Hein Viljoen

Wtiat Oom Gert does not tell; Silences and resonances of C. Louis Leipoldt's “Oom Gert vertel" This paper is an attempt to reconstruct the resonance o f "Oom Gert vertel" at the time it was written. The story that Oom Gert tells is reread fo r its silences and unsaid things. Oom Gert’s reticence about his own story, his silence about the politics o f the time and his partial view o f the devastating effects o f martial law are explored against the backdrop o f Leipoldt 's reports on the trials o f Cape rebels in the treason court fo r the pro-Boer newspaper The South African News and o f other reconstructions o f the period. From this reading Oom Gert emerges as representing the complexities o f the loyalty o f Cape Afrikaners. It is postulated that the unsaid historical background, which would have resonated powerfully for Cape Afrikaners o f that time, was written out o f the poem so that it could fit better into the circumstances o f its first publication. ...

Contrary is 'n interessante projek: om, weens 'n gebrek aan 'n behoorlike uitvoerige studie van Brink se werk, twintig essays wat verskillende fasette van sy romans belig, saam te bring. Dat dit essays in sowel Engels as Afrikaans bevat, is 'n gepaste waardering vir 'n outeur wat gereeld talle grense oorskry. Dit het ook die voordeel dat belangrike kwessies oor Brink se werk uit verskillende perspektiewe en literer-kritiese tradisies bekyk word.

Abstract: This article is an analysis of the different curses in André Brink's novel< I> Duiwelskloof</I>(1998)(< I> Devil's valley</I> in English). The strong language of the main character, Flip Lochner, it is argued, not only reflects his spiritual barrenness, but also ...

Abstract: In this article I propose that the metaphor of an adventure, a bigger story or project, can be a productive cognitive construct for mapping the landscape of recent Afrikaans poetry. I first survey a number of metaphors of South African literature, including the ...

Abstract: In this article I discuss the figure of the tycoon in Etienne Leroux's Welgevonden cycle - a very interesting phenomenon, since so few successful businessmen and tycoons appear in Afrikaans novels. Departing from the TV and film stereotype of the unscrupulous ...

Proefskrif (DLitt)--PU vir CHO, 1985.The purpose of this study is the reconstruction of the system of the South African novel during 1981 by means of the Comparison of three novels and their reception. The three novels are Op die rug van die tier by Anna M. Louw, A ride on the whirlwind by Sipho Sepamla and July's people by Nadine Gordimer. In chapter 1 key concepts of the general systems theory are discussed and a theory of literary systems deduced from the work of literary theorists. The main conclusions are: 1. A literary system is a proposal for arranging diverse literary data into a unified whole. The boundaries of such a system must be drawn beyond the text, since literature as a system is open to its environment via writer and reader. The entities within such a system are further specified in a model of a novel system. 2. A literary system is a hierarchical structure of forms and norms in which certain entities arc dominant, but which also changes by way o[ conversion and automatization. A literary system is not monolithic, but consists of competing strata. 3. Every new work both continues a system and changes it. The state of a literary system can change very quickly. Such changeability does not, however, mean that a system cannot be perceived. The model of a novel system proposed in chapter 1 focuses on the structure of the code. It proposes a code consisting of three components, viz. a syntactic, a semantic and a pragmatic component. In the syntactic component the relations between chosen syntactic units such as character, time, setting, mood and voice are described. The semantic component describes the relations between signs and denotata. Here principally literary historical segmentations of the semantic universe are used. •The pragmatic component describes the enthralling effect a novel has on its readers. This model has been used to describe the main novel systems in South Africa. After that the three novels are analysed and their reception compared with the system descriptions. To avoid interference the analyses have been done independently of the system descriptions. Chapter 2 surveys literary systems, the drawing of system boundaries and also the origin of literary systems in South Africa. It is postulated that literary systems in South Africa originated by a branching-off from two "mother traditions", viz. the English and the Dutch traditions. In the course of that transition Afrikaans literature as well as the emergent Black literatures underwent a transition from oral to typographical culture. By a survey of the pioneer missions among Blacks and of the First Afrikaans Language Movement it is demonstrated that the same methods have been used and the same objectives sot. From the early literary history of South Africa the following hypotheses are deduced: 1. There exists a common South African system of the novel. 2. The principal systems (or subsystems) are the Afrikaans, the English and the Black systems of the novel. (By Black system is meant the system of Black writers writing in English. Novel systems in African languages are excluded from this study.) 3. The principal differences between the three systems can be ascribed to different degrees of transition from an oral to a typographical culture. This particularly concerns plot structure, time, the nature and depiction of characters, distance and perspective. These concerns are subsumed under the concept of interiorization. The following pictures of the postulated systems have subsequently been drawn on the basis of existing historical research into South African literature: The Afrikaans novel system Syntactically the Afrikaans novel tends towards innovation, experimentation and a marked degree of interiorization. Typically its structure is a re-enactment of the past from some point in the present. The climactic linear plot remains a convention. The dominant character type is the anti-hero, the little man, the outsider. Semantically the recent novel, particularly in the seven= ties, tries to capture the "full South African reality" (the racial problem). In the work of the so-called men of the eighties topoi like violence, meaninglessness and "erotic materialism" are found. The uniqueness of each is frequently emphasized. Pragmatically the old didactic tendency is continued and much effort is expected from the reader, which makes the novel elitistic. Nevertheless the novel still has a function to be critic a l of society, but also to create meaningful patterns. In the work of the eighties there is to some extent a rapprochement between the novel and the general public. This system is characterized predominantly by realism, but a change towards Fabulation is under way. The semantic component dominates the system. The principal oppositions are good/bad, light/darkness, black/white, which have se= mantic offshoots like Africa, sex across the colour bar and concepts like freedom, responsibility and power. Paradoxically the realistic…

... Daarom is dit met 'n soort skok dat 'n mens in een van die verslae die naam Witkransspruit aantref – 'n spruit wat sowat vyf ... Vir die verdediging het Abraham Wynand Cronje en drie ander die getuienis van Van Heerden teengespreek en gesê Naudé het hom net gevra waar sy ...

This article is a report on a Delphi study undertaken to determine the critical inhibiting factors (constraints) in the teaching and learning of the humanities in South Africa. It is part of a larger project premised on the Theory of Constraints that aims at determining the constraints and finding ways to overcome them. The Delphi technique as a technique for polling expert opinion is briefly described. For this study the opinions of two panels of experts about constraints for the humanities have been polled. Twenty-one constraints were identified to a high degree of reliability. The study confirms that basic language and reading skills are of the utmost importance. It also confirms that the humanities should profile their contribution to society much stronger and learn to deal effectively with the utilitarian and vocational challenges they face today.

Framing the collectionTHE FIRST POEM in the collection entitled Lady Anne1 by Antjie Krog provides an apt frame for discussing borders and boundaries and how they can be understood and used to open up complex texts and relationships. This opening poem sets the tone and lays down the semiotic framework (or codes) for the collection. It already thematizes a number of symbolic and topographical boundaries. Going south is explicitly presented as going down or as really sinking towards foreign grounds or bottoms; maybe even descending into hell. The first stanza further builds up an implied contrast between the Scottish highlands and their "intimacy of waters" that dissolves the boundaries between water and green and the Cape - maybe presumed to be dry and arid. The highlands also mark a social boundary - the class divide between those "purified for castles" and ordinary people. ?Going down' might thus also mean going down the social ladder - but this is not by choice: someone is sending the speaker on a mission.Wie is dit wat my bleddiewil afwaarts stuurna vreemde bodems? Veral waarom? Gemaakuit volop met vlekke en knobbeltjiestraak die hooglandse herkomsmy altyd - klipperige kamaste en mis,'n intimiteit waar water al weerkaatsing is,wee'ige groen en dendriete wat tonglangs raak -soos jy is ek vir kastele gepuurStekelig van sintuie op dek onder my kombershang ek 'n grimmige prik in die takelwerkvan klank en soutsproei; my vingersbly lieikosend oor blokke omber,'n nuwe vermiljoen, karmyn, sowaar'n hele lewe lamlendig gedyn en mynin versnee vers en verf (afgemerkby Newmans) tot waardigheid te pers.Who is it that is bloody well sending me downwardsto foreign ground? Above all, why? Madefrom abundance with freckles and nodulesthe highland descent alwaysconcerns me - stony puttees and mist,an intimacy where water already is reflection,teary green and dendrites that touch like tongues -like you I was purified for castlesSpiny of senses on deck under my blanketI hang a grim prickle in the riggingof sound and salty spray; my fingerskeep caressing blocks of umber,a new vermilion, carmine, to be surea whole life miserably thou'ed and mine'din blended verse and paint (marked-downat Newmans) to press into dignity.(my tr.)The second stanza builds up a contrast between the realities of the sea journey (salty spray, the creaking of the rigging) and the speaker (presumably then Lady Anne) relishing the colours and textures of her paints. This is part of another cardinal set of oppositions: namely, between reality and ways to capture or represent it. But the paints and their brilliant colours are also signs that Lady Anne has had to struggle to survive with little money her whole life long, sweet-talking those with money and power like Lord Henry Dundas, to whom this letter is addressed. Her whole life was spent miserably thou'ing and mine'ing. This already articulates the strong contrast between abundance and scarcity that runs through the collection - between tables groaning under loads of comestibles and a scarcity of food (and power and love, maybe, in the case of both Antjie Krog and Lady Anne).More dramatically, in this poem going down south is, in the last stanza (not given above), also quite explicitly described as an inversion. Lady Anne's husband, Andrew Barnard, shoots at "a parasol that glints crystals over skin" - at a whale, in other words - and this raises the possibility that it might overturn the ship. But in the historical context of the Napoleonic Wars and in Lady Anne's material circumstances the possibility is strong that her whole life might be turned upside down - that she and her husband might literally sink and also sink socially in the poor and far-off colony of the Cape and that the power of history might cause a revolution. …

Dit klink effens vreemd om Satan ter sprake te bring: stel jy hom "aan die woord" of "bespreek" jy hom? Altwee hierdie betekenisse is ter sake vir hierdie bundel, want al word Satan oorwegend self aan die woord (of aan die vers) gestel, is die aard van die bose deurgaans ook onderwerp van die gesprek. Eintlik nie die aard van die bose soseer nie, maar eerder die aard en die paradokse van die geloof.

In this article the rationale of this special issue is provided and the different contributions are introduced. The assumption is that there are strong similarities between the recent political and social transitions in South Africa and Germany and the reactions, both emotional and literary, of the people involved. Broadly, the transitions are described as a movement from external (or violent) to internal (or ideological) social control, though this must be modified by the various constructions the contributors put on the transition. The main themes and questions of the transitions are synthesized, highlighting the marked similarities the different contributions reveal. The most important of these are the relation to the past, problems of identity, projections of the new and the internal contradictions of nationalist discourse (which informs the process of transition). In conclusion, the similarities and differences between the two transitions indicated by this special issue, are di...

This paper is an attempt to reconstruct the resonance of “Oom Gert vertel” at the time it was written. The story that Oom Gert tells is reread for its silences and unsaid things. Oom Gert’s reticence about his own story, his silence about the politics of the time and his partial view of the devastating effects of martial law are explored against the backdrop of Leipoldt's reports on the trials of Cape rebels in the treason court for the pro-Boer newspaper The South African News and of other reconstructions of the period. From this reading Oom Gert emerges as representing the complexities of the loyalty of Cape Afrikaners. It is postulated that the unsaid historical background, which would have resonated powerfully for Cape Afrikaners of that time, was written out of the poem so that it could fit better into the circumstances of its first publication. Appropriating the poem for Afrikaner nationalism is a misreading.

Die verteller in Raka dring op nog ’n manier in die innerlike van sy karakters in, naamlik deur hulle hul ruim te te laat belewe. Die ruim te word beskryf soos die karakter dit ervaar, en daarom kan ’n mens hierdie ruimtebelewing ook beskou as beperking, van die alwetendheid van die verteller. Veral twee stukke ruimtebeskrywing is belangrik in Raka. Dit is die beskrywing van Koki en Raka se swemplekke (p. 13 en p. 21 onderskeidelik).

At a colloquium in Text and Ideology held at RAU Island a couple of years ago Ina Grabe read a paper entitled "Text as Artistic Dictator". The word "text" in this title reflects a central concern in Ina's work as reader and theoretician of literature during the past three decades. Her very special contribution to the promotion and development of literary theory and comparative literature in South Africa goes far beyond reading texts, however, though this remains a key term even in the way she reads university management. It is for this special contribution that we dedicate this issue of Journal of Literary Studies to Ina Grabe.

Summary This article is a reading of the letter of Opperman's poem “Sondag van 'n kind”(A child's Sunday) through different convolutions. Firstly I follow a few threads through Lacan's labyrinth. Then I tread Strydom's spoor through the poem, also seeking out the sunken ...

Trauma shatters a person's existing self-narrative, especially trauma experienced after the loss of a loved one. "Turning one's life into a narrative is a vital way of finding meaning" (Van der Merwe & Gobodo-Madikizela, 2007:2); thus by writing a narrative after experiencing trauma using scriptotherapy, a form of narrative therapy, the author can strive to reconstruct his self-narrative. Scriptotherapy entails "the process of writing out and writing through traumatic experience in the mode of therapeutic reenactment" (Henke, 1998:xii). The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice - as the generic representation of a story of the loss of a loved one and its accompanying grief - can play a role in this reconstruction, whether it is done consciously or subconsciously. This myth serves as a framework of analogy, guiding the author in the process of reconstructing his self-narrative through the narrator, as is the case in Pieter Boskma's Doodsbloei (2010). This article aims to provide the reader with evidence from Doodsbloei that scriptotherapy serves a useful purpose in working through traumatic loss. However, it seems that the process of writing plays a bigger part in working through the traumatic loss of the narrator in Doodsbloei than the reconstruction of the self-narrative itself. In the end, only words prevail. Thus the narrator tries to save his loved one (and himself) through writing

Breyten Breytenbach is the foremost poet among the "Sestigers," a prolific painter, and also a controversial public figure. He was born in Bonnievale, South Africa, studied in Cape Town and went into voluntary exile in Paris after marrying Ngo Thi Huang Lien, a Vietnamese woman (also known as Yolande). To date he has published nineteen volumes of poetry, several collections of essays, seven parts of an autobiography, two highly controversial plays, and two novels. His surrealist-type work is inspired by a Zen-Buddhist sense of the mindful continuity underlying mutable existence. An uncanny ability to transform and permutate words and to bend language to his own will characterises his work. After studying at the Michaelis School of Art at the University of Cape Town, Breytenbach travelled to Europe, working in different places before settling as a painter in Paris in 1962. He lived in voluntary exile in Paris, as the South African government refused to give his "non-wh...

Borders at Encounters of Bamako 9At first glance, the present volume may seem to enact the idea of a borderless world, as it steps as it were with thousand mile boots from South Africa to Norway and Sweden and even across the Atlantic to the USA, taking Russia and South Africa's Free State Province in its stride. On the other hand, it shows how fissured literary texts and ways of thinking about them are with all kinds of borders, thus bearing witness to the overarching importance of- and the many similarities between - borders and bordering processes across the globe. It thus gestures towards a borderless world, but also shows how literary texts model and remodel borders and bordering processes in rich and meaningful local contexts.Michket Krifa and Laura Serani, the artistic directors of Encounters of Bamako 9 (the eighth edition of the African Photography Biennial, 2009), wrote an introduction to Borders, the central theme of the biennial. Under the heading "The Relations...

Hierdie artikel is ’n verkenning van die opvallende gebruik van woorde met die voorvoegselson- en ont-, asook ander negatiewe, negativerende woorde, of terme van afstroping (soosdie woord sonder en die agtervoegsel -loos, e.d.m.), in Elisabeth Eybers se poësie. Dit is ’n hermeneutiese ondersoek van die moontlikhede wat negativerende uitdrukkings bied, en nadie rol wat hulle in haar poësie en poëtika speel. Eybers roep dikwels ’n alternatiewe wêrelddeur negativering op. Dit is tekenend van haar digterlike ingesteldheid en haar poëtika.

Much of the South African poet Breyten Breytenbach's work has been concerned with borders. In this article I examine borders and creolization in three important poems from Nine landscapes of our time bequeathed to a beloved (Nege landskappe bemaak aan 'n beminde, 1993), Paper flower (Papierblom, 2002) and The wind-catcher (Die windvanger, 2007). The link between creolization and boundaries is the poet's conception of identity and freedom. As is often the case the boundaries of the self are questioned as the poet permutates the central concepts. Crossing boundaries entails entering into dialogue not only with the self but also with the mother tongue itself and with a variety of other artists and writers. In other words, in Breytenbach's work an abrogation and appropriation of the own tradition ("erfgoed") as well as of material from others, other places and other traditions occur. In these three case studies in particular it is clear how the poet stretches a...

Agaat is ongetwyfeld 'n groot Afrikaanse roman - groot opgeset, geverf op 'n wye doek, gewaagd van aanbieding, ewe boeiend en onthutsend as vervelig van inhoud. En dit werk met dinge wat na aan die Afrikaner se hart le, soos erfgrond, die plaas, boerdery en moeilike verhoudings met die Ander. Bowenal is dit 'n gesinsdrama: die verskriklike verhaal wat hom afspeel in die intieme verhoudings tussen Agaat, Milla, Jak en Jakkie.