"Harlekijns in den bonten stoet"? 'n Herbesoek aan die vroee komiese poesie in Afrikaans

“Harlequins in a pied parade”? A revisit to early comic poetry in Afrikaans Some South African newspapers and individuals considered the so-called “Patriot movement” or First Afrikaans Language Movement’s efforts to transform “the taal” into a literary medium a joke. Quite ironically, part of the movement’s cultural campaign was based on the production and encouragement of poetical jokes and light verse. This article firstly deals with the reception and evaluation of this corpus of humorous poems in the history of Afrikaans literature, secondly it explores the relations of this cultural manifestation with the context of 19th century European cultural nationalism and thirdly examins its connections with the broader Dutch and international literary landscape of the time.Department of HE and Training approved lis

Adam Small, Kanna en ‘daardie morele moment’

This essay revisits Adam Small’s best known play Kanna hy kô hystoe (“Kanna he comes home”, 1965) in order to evaluate its relevance for contemporary readers and audiences. The text, considered one of the classics of Afrikaans literature, is analysed from a rhetorical point of view. The analysis includes an overview of several pertinent academic studies on the play, a summary of the play’s sociopolitical context, and a brief background to rhetorical analysis. The article further takes account of the author’s struggle with his prevailing cultural and political environment before and during the writing and publication of the play, as well as the drawn-out period of five years before its eventual first professional performance, and its subdued reception by prominent Afrikaans literary critics. The second part of the article involves the identification and analysis of three rhetorical problems presented in the play: “Did Kanna act unethically by not returning ‘home’ after his studies?”; “Did Dickie deserve his death sentence?”; and “Who was responsible for creating the wretched circumstances which Makiet, who had always been caring, had to endure?”&nbsp

George Weideman (1947–2008)

Hy het meer as watter Afrikaanse skrywer nie een nie, maar baie stemme gegee aan die sondeurbakte, droë dele van ons land. Streekskrywer kan hy genoem word, maar hy was ook as digter, dramaturg en aksievoerder gereeld te vinde in die middel van die nimmereindigende worstelstryd teen die legio gedaantes wat die onreg in Suid-Afrika aanneem. Hoe trots sou hy nie gewees het op die mense van Pella wat onlangs in eenvoudige, maar helder taal vir Mammon die hek gewys het nie

Reinaard die vos, die wrede een met die rooi baard (Daniel Hugo)

No abstrac

J. C. Kannemeyer (1939–2011)

“Dit sou lesers van my biografieë van die afgelope twee dekades opgeval het dat my belangstelling in die besonder uitgaan na daardie figure in ons letterkunde wat teenoor die koloniaal denkende bewindhebbers ’n ander, humaner gesig van die Afrikaner toon.

Boerneef en die volkspoësie

The poet Boerneef (pseudonym of I. W. van der Merwe, 1897-1967) referred to his own poetry as volkspoësie (oral poetry). This is in contradistinction to the usual conception of oral literature as traditional verbal art handed down by word of mouth and distinguished from the written traditions produced by individual authors. This article investigates the relationship between Boerneef's work and traditional Afrikaans and Dutch oral poetry. An analysis shows a variety of similarities: In a few poems traditional material is presented directly, while in the rest of his work various oral poetic elements are transformed into highly original literary procédè's. In the process Boerneef succeedes in bringing his poetry closer to the primitive tradition than any other Afrikaans author

Karakters en betoog in André P. Brink se Gerugte van reën

Gerugte van reën (Rumours of Rain, 1978) is one of André Brink's notorious political novels on apartheid and Afrikaner Nationalism. This essay focuses on the rhetorical processes in the novel and particularly on the use of characterisation as a vehicle for the implied author's ideology. Rhetorically the novel is aimed at Afrikaans readers - previously mostly "Afrikaners" - and they get to choose between two ideological models, two distinct contrasting expressions of being an Afrikaner: Martin Mynhardt versus Bernard Franken. The "progressive" Nationalist Mynhardt - under the surface greedy, egotistical and corrupt - functions as a verligte (enlightened) critical voice against traditional Afrikaner rule, although the author turns him into an unreliable narrator that betrays his political and personal principles. Franken, on the other hand, is presented as an alternative Afrikaner prototype, almost without blemish. He is self-sacrificing, actively engaged against apartheid and altruistic. The reader is left with little choice but to choose between these opposite expressions of being an Afrikaner