):
[…] I started thinking about the subject of the mother tongue after reading Derrida. I began to feel my own situation more acutely after moving to Australia, which – despite the fact that within its territory there are scores of Aboriginal languages still clinging to life, and despite the fact that since 1945 it has encouraged massive immigration from southern Europe and Asia – is far more “English” than my native South Africa. In Australia public life is monolingual. More important, relations to reality are mediated in a notably uninterrogated way through a single language, English.
The effect on me of living in an environment so saturated with English has been a peculiar one: it has created more and more of a skeptical distance between myself and what I would loosely call the Anglo weltanschauung, with its inbuilt templates of how one thinks, how one feels, how one relates to other people, and so forth.
Through reconciliation with his father in Summertime the protagonist, John Coetzee, also reconciles to an extent with the Afrikaans side of his identity. There is an as yet unexplored literary affinity between Breytenbach and Coetzee (beyond the fact that both of them frequently use autobiographical writing as a creative form), which is suggested by Coetzee’s literary critical practice. He wrote reviews and articles specifically on Breytenbach’s prison period, and these deal either with aspects of censorship or autobiographical work by Breytenbach (see “Breyten Breytenbach and the reader in the mirror”, 1991 and “Breyten Breytenbach, True confessions of an albino terrorist and Mouroir” (1985), Attwell 1992:375–81). This material illustrates a detailed knowledge of works about and by the Afrikaans writer, while his essay on the poet as a “reader in the mirror” is the most incisive perspective to date on this period in the poet’s life as a writer and as a human being, concentrating as it does on the work as departure point for the psychoanalytical after-effects of imprisonment.
Finally, I address the issue of anachronisms in Summertime. The author subtly alerts the reader to their existence through corrections made in each case by Vincent’s particular interviewee at that stage of the narrative.
In the journal inserts before the narrative itself begins, reference is first made to Breyten Breytenbach at a Sestiger colloquium in Cape Town, who was there on a compassionate visa with his wife (16 April 1973). Breytenbach is noted as an enviable figure (“sexy wife” and “freedom to roam the world”) and the writerly note states that this needs to be “explored”. In the last of the framing journal entries before the “interviews”, dated 3 June 1975, there is a reference to Pollsmoor prison, near Tokai (2009:15). Almost adjacent to that, on the opening page of the first Frankl interview, the British biographer states that he misses a reference to Mandela in 1975 as “near neighbour” to Coetzee in Pollsmoor. The correction by the interviewee is a subtle alert to the reader by the master hand behind the text that the Vincent biography is a flawed discourse which cannot be trusted for the “truth” of factual correctness. In such close proximity with the Breytenbach reference the mention of Pollsmoor prison also probably alerts the reader to Breytenbach’s incarceration there in July 1977, and as a notable persona in the text – and the consciousness of the “deceased John Coetzee” in the seventies. In the same way the name Mandela and the combination with Pollsmoor acts as references to South African history and context, although not applicable to those precise dates.
There are similar anachronisms elsewhere (hunting in the Karoo in high summer, page 88, a café scene in Merweville, page 105, which to a South African reader clearly has post-apartheid markings, although, as Margot points out to Vincent, “there is no Apollo Café any more. No café any more”, page 106). The corrective on the skewed text is presented each time by the interviewee. Or the reader has to deduce it for herself. Only South African readers will be able to see that the mimetic elements in the text are skew refractions, imprecise, presenting an outsider version (Vincent’s) of the story of Coetzee’s life. On a metatextual level the reader should also be alerted through the embedded warnings that it is not the precision of details which count here, but the texture of the times, the landscape of the mind, the consciousness of the writer Coetzee, then and now, at the time of writing.
But to realise when “now” is, takes acknowledgement of the various layers of perspectives embedded in the text. The “truth” that is inscribed here has more to do with the psychoanalytical feel of relationships and values they are imbued with for the author, who is “writing the story of his personality”. Clearly Coetzee as writer in the late work phase of his life is experimenting with style and structure, shattering conventions, allowing intergeneric slippages of conventions, in order to get at what ultimate “truth” that part of his life holds in a larger framework – of the story of his life and of his work as a writer. “He and his man” also slip over and through each other – the man and the fictioneer. His biographer, Kannemeyer, took care of factual correctness in a monumental work; the author himself writes sparsely, in a style cut to the bone. Yet his (semi-) autobiographical portrait lasts longer in the mind.
Keywords: J.M. Coetzee; late work and late style; anachronisms; autobiography and biography; language death; Breyten Breytenbach
Key words: Afrikaans fiction, Intertextuality, Missionaries, Khoi- and San Mythology, Religion.
(online Eastern Cape literary journal published 1997-2002). Editor: Philip John
This work contains meticulous historical research, pertinent for the twenty first century and the sincretistic nature of the South African nation and its peoples. it also offers valuable insight into the nature of South African society in the nineteenth century, especially in the hinterlands of the country, and between missionaries and the indigenous Khoi people.
Paper on JM Coetzee's Waiting for the barbarians (1980) and Wilma Stockenström's Journey to the baobab tree (1981, translated by Coetzee in 1982) (Darryl Davids, UKZN, Pietermaritzburg, conference organizer)
narrative perspective and its engagement with a post-apartheid crisis in white identity,
is explored, paying specific attention to the encounters recorded in the book with black
South Africans. This is done in order to map Krog's understanding of what post-apartheid
whiteness might represent and how it might be transformed. Such a mapping demonstrates
the ambivalences that emerge in the interstices of Krog's painful grappling with her growing sense of un-belonging as a white woman in post-apartheid South Africa.
Theoretical issues concerning the contemporary South African novel are examined in this article. Etienne van Heerden’s novel Asbesmiddag (“Asbestos afternoon”) (2007) is read from an intertextual as well as a socio-political framework. The focus is on the metatextual, ideological and linguistic aspects of the novel. The embedded socio-political discourse is interrogated and it is illustrated throughout how the novel contributes to the portrayal of a contemporary, 21st-century South African socio-political reality. Examples are the uncertain position of the novelist (and academic), the state and status of literature in the socio-political atmosphere, recurring motifs of language (Afrikaans as a minority language and English as the dominant language), and Afrikaner identity (the place of the white man in South Africa). The ideological perspective implicit in the text deals mainly with the disillusionment that the main character, the novelist and academic Sebastiaan Graaff, experiences due to the disappearance of the familiar status quo of system and order in his socio-political environment.
There are clearly traceable links in Asbesmiddag to the literary traditions of which it forms a part, through a high degree of intertextuality with literary predecessors. Pertinent are intertexts from Afrikaans and South African English literature, but also classical intertexts emanating from the larger field of world literature. The protagonist is in conflict with himself and with his changing environment. By implication, the ars poetica of both the fictionalised author and Van Heerden are revealed. At the launch of his novel Van Heerden responded as follows to the question whether Asbesmiddag can be seen as encapsulating his literary theory: "I do not know, it might be. The best kind of ars poetica is a protest against something "(Van Heerden 2007a). The intrinsic "protest" of the fictional text is causally linked to the extrinsic socio-political reality, but goes much wider than black-white race relations and conflict. It focuses, instead, on the inevitable change from one political phase, regime or era to the next, as well as on the search for artistic (read: creative writing and literature) and cultural (read: Afrikaner identity and language) survival in the text.
In this article the experimental use of language is discussed, especially of taboo words and how these function as subtle commentary and critique on the present situation of Afrikaans in South Africa.
It will be shown that this novel is in fact not a superficial reworking of an age old theme, but that it is cleverly layered with commentary on the past, its people and government as well as commentary on these facets in the present, and to a certain extent a possible future for this country and its people. She uses the technique of intertextuality (Bakhtin and Kristeva, 1969) with great literary effect. This theory rests on the principle that all texts are to some extent interconnected. Nothing stands completely alone. There are references between texts created either consciously or unconsciously by authors. In a broader sense it can be said that all aspects of life, society, politics, economics, art and so forth, impact on each other and the world we live in.
Winterbach uses the poet Celliers’ war diary to draw parallels between the past and the present. She adapts actual historic views, problems, social and political circumstances in her novel and even succeeds in creating a character, Japie Stilgemoed, based on Celliers as seen through his eyes in his diary during almost the full length of the war. Topics to be discussed include patriotism, the role of religion, discipline, passivity and boredom during the Anglo-Boer War. Patriotism was fuelled not only by the prospect of defending one’s country, but to a great extent also by the effects of the scorched earth policy on the nature of warfare and the innocent people involved. The scorched earth policy was also the direct cause for the increase in concentration camps which led to thousands of deaths, especially of women and children. It will be shown how religion played an important role in sustaining the commando’s during the three years of the war, by carefully chosen texts from the Old Testament. Discipline was difficult to maintain during the war as the commando’s were in fact free men and not trained soldiers. The lack of discipline was also a result of the boredom and passivity of the commando’s during the war. Interestingly enough, the Anglo-Boer War (through the eyes of Celliers) was not a glorious experience with great battlefields, but rather for the most part the unnecessary loss of human life. There were, however, a few people who were seen as heroes after the war and these heroes went on to build a republic with nationalist views through the shared grief and pain of those who lived and died in this tragic war.
The anomaly of such a novel in 2002 seemingly dwelling on the past is clearly shown to be a metaphor for the present and its dilemmas, reflecting the social conflicts existing at present in the crumbling Afrikaans community.
language and culture, faced by the descendants of those involved in the war a century ago. This article focuses on the use of language, the plot, characters and their well-chosen names, motifs and themes, crossing of taboo borders and the juxtaposition f the past and the present.
(transcribed in 1875, published in 1911)) and Von Wielligh’s “Ystervark en vlermuis” (recorded in 1880, published in 1920). There are remarkable parallels in the European and
African narratives (two children, a boy and a girl, in each instance suffering hardship under a stepmother, and how they overcome their hardship through survival instincts and cunning). The question is to what extent these narratives embody “universal” psychological truths, common to all cultures.
A fascinating substratum of ironic commentary arises as an extra dimension in the novel as a result of the subtly suggested comparison of South African issues and perspectives a century ago with the post-1994 South Africa concerns. Topics to be
discussed are the intervention debate, the evolution debates, the role of the intellectual amidst less educated people, racial issues and the theory that the character Japie Stilgemoed, in Niggie, is actually based on the poet Jan F.E. Celliers.
Opsomming
Hierdie artikel fokus op die kreatiewe verwerking van Anglo-Boereoorlog materiaal in Ingrid Winterbach se Niggie (2002) met spesifieke verwysing na die Oorlogsdagboek
van Jan F.E. Celliers, 1899-1902 (1978). Uit die jukstaponering van een tydsgewrig teenoor 'n ander (die twintigste eeu versus die een-en-twintigste eeu) ontstaan 'n ideologiese onderlaag van ironiese kommentaar op sowel die Suid-Afrikaanse
verlede as die hede. Onderwerpe onder diskussie sluit in die intervensiedebat, die evolusiedebatte, die rol van die intellektueel onder eenvoudige mense, rassekwessies en die teorie dat die karakter Japie Stilgemoed, in Niggie, eintlik op die digter Jan F.E. Celliers gebaseer is.
Vir meer inligting oor Dr. Vernon February,sien die DOSSIER oor hom van Leiden Universiteit: https://www.ascleiden.nl/content/webdossiers/dossier-vernon-alexander-february-1938-2002
Valuable insights into writer-thinker, poet-activist Vernon February (1938-2002)'s life, work and ideology. Interviewed three years before his death in exile (just before he took part in a first meeting in Zimbabwe between Afrikaans writers and ANC members in exile. This was but one of many similar rapprochements between representatives of the two different peoples (Afrikaner writers and intellectuals, with ANC members, then underground and in exile as a banned movement), which eventually led to the final dissolution of apartheid in 1994). He offers insight also into his mentor, the Xhosa writer and intellectual AC Jordan and the Xhosa poet Mqhayi's political role during colonisation. Remarkable as well is the singularly negative view of Afrikaans poet, DJ Opperman, "as human being" - under whose tutelage February studied Afrikaans at the University of Cape Town.
February's perspectives are varied, nuanced and wide - on pressing issues and role players of his time . He perceives all from a distance, aided by memory, and from an international perspective. At the time of the Amsterdam interview in May 1989 he was professor at Leiden University in African studies. He died in 2002, three years later, in exile.