Teks en gemeenskap : 'n skryfmatige lesing van Lady Anne van Antjie Krog

Abstract

Lady Anne by Antjie Krog is an artistically complex text, but is also securely rooted in the community. The complexity of the text is approached by way of a "writerly" reading strategy in this dissertation: different literary theories and other texts are used creatively to illuminate the meaning of the text. Andre Jolles's theory of simple forms is used as a principle of systematisation for both the postmodernistically fragmented structure of the text and the pluralistic precede in this reading of it. The simple forms join text to community, and thus reconciles the current breach between esthetics and politics in the Afrikaans literary system. According to Jolles's theory, universal mental dispositions are expressed in lingual structures. ·The lingual structures combine to form nine abstract simple forms, namely the legend, saga, myth, riddle, proverb, case, memoire, fairytale and joke. These simple forms result in actualised simple forms and/or works of art. Lady Anne as a postmodernistic text contains artistic actualisations in fragmented and interwoven form of all the abstract simple forms. The same connection between text and community that is described in Jolles's theory is also evident in Lady Anne. This reading is a creative systematisation, according to the theory of simple forms, of the complexity of the literary text in the light of the close link between text and community. The text is read as an artistic expression of the collective mental dispositions in the present South African community. Evident patterns of meaning are identified, while an attempt is made not to reduce the complex semantic possibilities of the text.