JORAN V AN WYK Afrikaans Poetry and the South African Intertext In July 1989 the ANC met a delegation of South African writers at the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. The South African writers were mostly Afrikaans-speaking. In the joint communique produced at the end of this meeting the participants committed themselves to the establishment of a truly representative South African literature, a literature which will be the embodiment of a shared South African cultural identity; a literature which will reflect the richness of the country's diversity of languages. A plea was also made for the founding of national literature departments at universities. 1 In the light of the political changes since then it has become imperative to give effect to these resolutions. South Africa is now in the hands of a government of national unity. The study of South African literature must reflect this new reality. Investigations into South African literature, such as the digger's poetry which was popular in the late nineteenth century, can play an important role in contributing to our understanding of how the discovery of diamonds and gold led to the introduction of capitalism to South Africa. These discoveries also brought urbanisation and alienation, which became dominant themes in the early twentieth century.2 The study of South African literature can provide insight into various group constructions. What role for instance did the different I Crossing Borders: Writers Meet the ANC, eds. A. Coetzee & J. Polley. (Johannesburg: Taurus, 1990), p. 205. 2 Cf. texts like 0.1. Opperman's "Ballade van die Grysland." Senior Verseboek. (Kapstaad: Tafelberg, 1982), pp. 181-183; and B.W. Vilakazi's "On the Gold Mines." The Penguin Book ofSouthern African Verse, eds. 1. Cope / U. Krige. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), pp. 300-305. Afrikaans: Recollection, Redefinition, Restitution. Papers held at the 7th Conference on South African Literature, BadBoO, September 25-27, J992, cxk Robert Kriger & EtbeI KrigI:r. [MaIaIu 15-16]. (AmsImIam, Atlanta: Editions RIxqli, 1996). 112 JOHAN VAN WYK Afrikaans language movements play in the construction of an Afrikaner identity? What are the themes and myths underlying this construction? How does it compare with South African literature as a whole? These are some of the questions which will emerge through such a study. Being exposed to South African literature can help students from different language backgrounds to develop an informed knowledge of the whole and allow prejudices to make way for understanding. There is much groundwork still to be done however before the resolutions of the 1989 meeting can be implemented. Some of the problems which need to be addressed include the following: • There is still no comprehensive South African literary history. • Very few anthologies reflect the diversity of South African languages. • Theoretical and methodological models for the study of South African literature are lacking. In this paper I will be looking at the study of Afrikaans poetry within this context, aiming to find the points of contact which will link this poetry with the broader South African poetry intertext. I use the word "intertext" rather than "context" in order to emphasise the interwovenness and mutuality of the different South African discourses. The Afrikaans poetry tradition is a particular syntagmatic moment within the broader South African poetry narrative. Afrikaans poetry brought the Afrikaner nation visibly into discursive existence. At its very inception into consciousness Afrikaans poetry expresses the Afrikaner nation as a moment in time. The fifth stanza of the poem "Di Afrikaanse Volkslied" (" The Song of the Afrikaans People") which introduces Die Patriot (1876) and the first language movement, the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (the Association of Real Afrikaners), makes this temporality manifest: Ieder nasie hel sy TYD om op Ie groei en af Ie sluit, en soos ons liewe Heer dit doel, so is dit altyd wys en goed .