Sigbare en minder sigbare verhale in Komas uit 'n bamboesstok (D.J. Opperman) en Bres (Leonard Nolens)

Abstract

This article is a comparative exploration of the underlying narratives in D.J. Opperman’s volume of poetry Komas uit ’n bamboesstok and Leonard Nolens’ collection Bres. Opperman’s collection relates the story of the speaker’s serious illness and the reconstitution of Self through the reconstruction, in the poems, of his personal history. Well-known narratives such as that of Marco Polo and Bontekoe are utilised, and elements of these are selected and placed in a new narrative configuration. Nolens’ volume consists of five series of poems, each of which shows a strong narrative tendency. In this case the narratives are, however, interrupted and suspended: it is as if these poems yearn for a narrative, but fail to reach it. The two volumes in question could then be viewed comparatively as instances of identity construction within two different paradigms – the paradigms of modernism and postmodernism