Turning Point in Afrikaans Literature

by

R. K. Cope

Afrikaner intellectuals are becoming are becoming increasingly conscious of the critical position in which their language and literary movement is placed today. It is not enough to dwell on the achievements of the past, important as they are, nor to clothe one’s conscience with a shell of optimism after a rapid survey of the hardships to overcome. The past does not repeat itself and the future waits, clouded and inscrutable.

At all times critics will be divided, some asserting the inferiority of the present in relation to the great literature of the past, others revaluing (and devaluing) high reputations while upholding contemporary standards. In this time a tremendous name can be extinguished, only to be “re-discovered” when the social circumstances, the taste and fashion of the day permit. The greatest are not immune from the process. It is only recently, for instance, that Milton was “finally” relegated to a minor position by a school of English critics---a fate he has endured before with unbowed head.

It may be that Afrikaans literature, which is altogether not above fifty years old, is entering a period of searching revaluation. There are signs that this is so, though there are other and more important factors. That the unrest exists is an indication of maturity, and should be pressed to the ultimate lengths of intellectual honesty. There was a time when representatives of the young and restricted Afrikaans literature resented criticism. They had been so often attacked and foolishly mocked. Today this is no longer so. The Afrikaner is on surer ground; he can distinguish a just critic, and in fact, is asking for more enlightened criticism. The weakness of the present position is that the general uneasiness is not striking a response equal to the challenge. The professors, the writers and theorists cannot provide a satisfactory answer if they ignore the elements of their problem.

The Afrikaans Language Movement which began in the early 1900s was a product of the Afrikaner liberation struggle. It was part of a conscious middle class movement for middle class objectives. Literature and politics were almost inseparable. There is nothing particularly inspiring about the ideals and aims of the middle class in the phase of history we have reached. Early Afrikaans literature bears the prosaic stamp, but sometimes the energy and creativeness of the nation bursts into something finer. It is on the less inspired productions of the period that the present generation turns an inquiring eye. The spoors of overrated early writers of Afrikaans literature are found to be a hindrance.

Starting half a century ago, Afrikaans did not enter the era of the written word like some primitive language with a vast store of oral literature. In the history of the many peoples of Asia who have only in our generation acquired a written language, the first task was to record from the memory of unlettered bards and storytellers a hoard of artistic material which had been treasured and added to for thousands of years. Afrikaans came like a baby naked into the world. The earliest poems are the hearty, facetious but rather thin “rymelary” thrown off on the spur of the moment. The forebears of Afrikaans prose fiction are to be found in the supernatural story and hunting or adventure yarn. They are not promising beginnings, and their traces are clear to this day. Ghost, animal and hunting stories are legion, while some poets, even highly rated ones, commit to print verse that is perilously near the standard of the early jingle.

Two chief lines of pursuit opened the way to the greatest achievements of Afrikaans literature. One was a reflection of the environment, the aspirations and heartache of the ordinary Afrikaner people in simple terms. The “rymelary” suddenly became poetry bearing the impress of truth, depth and universality. Very few, however, were possessed of the magic touch, Marais, Leipoldt---consciously or not, they convince us today that they were capable of speaking for a people. Other writers turned to foreign forms and inspiration, to world literature. Their content remained South African and therefore original. The two trails often crossed, meeting in the personality of a genuine artist. But the reverse has always existed---the literature produced for prestige, the labored, uninspired composition which resounds with correct sentiments and smells of sweat.

Perhaps the worst thing that could have happened for Afrikaans literature was the ease and total success of the Afrikaner’s political struggle, from about the time of Union onwards. Men who had found their true inspiration in the militant period of the liberation movement discovered in middle age that they were tied to a thing now reeking of success and complacency. They tried to loosen the strings. But it was not easy. The publishing firms, newspapers and magazines, and hence the critics, were, largely, tied to the political leaders. The growing chains of Afrikaans bookshops, the school set book system and the Church all exercised an influence far from disinterested on the writers. These forces were harnessed to the chariot of the rising Afrikaner middle class, the small businessmen boldly and successfully making a place for themselves in commerce, insurance, banking, and to a small extent in industry and mining.

Many modern thinkers take the view that from about the close of the eighteenth century the middle class has been inimical to the arts. Its soul, they contend, is commercial, and its values are expressed in terms of money. A Shakespeare could stand in the ranks of the middle class, reflecting their infinitely ranging and eager mind. Milton could fight in the pristine brightness of their humanist ideals. But by the time of Shelley the chilling antithesis had broken into the open. He took his stand against them. All the artists of the nineteenth century, whether in England, France, Russia or elsewhere, faced the crippling dualism. They arose for the most part from a social environment which did not need them. Acceptance spelt moral and artistic inferiority. Revolt led to isolation, preciousness and decadence, because it was a revolt without content. The artist shrank in upon himself, inventing “pure” aesthetic standards with little relation to life; he exposed his sufferings like a beggar at the street corner and contemplated Death. From that period dates the barren pursuit of form divorced from content as an end in itself, and the philosophy of the artist as a separate heroic being aloof from the common heard. Literature in consequence meandered into fruitless lanes---because the writers possessed no alternative or were afraid of the too obvious one.

The progress of Afrikaans literature has been parallel with older literatures, but at a violently accelerated tempo. Folk usages, national and humanist work of a high standard, and then decadence, have been witnessed in a single lifetime.

Writing of N. P. van Wyk Louw, who is generally acclaimed by Afrikaners as the laureate of their literature, Prof. G. Dekker declares: “So word die kunstenaar, in die nastrewe van die ideal in die ‘ewige Trek’ van sy volk, in sy ewige antitese teen die bourgeois, daardie aartsvyand van alle geestelike groei, die leier, die profeet, die heros.” But we know where this antithesis leads. The middleclass artist, even in revolt, belongs to his class, and he produces for all his aesthetic theories, middleclass literature.

Periods of great purposive activity are often barren of literary output, the energies of a nation being absorbed in practical tasks. The Afrikaner people are in such a period today. They are attempting to shape history. In the first part of the national struggle they saw themselves as pawns in a great game beyond their powers. Their setbacks were shattering, and in the last resort their destiny lay alone in the steadfastness of their own souls. Their national sufferings imparted a tone of morbidity and self pity which were reflected in early Afrikaans literature. In the 1920’s, when new pinnacles of success were reached, when the battle against Netherlands had been won, there was an outburst of optimism. This has disappeared. The Afrikaner volk are apparently masters of their own fate, but it is the middle class---as Prof. Dekker says “the arch-enemy of spiritual growth”---that is in the saddle.

The volk is divided. And the artists, above all, sense that while the national tasks are now self imposed, they are probably unattainable. It is a frightening prospect. The little band of “volksleiers” take the stage like the protagonists in a drama. Thewarning of the Sybil, “Know thyself” (know your limitations) is ignored, and over the action is thrown the shadow of just retribution.

Literature and politics must go their own way, but how? There have been sporadic attempts by Afrikaner writers towards artistic independence. Independent publishing ventures have issued a few books and magazines. But the ventures have failed or been called back into the true fold. The crisis of independence carries in its lap the fate of Afrikaans as a literature of integrity. The writers must fight not only for their artistic identity, but for the soul of their people. Without a people behind them, inspiring, creating new values, they cannot live.

The writers and critics are conscious that the volk is being corrupted. If Afrikaners do not read poor English books and attend films of an insulting intellectual content, they turn increasingly to sensational stories in Afrikaans, weak but suggestive novelettes and translations or adaptations from foreign literature. There could be no objection to translations of the classics from any language, but it must be disheartening to Afrikaner writers to see the popular line consisting of Tarzan of the Apes, detective fiction and thrillers.

What can the poets and serious writers do against this, against the business returns of their arch foes, the commercial publishers?

One finds again and again among the Afrikaner writers the curious doctrine that the traditions of the volk are aristocratic. Dr. C. M. van den Heever, himself a considerable author, says: “We must possess an aristrocratic ideal of life and art, a higher form whose influence can filter through to the masses.” In my opinion, this is a pitiful conceit: I think we can be thankful that the Afrikaners never have been and never will be aristocratic.

Along such lines of thought lie pointers to spiritual death. If the volk are to be regarded as mental innocents to whom the literary heroes and “kultuurdraers” impart their thoughts, it is no wonder that an antithesis should deepen their very passing year between the artist and the public. What is there to hold people back from the facile attraction of sensational and trashy foreign translations?

When are artists to derive their inspiration while keeping themselves aloof from the masses? Van den Heever says: “If we wish to develop a literature of high standing and at the same time nourish our language and style from deep, rich natural resources we must daily read Netherlands and Flemish. For our intellectual life and purity of language it is necessary.”

What seems called for from the Afrikaner writers is a new humanism, a sincere regard for the values of life in every form in which the volk finds itself. In relations with the English, the Coloured and African peoples, who are an inseparable part of the Afrikaner’s environment, there are sources of literature. And finally, from the nobility and steadfastness of the ideals created in the hearts of the wide masses will come the wealth and diversity of a significant literature.

One too often finds young writers producing, in the strong, pliable Afrikaans language, the absurdities of verbal formalism and obscure free association. One finds them wallowing clumsily in the borrowed metaphors of transitoriness and death. Gorki described the aesthetes of Europe a half century ago as experiencing “a mystical terror in the face of the eternal enigma of existence and in the face of Death, that all-conciliating, all-equalising, all-loving eternal hero of decadent poetry.”

To win the souls of their volk, the modern Afrikaans writers must abandon their ivory towers; and they need not be over concerned to erect the façade of an aristocratic (by which they mean middle class) nation. At present there is much preoccupation with the self-conscious task of “creating literature.” It is more likely that a genuine and profound literature will arise if it is seen not as an end, but as a means towards crystallising in heroic types what is fine, pure and individual in the Afrikaner masses, exposing vices, the errors and dangers into which they fall.

Here is the task (one might almost say the classic task) of Afrikaans prose. So far the Afrikaans language is not distinguished for its prose literature. Leipoldt wrote in 1940 that Afrikaans prose was still in the stage it was at the time of the First Language Movement (before 1900). He gave as an example the inferiority of the Afrikaans translation of the Bible. J. F. Grosskopf says: “We are still thankful heirs of a dying Europe; we have deservedly developed a ‘colonial style.’ More is necessary.

Great prose springs from intense artistic effort to encompass the clear expression of great thought. And like poetry, though in a different measure, it neglects no consideration of rhythm, balance and resonance. To the Afrikaner writers one would like to venture the encouragement: Think greatly, fearlessly; search diligently. The sources of your prose literature of the future are to be found in the hearts of your best sons and daughters, their courage and unique example to the fulfillment of the national destiny.

From: South African Opinion, May 1950.

(Presently in: Herman Charles Bosman As I Knew Him/ South African Opinion---Trek Anthology, written and edited by Bernard Sachs, The Dial Press, Johannesburg, 1971).