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Nederland(s) en sy (Suid-) Afrikaanse metafore
Literator | Vol 15, No 3 | a674 |
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v15i3.674
| © 1994 H. Viljoen
| This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 02 May 1994 | Published: 02 May 1994
Submitted: 02 May 1994 | Published: 02 May 1994
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H. Viljoen, Dept. Algemene Taal- en Literatuurwetenskap, Potchefstroomse Universiteit vir CHO, South AfricaFull Text:
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Afrikaans metaphors for Dutch and the Netherlands
There seems to be an irrepressible urge to metaphorize the relation between the Netherlands and South Africa in the Afrikaans popular imagination, perhaps in order to bridge the growing separation between the two countries. Four complexes of such metaphors, window, family relations, root and landscape, are briefly analysed, with most emphasis on the last category. From a handful of Afrikaans poems since 1950, and especially from poems by Elizabeth Eybers, Lina Spies and Marlene van Niekerk, it seems possible to reconstruct a descriptive system that underlies poems contrasting the Netherlands (represented by Amsterdam in particular) as a safe, protected space with the South African landscape as open and exposed. These poems also clearly show up the dialectic of abrogation and appropriation and the anxiety about land and identity so typical of postcolonial literatures.
There seems to be an irrepressible urge to metaphorize the relation between the Netherlands and South Africa in the Afrikaans popular imagination, perhaps in order to bridge the growing separation between the two countries. Four complexes of such metaphors, window, family relations, root and landscape, are briefly analysed, with most emphasis on the last category. From a handful of Afrikaans poems since 1950, and especially from poems by Elizabeth Eybers, Lina Spies and Marlene van Niekerk, it seems possible to reconstruct a descriptive system that underlies poems contrasting the Netherlands (represented by Amsterdam in particular) as a safe, protected space with the South African landscape as open and exposed. These poems also clearly show up the dialectic of abrogation and appropriation and the anxiety about land and identity so typical of postcolonial literatures.
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