Browsing by Author "Van Zyl, Dorothea"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Afstand en vereenselwiging : perspektiewe op die veranderende betekenisse van boer en Boer in die Afrikaanse poësie
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2000-11) Van Zyl, Dorothea
    A comparison of various lemmas on boer/Boer in a number of dictionaries, as well as research on the application of these terms in a variety of poetic (and other) texts written during the 19th and 20th century, reveals interesting similarities and dissimilarities regarding both the definition and the utilization of the terms in Afrikaans and Dutch texts. In Afrikaans and in Afrikaans poetry, where Boer (and sometimes boer, under influence of the values attributed to Boer) is often used as an ethnonym, different meanings of the term correspond with the historical, sociological and ideological context. Alternatively, both terms are employed negatively, suggesting a perspective of distance, and positively, implying proximity and identification. The option selected depends on the specific intent and the context, but the terms are often used ambiguously, reflecting a multiplicity of meaning(s).
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    Al sietmen de lui … : perspektiewe op boere en boerejolyt in enkele Nederlandse en Afrikaanse gedigte
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2001-04) Van Zyl, Dorothea
    A selection of a few Dutch and Afrikaans poems from, inter alia, the seventeenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century, share so many characteristics in their combination of the subjects “farmer” (“boer”) and “feast”, that in this article the question is raised whether these stereotypes form part of a relatively fixed traditional topic or “storehouse” of conventions. Each poem utilizes colloquial language, diminutives and nicknames in the depiction of a dance party in a rural setting – an event characterized by immoderate behaviour, particularly regarding love-making and the use of liquor. More recent Afrikaans poems (written within a context where the initially negative term “Boer” has been transfigured positively due to the expansion of Afrikaner-Nationalist power) satirize other aspects, like status and wealth instead of backwardness, but it seems as if excess and transgression are still associated with “boer” in combination with festivity. The concept of farmer often functions as the Other in these poems, in binary opposition to the narrator.
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    Andre P. Brink, retorikus par excellence
    (Afrikaanse Letterkundevereniging, 2002) Van Zyl, Dorothea
    From the seventies, the novels of André P. Brink have foregrounded the need for alternative histories to lend a voice to the marginalized other, (especially, and often in combination, indigenous people, slaves and women) in stories which are usually ignored by male historiographers. The distinctive way in which this train of thought is followed throughout his oeuvre, makes Brink a strong ideological author. It also makes him a persuader par excellence. This article reviews Brink's rhetorical point of departure and some of the rhetorical strategies applied in a number of his novels since 1973, coupled with the theoretical notions of, inter alia, the Rhetoric of Inquiry Movement and the New Historicism, which can also be called a rhetorical approach. After an analysis of these relevant aspects in ten novels by Brink, the conclusion is reached that Brink constructs his novels in a very logical way, with a mainly ethical objective, namely, to gradually effect an 'illumination' in his readers regarding the deeper truths generated by this alternative historiography.
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    Base en klase : perspektiewe op en deur die ander in enkele 19de-eeuse Nederlandse en Afrikaanse tekste, met 'n fokus op naamgewing, aanspreekvorme en die landskap
    (Afrikaanse Letterkundevereniging, 2002) Van Zyl, Dorothea
    In this article ("Bosses and workers : perspectives on and by the 'other' in a number of 19th century Dutch and Afrikaans texts, with a focus on naming, forms of address and landscape") special attention is paid to a variety of texts in which the "other" is mainly portrayed in a positive light. The specifically Afrikaans sententia and binary opposition "Base en Klase", with its connotations of colour, is used as an exemplum of conventional perspectives on the "other". These perspectives are also linked to the naming of space, transforming it into place and landscape. Although many of the selected texts under discussion (even those in which the "other" writes back) are still characterized by stereotypical names, ethnonyms, conventional assumptions about the role of the "other" and by attempts to place the "other" within the framework of the focalizer's own ideologies, they all show a tendency towards stronger "postcolonial" perspectives. This pleads for an approach which foregrounds hibridity and ambivalence, even in these early texts.
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    “Ek is besig om iemand heeltemal anders te word ...”: die ontginning van liminaliteit in Vaselinetjie deur Anoeschka von Meck
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2006-04) Van Zyl, Dorothea
    The concepts of liminality, transition and borders are utilised extensively in “Vaselinetjie” by Anoeschka von Meck (2004). This is especially the case regarding her use of characterisation, focalisation, time and space (including place and landscape) in the construction of identity. As a liminal character, Vaseline finds herself in different kinds of liminal spaces on a regular basis, like the children’s home, which is foregrounded in the novel, as well as in consecutive preliminal, liminal and postliminal phases. The children’s home is an essentially liminal space, but from the perspective of Vaseline it is firstly gradually transformed into a place to which meaning is attached, and secondly to a landscape of belonging, as she expresses her solidarity with the scorned group of children in the home. On the one hand the children’s home is characterised by a certain liminal essence, but on the other hand it can be regarded as “a realm of pure possibility” (Turner, 1967:97).
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    Perspektiewe op die 'ander' in Pieternella van die Kaap deur Dalene Matthee en Eilande deur Dan Sleigh
    (Afrikaanse Letterkundevereniging, 2003) Van Zyl, Dorothea
    The publication of two Afrikaans historical novels focusing on the first encounters between Europeans and indigenous people at the Cape of Good Hope, roughly coincided with the commemoration in 2002 of the founding of the VOC 400 years ago. Both Pieternella van die Kaap (2000) by Dalene Matthee and Eilande (2002) by Dan Sleigh pay particular attention to the rhetorical representation of (inter alia) Eva-Krotoa from the Goringhaicona tribe and to Pieternella van Meerhoff, Eva's daughter from her marriage with the Danish surgeon, master Pieter van Meerhoff. This article first compares the two texts as historical novels and then as postcolonial novels in which identity and power relations play a major part. Different reconstructions of history depend on different selections of 'facts', perspectives, and ways of characterisation. Both novels exemplify relationships which will later characterise South African society, while they also contribute to a more universal discourse on the human condition.