Werkwinkel, 2011, vol. 6(1)
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Item Willie Burger, Marné Pienaar, reds: Die Tand van die Tyd: Opstelle opgedra aan Jac Conradie(Department of Dutch and South African Studies, Faculty of English, 2011) Wąsik, ElżbietaRecenzja: Willie Burger, Marné Pienaar, reds Die Tand van die Tyd: Opstelle opgedra aan Jac Conradie Stellenbosch: Sun Press, 2009 227 pp. ISBN 978-1-920338-13-8Item Siegfried Theissen, Caroline Klein: Kontrastives Wörterbuch Deutsch-Niederländisch(Department of Dutch and South African Studies, Faculty of English, 2011) Kowalska-Szubert, AgataRecenzja: Siegfried Theissen, Caroline Klein Kontrastives Wörterbuch Deutsch-Niederländisch Liége: Centre Informatique de Philosophie et Lettres (C.I.P.L), 2008 208 ppItem “But what if the street turns loose”: Civilian Violence in Flemish Novels on the Second World War(Department of Dutch and South African Studies, Faculty of English, 2011) Lensen, JanThis essay focuses on the Flemish literary image construction of the violence that took place during the so-called ‘repression period’ at the end of the Second World War in Belgium, when people accused of collaboration with the Germans were victim to fierce public outrage. This essay examines by way of historical contextualization and close reading of some select passages in what ways post-war Flemish literature has attempted to come to terms with this traumatic event and the ways it has inscribed it into the collective cultural memory. I argue that, while the phenomenon of collaboration has received nuanced discussion, trying to understand and explain the psychological motivation and socio-economic circumstances that prompted people to collaborate with the occupier, the street violence of the repression has not yet warranted a similar degree of attention. Rather, it is unanimously represented as a wholly negative event, inexcusable on both the political and the moral level. This approach to our history also shows that while Flemish literature has, in many regards, worked through the trauma of the occupation, it has not yet come to terms with the trauma of the unprecedented civilian violence that erupted at the end of the war.Item Ground Zero: Die Suid-Afrikaanse literêre landskap ná Apartheid(Department of Dutch and South African Studies, Faculty of English, 2011) Brink, AndréThis article examines the nature of recent prose written in English and Afrikaans, referring to the end of apartheid as a Ground Zero in South African literature. In a synoptic review, the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s hearings are being identified as inspiration for a wealth of narratives that bare the soul and give voice to ordinary people’s stories, often projecting excessive violence as characteristic of society. This involves the re-telling of histories of the initial Dutch settlement at the Cape and the confronting of South African slavery. At the same time the international phenomena of the detective novel and of magic realism are also reflected locally against a changing contemporary landscape. In this respect the existence of stories as language constructs is conspicuous. The voices and perspectives of women remain central features in the prose of the last two decades. Some of the authors specifically referred to include J.M. Coetzee, Marlene van Niekerk, Damon Galgut, Nadine Gordimer, Sindiwe Magona, Ivan Vladislavić, Susan Mann, Zakes Mda, Dan Sleigh and particularly a 2010 debutant, Alastair Bruce, with his novel, Wall of Days.Item Verbaal geweld in de Nederlandse literaire kritiek: Het Brusselse tijdschrift De Argus 1825-1826(Department of Dutch and South African Studies, Faculty of English, 2011) Weijermars, JannekeDuring the United Kingdom of the Netherlands 1815-1830, when the Low Countries were united under king Willem I, a new Dutch literary review De Argus was published in Brussels. The editors had the intention to build up a Dutch literature for the whole new nation, with originality, patriotism and simplicity as its features, but they used unorthodox methods to achieve their goals. In this study we investigate the traditional and new aspects of De Argus’s reviews. For that we will zoom in on the principle of politeness, which was normally used by late eighteen-century and early nineteen-century reviewers to protect an open literary debate.Item Violence and Pregnancy in G.A. Bredero’s Griane(Department of Dutch and South African Studies, Faculty of English, 2011) Poniatowska, PatrycjaThe eponymous character of Griane, a tragicomedy by G.A. Bredero, is dramatised as a figure of self-produced humoral outrage, which culminates in her becoming pregnant out of wedlock and potentially unsettling political and familial structures. Griane’s pregnancy is staged as an ultimate manifestation of, a consequence of and a punishment for her volatility repeatedly rendered in the drama in evocations of bodily anarchy and/or wounding. Whereas Griane is produced as a quintessence of wilful and unlicensed violence located in the unruly female body and threatening to disrupt both her and the order of the state, the institutional violence of war, execution and incarceration authorised and implemented by the superior male agency is construed in the play as clarifying and restorative. Exposed to such forms of organised violence, Griane internalises the lesson of the postulated feminine submission and is produced as a docile subject. At the same time, the institutional and political dimension of punitive violence is obscured by insistence on the secrecy and privacy of Griane’s predicament.Item “Hanghen ende thoeft af slaen”: Vorme van geweld in enkele Middelnederlandse tekste(Department of Dutch and South African Studies, Faculty of English, 2011) Conradie, C. JacAfter a consideration of what is meant by ‘violence’ (Afrikaans/Dutch geweld) in the current sense of the word, a number of instances of violence from the Middle Dutch literature are described with a view to singling out salient aspects of violence. Violence in nature and human reactions to it are looked at with reference to some monsters of the sea described by Adriaen Coenen. Aspects of violence in knights’ tales are considered with Karel en Elegast as a model. Beatrijs provides some insight into what may count as violence in the courtly sphere. The devil is a source, directly or indirectly, of widespread violence in the miracle play Mariken van Nieumeghen. Aspects of the ‘right’ to violence are dealt with in a discussion of acts of violence in the animal epic Van den vos Reynaerde.