Die rol van die egosentriese outeur in die poësie van Antjie Krog, met spesifieke verwysing na Lady Anne (1989)

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of the egocentric author in the poetry of Antjie Krog and its development through seven volumes of verse. The term "egocentric author" here signifies that author which is the writing subject and which insists that the reader take cogniscence of him or her. The second chapter of the dissertation focuses on the development in literary theory in the twentieth century which has seen the author increasingly marginalised in the process of asserting the autonomy of the text. Barthes in 1968 proclaimed the author dead and early poststructuralism has no place for the author in its approach to discussing literary texts. However, a definite role has lately been assigned to the author, not as the divine artistic source of the meaning in a text, but rather as an agent or textual strategy by which the material or historical discourse present in literary texts can be examined. The study further examines the way in which Antjie Krog's oeuvre shows a definite line of development in respect to the speaking subject which admits that it is also the poet. In no way is dwelt on the specific biography of the "real" poet unless biographical information is obviously a textual element. With Krog the "biographical" information that she is a mother, wife and an Afrikaans speaking poet is an integral component of the textual composition. The last section deals with the fact that in Lady Anne, Krog uses the historical figure of Lady Anne Barnard (born Lindsay) (1750-1825) to function as an objective correlative for the white female poet who is increasingly concerned with the oppressive political climate in her country, her part in the oppression of its disenfranchised citizens. The interaction between the self-conscious poet and her metaphor enables the poet in a singular way to pose the important question of whether she has the power through her poetry to address the injustices which her artistic sensibility witnesses around her.