’n Retoriese anaiise van die vyf lykdigte in T.T. Cloete se Allotroop

Abstract

This article works from the premise that these poems form part of a tradition that can he traced back to the funerary poetry of the Dutch Renaissance and from there to the funeral orations of Classical times. After referring to the current revival of interest in rhetoric, attention is given to the role which rhetoric played in Renaissance poetics and the influence it had on the practice o f writing funerary poetry. The funerary poems in Cloete's Allotroop are then analysed, making use of the Renaissance descriptions of and prescriptions for funerary poetry researched by S.F. Witstein in Funeraire poëzie in de Nederlandse Renaissance. These analyses prove that Cloete’s poems make use of the elements basic to the Renaissance funerary poem and the classical funeral oration namely praise (laus), mourning (luctus) and consolation (consolatio) and that the rhetorical terminology devised centuries ago can still be useful in the reading of these poems.