“Klipwerk”: ’n Rooihakskeenlesing

Abstract

"Klipwerk" (Stone Work), Van Wyk Louw's 1954 poem, actually a series of 97 separate poems, is interpreted as a poem about romantic and amorous inclinations. "Klipwerk" tells of courtship strategies, of falling in and talking about and making love, of hardships, loneliness, jealousy and the many sides attached to the natural urge of humans to fulfil their obligation to populate the earth. As will be pointed out, the sub-poems in "Klipwerk" are clearly linked thematically. New light is shed on parts which were previously deemed to be unclear parts: some verses, the title of the poem, as well as the syntactically unfinished first two lines, written in the standard Afrikaans code. The rest of the poem is written in the Afrikaans dialect of the Roggeveld region - one of the oldest Afrikaans dialects in the north western Karoo-region, where Van Wyk Louw grew up and which forms the spatial setting of "Klipwerk". This warrants some remarks about the dialect used, as well as on closely related Afrikaans dialects of that region. It is shown that Van Wyk Louw's presentation of the poem series inspires many interconnected interpretations of it - meanings well concealed under a seemingly simple surface.