Volkskuns en fin de siêcle: Perspektiewe op parallelle tendense in die Vlaamse en Afrikaanse prosa

Abstract

In nineteenth century Europe, the fin de siécle was in a literary sense characterized by the aesthetic cult, Symbolism , and a decadent mood . However, the traditional historians of Flemish and Afrikaans literature accentuate the mild romanticism and realism as typical of what have since become, for a corresponding period (± 1895-1925), in both those literatures their canonized texts. Literary history also identifies in Flemish and Afrikaans prose a definite striving towards a ‘national’ literature, thus reflecting the nationalistic political and cultural movements of those early times. This article focusses on a few, but interesting deviations from that established pattern. It reveals that, especially in works of prose written by surprisingly many of those authors (who were often identified with a ‘national’ cause), some marked tendencies of the decadent fin de siêcle are clearly present. A contextual rereading of these texts - which even now are either completely under-estimated or ignored by conventional literary history - may bring about a re-evaluation of the existing canon of early Flemish and Afrikaans prose.