Devising for A2 – our group reflection!
Hi everyone – we’ll be reflecting about our work on here
Dear Danielle…
Haiku – I loved these so much – I made one!
A LITTLE TREASURY OF HAIKU MCMLV Peter Pauper Press, Avenel Books New York
A bright autumn moon…
In the shadow of each grass
an insect chirping……………………………………….. Buson
Watching, I wonder
What poet could put down his quill…
A pluperfect moon!…………………………………… Onitsura
Nine times arising
To see the moon… whose solemn pace
Marks only midnight yet………………………………. Basho
Not a voice or stir…
Darkness lies on fields and streets
Sad: the moon has set……………………………… Imozeni
While I turned my head
That traveller I’d just passed…
Melted into mist……………………………………………… Shiki
Black cloudbank broken
Scatters in the night… now see
Moon-lighted mountains…………………………….. Basho
Many solemn nights
Blond moon, we stand and marvel…
Sleeping our noons away……………………….. Teitoken
Glorious the moon…
Therefore our thanks dark clouds
Come to rest our necks………………………………. Basho
Moon so bright for love!
Come closer, quilt… enfold
My passionate cold!…………………………………… Sampu
Ah, unrequited love!
Now elevate your chin and keen
Tom-cat, to the moon!…………………………………. Kyoria
Over the mountain
Bright the full white moon now smiles…
On the flower-thief………………………………………….. Issa
Yellow autumn moon…
Unimpressed the scarecrow stands
Simply looking bored……………………………………… Issa
Chilling autumn rain…
The moon, too bright for showers,
Slips from their fingers………………………………. Tokuku
I scooped up the moon
In my water bucket… and
Spilled it on the grass…………………………………. Ryuho
In summer moonlight
They go visiting the graves…
Savouring the cool………………………………………….. Issa
Nightlong in the cold
That monkey sits conjecturing
How to catch the moon………………………………….. Shiki
After moonviewing
My companionable shadow
Walked along with me………………………………….. Sodo
In winter moonlight
A clear look at my old hut…
Dilapidated…………………………………………………….. Issa
Moonlit snowfields…
Here the bloody samurai
Cast their noble lives………………………………….. Kikaku
Death-song:
Full moon and flowers
Solacing my 49
Foolish years of song…………………………………….. Issa
Coolness in the bridge…
Moon, you and I alone
Unresigned to sleep……………………………. Kikusha-Ni
Pitiful…fearful…
These poor scarecrows look like men
In autumn moonlight……………………………………… Shiki
White autumn- moon…
Black-branch shadow-patterns
Printed on the nats……………………………………… Kikaku
From the temple steps
I lift to the autumn moon
My veritable face………………………………………….. Basho
In the wintry moon
Gales raging down the river
Hone the rock-edges…………………………………… Chora
Black calligraphy
Of geese… pale printed foothills…
For a seal, full moon…………………………………… Buson
Colder far than snow…
Winter moonlight echoing on
My whitened hair……………………………………………. Joso
No oil to read by…
I am off to bed but ah!
My moonlit pillow………………………………………… Basho
Crossing it alone
In cold moonlight… the brittle bridge
Echoes my footsteps…………………………………….. Taigi
Death-song:
I have known lovers…
cherry bloom… the nightingale…
I will sleep content………………………………………… Anon
Death-song:
Three loveliest things:
Moonlight… cherry bloom… now I go
seeking silent snow…………………………………….. Rippo
Such a fine first dream…
But they laughed at me… they said
I had made it up………………………………………….. Takudi
Silver-soft riverside…
Dim splash of far-thrown net…
Fishing for the moon?…………………………………… Taigi
Moonlight stillness
Light the petals falling… falling…
On the silenced lute………………………………………. Shiki
That white peony…
Lover of the moon trembling
Now at twilight……………………………………………. Gyodai
The first firefly…
But he got away and I…
Air in my fingers……………………………………………… Issa
Fleeing the hunter
The firefly took cover…
The evening moon……………………………………….. Ryota
Moon-in-the-water…
Broken-again… broken-again
Still a solid seal………………………………………….. Chosu
He wades the river
carrying the girl and see…
carrying the moon………………………………………….. Shiki
The floating heron
Pecks at it till it shatters…
The evening moon………………………………………. Zuiryu
Moon-in-the-water
Turned a white somersault… yes
and went floating off……………………………………… Ryoto
Experimenting…
I hung the moon on various
branches of the pine………………………………… Hokushi
The night was hot…
Stripped to the waist the snail
Enjoyed the moonlight……………………………………. Issa
Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal. Ryokan returned and caught him:” You may have come a long way to visit me”, he told the prowler, ” and you should not return empty-handed. please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered. he took the clothes and slunk away. Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, ” I wish I could give him the beautiful moon.”
The thief
left it behind-
The moon at the window.
The Third Eye from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones © 1960
Haiku:
Actor’s lament:
The man before him in the queue…
A movie star………………………………………. Renier 1994
Speech programme performed by Ansulie and Shanette
You don’t need to leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Don’t even listen, simply wait.
Don’t even wait.
Be quite still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you.
To be unmasked, it has no choice.
It will roll in ecstacy at your feet.
- Franz Kafka
SPRAAKPROGRAM: SBP 320 Hoon,A & White,S. Oktober 1991.
|
TITEL |
SKRYWER |
BUNDEL |
KUNSTE-NAAR |
TYDS-DUUR |
|
1. Hist Whist 2. Don’t read this poem 3. Advice from a caterpillar 4. Gewete 5. Don Quixote 6. In hierdie bange nag 7. Spieël 8. Haiku 9. Not waving but Drowning 10.Schizophrenia 1 11. A Case 12. Soap Suds 13. Kan ek jou dogtertjie wees 14. Meeting 15. Are we not acceptable? 16. You’d better believe him: A fable 17. On viewing his paintings 18. Death Survey 19. Ek woon in ‘n boom 20. London 21. Kyk net… 22. Die Boenk 23. Nig Dolores… 24. In perfekte balans |
e.e. cummings Ishmael Read Lewis Carrol Rosa Keet Miguel Cervantes Boerneef Chris Pelser Basho Stevie Smith Bernard Levinson Anonomous Louis Mac-neice Antjie Krog Bernard Levinson Virginia Woolf Brian Patten Bernard Levinson Mongane Serote Zahn de Bruin Peter Porter Philip de Vos Breyten Breytenbach Philip de Vos Rosa Keet |
The little world of elves and fairies Norton Anthology of poetry Alice in Wonderland Senior Verseboek Don Quixote Boerneef: Versamelde poësie Uur van die aap Zen Poetry Norton Anthology From Breakfast to madness Comic Verse Comparing Poetry Eerste Gedigte From breakfast… Waves Drumbeat From breakfast… Southern African Poetry Kaia vir die tye Comparing Poetry Daar’s bitterals in die heuningwals Katastrofes Daar’s bitterals… Spookstories |
Hoon & White White Hoon & White White Hoon & White White Hoon Hoon & White Hoon & White Hoon & White Hoon White Hoon White Hoon & White Hoon White Hoon Hoon White White Hoon Hoon & White Hoon TOTAAL: |
ALICE IN WONDERLAND – LEWIS CAROL
ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR
CATERPILLAR: Who are you?
ALICE: I – I hardly know sir, just at present – at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.
CATERPILLAR: What do you mean by that? Explain yourself!
ALICE: I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir, because I’m not myself, you see.
CATERPILLAR: I don’t see.
ALICE: I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly, for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.
CATERPILLAR: It isn’t.
ALICE: Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet, but when you have to turn into a chrysalis – you will some day, you know – and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?
CATERPILLAR: Not a bit.
ALICE: Well, perhaps your feelings may be different, all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.
CATERPILLAR: You! Who are you?
DON QUIXOTE – MIGUEL CERVANTES (Vertaal A P Brink)
DON QUIXOTE: My goeie vriend, Sancho Panza, as ek lewe en jy lewe, kan ek dalk binne ses dae ‘n hele streep koninkryke verower en miskien is een van hulle net reg vir jou.
SANCHO PANZA: Met ‘n baas soos u, is ek houtgerus want ek weet u sal my alles gee wat goed is vir my en wat ek kan verduur.
Op daardie oomblik gewaar hulle sowat dertig of veertig windmeulens op die vlakte.
DON QUIXOTE: Die lot laat ons sake nog beter uitval as wat ons ooit kon hoop. Want kyk daar diekant, vriend Sancho Panza! Daar staan dertig verskriklike reuse, nee nog meer. Teen hulle gaan ek veg en die laaste een doodmaak, en met die buit van die goeie stryd gaan ons stadigaan begin ryk word.
SANCHO PANZA: Wat se reuse?
DON QUIXOTE: Die wat jy daar oorkant sien, met die lang arms, party van hulle tot ses myl lank.
SANCHO PANZA: Kyk, u edele, daardie goed daar is nie reuse nie, dis windmeulens; en wat soos arms lyk, is die seile wat in die wind rondtol om die maalklip te laat draai.
DON QUIXOTE: Dis duidelik dat jy nie veel van avonture af weet nie. En as jy bang is, staan dan opsy en sê jou gebedjie op terwyl ek uittrek in ‘n verwoede en ongelyke stryd.
Terwyl hy nog praat, skop hy sy spore in sy perd Rocinante vas en ignoreer sy agterryer se waarskuwende uitroep.
DON QUIXOTE: Moenie weghardloop nie lafaards, afskuwelike skepsels; dis net een enkele ridder wat hier teen julle opruk!
Net toe steek daar ‘n effense windjie op en die groot seile begin draai. Toe hy dit sien, roep Don Quixote:
DON QUIXOTE: Al het julle meer arms as die reus Briareus, gaan ek julle laat les opsê!
Hy bedek sy bors met sy skild, laat sak die lans en storm in volle vaart op die naaste windmeul af; verwoed deurboor hy die seil met sy lans, maar in die fris wind draai dit so vinnig dat die wapen fyn en flenters gebreek word. Die perd en sy ruiter word ‘n ent saamgesleep, en die ridder rol oor die vlakte. Sancho Panza jaar hom te hulp so vinnig as wat sy eseltjie kan draf, maar toe hy daar aankom, ontdek hy dat die ridder nie kan roer nie.
SANCHO PANZA: Ag, liewe Here! Het ek u edele nie gesê u moet kyk wat u aanvang nie, want dis net ‘n spul windmeulens? ‘n Ieder en ‘n elk kan dit sien, tensy hy windmeulens in sy kop het.
DON QUIXOTE: Stil, vriend Sancho. Ek dink – en dis die reine waarheid – dis die towernaar wat daardie reuse in windmeulens verander het, net om te verhinder dat ek roem verwerf.
|
You don’t need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, simply wait. Don’t even wait. Be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you. To be unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstacy at your feet. - Franz Kafka |
INDEX / INHOUD: 1. Hist Whist…… 2. Don’t read this poem……. 3. Advice from a caterpillar 4. Gewete.. 5. Don Quixote…. 6. In hierdie bange nag.. 7. Spieël.. 8. Haiku… 9. Not waving but Drowning… 10. Schizo- phrenia 1………. 11. A Case. 12. Soap Suds……. 13. Kan ek jou dogtertjie wees …… 14. Meeting 15. Are we not acceptable? 16. You’d better believe him: A fable…… 17. On viewing his paintings.. 18. Death Survey….. 19. Ek woon in ‘n boom…. 20. London. 21. Kyk net…….. 22. Die Boenk…… 23. Nig Dolores…. 24. In perfekte balans….. |
SKRYWER: AUTHOR: e.e. cummings Ishmael Read Lewis Carrol Rosa Keet Miguel Cervantes Boerneef Chris Pelser Basho Stevie Smith Bernard Levinson Anonomous Louis Mac-neice Antjie Krog Bernard Levinson Virginia Woolf Brian Patten Bernard Levinson Mongane Serote Zahn de Bruin Peter Porter Philip de Vos Breyten Breytenbach Philip de Vos Rosa Keet |
INDEX / INHOUD:
1. Hist Whist…………………………………..
2. Don’t read this poem………………………….
3. Advice from a caterpillar……………………..
4. Gewete………………………………………
5. Don Quixote………………………………….
6. In hierdie bange nag………………………….
7. Spieël………………………………………
8. Haiku……………………………………….
9. Not waving but Drowning……………………….
10.Schizophrenia 1………………………………
11. A Case……………………………………..
12. Soap Suds…………………………………..
13. Kan ek jou dogtertjie wees …………………..
14. Meeting…………………………………….
15. Are we not acceptable?……………………….
16. You’d better believe him: A fable……………..
17. On viewing his paintings……………………..
18. Death Survey………………………………..
19. Ek woon in ‘n boom…………………………..
20. London……………………………………..
21. Kyk net…………………………………….
22. Die Boenk…………………………………..
23. Nig Dolores…………………………………
24. In perfekte balans…………………………..
SKRYWER:
e.e. cummings
Ishmael Read
Lewis Carrol
Rosa Keet
Miguel Cervantes
Boerneef
Chris Pelser
Basho
Stevie Smith
Bernard Levinson
Anonomous
Louis Mac-neice
Antjie Krog
Bernard Levinson
Virginia Woolf
Brian Patten
Bernard Levinson
Mongane Serote
Zahn de Bruin
Peter Porter
Philip de Vos
Breyten Breytenbach
Philip de Vos
Rosa Keet
Heman Charles Bosman and D.J. Opperman speech programme
HERMAN CHARLES BOSMAN – TELL ME ABOUT THE MOON:
When I last set foot in South Africa the one man in it I really wanted to meet died the afternoon I stepped on the quay at Cape Town. Weeks later somebody handed me a copy of a South African review called TREK which carried a memorial article about him. It had a photograph too: striking light-coloured eyes – personable – an Afrikaner face; elegant trilby hat – a smile part sardonic, part rueful – a precipitation of gaiety and intelligence. It was a good photograph.
#
Those who knew or knew of Bosman – since his death he has been something of a cult among the young intellectuals in Johannesburg – speak of his wildness, charm and unexpectedness. His conversation exhilirated, he saw things from the unconventional, sometimes the uncomfortable angle: a realist who wished to be a romantic.
#
Of Afrikaner stock, he was born at Kuils Rivier, near Cape Town, in 1905. However, the family soon moved to the Witwatersrand, where his father, a miner, was killed in an accident.
As soon as he had taken his degree he married his first wife, Vera Sawyer # and accepted a dead-end teaching post in the desolate Groot Marico district of the Transvaal. The marriage was never to be domesticated. He spent a year alone in this remote corner of the veld, teaching the children of a thinly-sprinkled population of Afrikaner cattle-smugglers and frontiersmen who belonged to a pastoral society almost completely insulated from the twentieth century. These old Afrikaner farmers, living without telephones, radio, books, or the cinema, were naturally accomplished raconteurs with a fund of material drawn from generations of gossip and the events, comic or tragic, of life on remote farmsteads. Himself an Afrikaner, Bosman was easily able to identify himself imaginatively with their self-sufficient pre-industrial way of life. The were the last remnants of the Trekkers.
#
WILLEM PRINSLOO’S PEACH BRANDY
Returning to Johannesburg, Bosman walked straight into trouble. His mother had meanwhile re-married. Her husband, a Scottish widower, had a grown family of his own: one night, shortly after he came back, some sort of a clash took place between Bosman and one of his step-brothers in a moonlit bedroom. Bosman picked up a hunting-rifle and loosed off. # The stepbrother was killed on the spot. # As a result Bosman was arrested and sent for trial. # At the age of twenty-one he heard himself being sentenced to death.
#
MURDER
For a month he waited in the condemned cell, which he shared with another prisoner. This man was executed. At the last moment arrived a reprieve for Bosman; his sentence had been commuted to four year’s hard labour. It was in Swartklei goal that Bosman began writing the first of his stories about the Marico farmers.
Of the twenty-one stories in Mafeking Road, fifteen have important female characters, important that is, to the development of the theme or the plot. All the women in these stories are softly beautiful – there is not a plain or dumpy one among them – and all are presented either mysterious, helpless, isolated, or with supernatural gifts.
No living woman can fulfil the expectations of a man who wants to see sex as mysterious or other-wordly. At times Bosman, the man and writer, must have looked for more than an ordinary human body with its physicality, its complex emotions and irrational needs, from the women he met. He must have been disappointed.
After his divorce from Vera Sawyer he had an affair with Ellie Beemer, who worked with him on the paper The Touleier. Ellie left him to get married to another man. After she had withdrawn from his life he met Ella Manson, who was in many ways her exact antithesis and for whom he wrote the resoundingly beautiful lines:
I sing in the morning, I who have seen
Only the afternoons.
My westering heart is sunset-stained
But the white where the languorous
lips had been
Of Ellaleen.
This marriage also came to an end when he became deeply involved with Helena Stegmann, a schoolteacher, who became his third wife.
A familiar photograph shows an ebullient Bosman walking between Ella and Helena in a city street, all three smiling.
Because women could not provide Bosman with the longed-for transcendental experience, he created it for himself in his stories. When his disappointment became acute, he lashed out in satire, or wove tales about women being betrayed or being the betrayers.
#
DRIEKA AND THE MOON
Yet the people of the Marico thought well of his stories, which many have read. In answer to my question, Did he write truthfully of life in the bushveld? they would say invariably, “Ja, dit was ons.”
No death could have been more inopportune than his, which took place on October 14, 1951, after a house-warming party for his new home in Johannesburg.
Of course, those of us who love him have never really believed in his death. His friend Gordon Vorster insists: ” He is part of our scene and part of our culture; and those ephemeral things – culture and poetry – are perhaps spoken on the wind and blown away easily and yet they are the most permanent things. Much more permanent than any of your factories, any of your buildings or any of your great cities. Because it is a permanence of the spirit; and that is the only permanence that a nation really has.”
His friends thought it typically Bosmanesque to defer a housewarming party until they had lived in the house for almost three-quarters of a year.
The Friday night of the party there was such a terrible storm that guests were marooned overnight; and some of the cars had to be dug out the next morning. With no proper rest, and sustained only by stimulants such as cigarettes and Coca-cola, he managed to work his 2 pm to 2 am shift to get the Sunday Express out on schedule. But even as people were settling down to read it, his brother-in-law Andrè was rushing him to Edenvale hospital.
“Put down: ‘Born Kuils River, died Edenvale Hospital,’” he advised the clerk taking his particulars. The doctors roared with laughter and pronounced him fit to go home, where he collapsed later that day never to regain consciousness. His words were not only prophetic, they were the perfect Bosman ending.
#NETT WORTH:
INVENTORY OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES:
| ASSETS: | SELF: | SPOUSE: | COMBINED: |
| Accounts receivable
Cash in bank (Current & savings) Securities (Current market value) Personal property (Cars, home furnishings, silver, clothing, jewellery) Residence (Current market value) Cash value of insurance Employee benefits Business interests Miscellaneous |
|||
| TOTAL: | R | R | R |
| LIABILITIES: | SELF: | SPOUSE: | COMBINED: |
| Accounts payable
Loans (notes to banks, insurance policy loans, etc) Taxes Charitable pledges Leases/Instalment sales |
|||
| TOTAL: | R | R | R |
| NET WORTH (ASSETS LESS LIABILITIES) | R | R | R |
Transport: 5-7 %
Clothing: 10 %
Entertainment: 4-6 %
of Nett Income
DIRK SE PLEK:
PROGRAM:D.J.OPPERMAN:
1. Edms Bpk
2. Biografie
3. Met Apologie
4. Digter
5. Te klip om te boom
6. Stad in die mis
7. Drakin
8. Bouquet
9. Dank
10. Wrewelwiel
11. Draaikewers
12. Twee stede
13. Vrees van die arbeiders
1. EDMS.BPK.
Ek het ‘n stukkie grond gekoop
met melkhout op; dit afgekamp
en teen die hek ‘n naam geverf
sodat verbygangers besef:
Dis Dirk se erf.
Janfiskaal sit op my melkhoutboom,
sit op ‘n kruin, sit op ‘n rots,
en proklameer in sy lied
soggens en saans luidkeels:
“Dis my gebied.”
Bakkapel glip uit my melkhoutbos,
verby die kruin, verby die rots,
en teken op sandkolle waar hy kom
oral in ouderwetse skrif:
“Alles… alles my eiendom.”
2.BIOGRAFIE
Diederik Johannes Opperman is gebore op 29 September 1914 op die plaas Geduld nr. 2 naby Dannhauser in die distrik Dundee, die oudste kind van sy vader met dieselfde naam en Heila Susanna Magdalena Botha.
Met sy eerste digbundel, Heilige Beeste,(1945) het hy ‘n vooraanstaande plek kom inneem – hoewel die ongewone daarin ook verset uitgelok het. Hy het ‘n opvallende eie stempel aan sy verse gegee en ‘n verantwoorde tegniese beheer openbaar – wat trouens reeds die aandag getrek het in die verspreide gedigte wat in Afrikaanse en Nederlandse tydskrifte verskyn het lank voordat hy ‘n bundel saamgestel het.
As letterkundige kritikus is D.J. Opperman vandag veral bekend
vir die standaardwerk oor die Digters van dertig . In die laat-dertiger- en veertigerjare was Opperman egter ook besonder aktief as resensent.
3.Met apologie
TEKS:
Op ‘ Sondagmiddag loop die weduwee Viljee
in swart geklee
met twee kolliehonde langs die see.
TEKS:
Op ‘ Sondagmiddag loop die weduwee Viljee
in swart geklee
met twee kolliehonde langs die see.
I.D. DU PLESSIS:
My twee windhonde draf
soos fezze langs die see;
ek vra Ali en Allah af
waar is meneer Viljee?
W.E.G.LOUW:
Droef kyk my oë
deur die trane heen,
soos amandelbloeisels
deur die eerste reën;
ek rou oor die duine,
my bleek hande waai,
en ‘n hond byt sy stert, soos hy draai, soos hy draai…
N.P. VAN WYK LOUW I:
O God! langs U skriklike water
stap die weduwee Viljee
met die weet: die waan en die waansin word later
twee honde wat draf waar sy tree.
UYS KRIGE:
O wee,
o wee,
in swart geklee
op ‘n Sondagmiddag
loop die we-
duwee
Viljee
met twee,
net twee
kolliehinde langs die see,
die see,
die see…
ERNST VAN HEERDEN:
In lanferwimpels tree,
haar wandelstok ‘n swaard,
die weduwee Viljee
in grandiose vaart
verby die sinderende kaai.
Waarheen die bruingepeesde spiere,
die slink en wulpse draai
van haar kaniene diere?
S.J. PRETORIUS:
O Here! Ek word so opgewonne
as ek die arme honne
so kaalpoot sien draf,
maar wat kan ek, we-
duwee Viljee,
doen met my pullover en staf?
4.DIGTER
Ek is gevang
en met die stryd
êrens in die ewigheid
op ‘n Ceylon verban
waar al my drange
na ‘n verlore vaderland
my dag en nag geëiland
En in die geel gloed van die kers
snags deur die smal poort
van die wonder elke woord
laat skik tot klein stellasies vers
wat groei tot boeg en mas
en takelwerk – en die uiteindelike
reis met die klein skip
geslote agter glas.
5. TE KLIP OM TE BOOM
Die titel moet as volledige sin lui: iets moet eers ten gronde gaan, grond word, sodat iets anders kan groei. Die ingewikkelde saakverhoudings is in ‘n saaklike, verwikkelde vers- en sintaktiese vorm gestel.
5. TE KLIP OM TE BOOM
Klip kan net van vorm verander (teel, meer word) deur te verbrokkel tot grond, d.w.s. deur meer klippigheid te word in kleiner vorm/
Klip kan net klip,
sy teel is onderverdeel
tot stomme klippertjies
duinend rondmeel./
Bome, daarenteen, kan progressief teel in meer en meer bome; dit maak ook klein boompies wat groot kan word/
Boom kan net boom,
word langer en ook swanger
tot singende boompies
voël om die voorsanger.
Maar, die bome wat so goed progressief kan teel, is afhanklik van die klip wat net regressief kan teel na meer klippigheid in kleiner vorm. Dit wil sê: vir groei is daar ook vernietiging nodig as voorwaarde. Die progressiewe kan alleen uit die regressiewe voortkom – weer ‘n geval van teendeligheid. En: iets wat vinnig ontwikkel soos die boom, is gewortel in iets wat stadig ontwikkel, soos die klip.
Maar voorwaar:
voor boom kan boom
moet klip eers klip,
en klip teel swaar
- glo miljoene jaar.
Met Opperman kry ons ware grootstadpoësie in Afrikaans, en dit bring ‘n heel nuwe woordeskat in ons digkuns. Die metaal-en-betondier word m.a.w. nou digterlik by die horings gepak:
6.STAD IN DIE MIS
Met gespanne spier
loop ek deur die mis
want om my sluip ‘n dier
onder wit duisternis;
ek hoor hom knor en in oop mote
waggel sy pilare-pote
en sy kantelende rug metaal;
op hoeke van die strate blink
sy oë bloedbelope,
en met sy hap sluit staal op staal.
Hy dig oor die liefde van die lewe sowel as die dood; hy sien elke nietigheidjie of onderdeel telkens in ‘n wyer verband:
7. DRAKIN
Sy lok jou nader,
maar jy vind
haar harder:
skub na skub
blinder sy haar toe:
buustebus,
balein,
borsrok,
step-in,
all-in-one
ietermago.
8.BOUQUET
Ek stuur aan jou
‘n ruiker rose
in fyn papier gevou;
dit gee aan my ‘n eindelose
kalm gevoel;
want na gisteraand voel ek miskien
sal jy my nie vandag wil sien.
Ek stuur aan jou
die vlekkelose
half-oop rose.
9.DANK
Ek bring aan jou die eerste vrugte van die land
met ingehoue vreugde en met dankbaarheid:
‘n mieliekop, lemoen of roos op skurwe hand
gedra as nuwe huldes van seisoen en tyd;
jaarliks die eerste piesangtros uit die vallei
waar gramadoelas was, omdat ek nou nog voel
sonder jou liefde is die graaf te swaar vir my
en val die reëns van die berge sonder doel.
10.WREWELWIEL
Man wil ‘n motor hê
motor wil ‘n nooi hê
nooi wil ‘n huis hê
huis wil ‘n hond hê
hond wil ‘n been hê
been wil ‘n gat hê
gat wil ‘n man hê
11. DRAAIKEWERS
Hoe lank bly ons in hierdie kring
se dol en soet betowering
van ek en jy, van ek en jy?
Dit kring om jou, dit kring om my
voortvlugtend in ‘n fyn aanvoel
van wisselende drif en doel.
O ek en jy! O ek en … skielik
uit mekaar verskrik …
O waar is jy? O waar is jy?
Dit kring om jou, dit kring om my,
met kring en teenkring mettertyd
tot ‘n verwikkelde onenigheid.
O sal dit ooit ‘n einde kry:
Die kring om jou , die kring om my
oor wye vlakke van die tyd
in malende eentonigheid?
Met duld en ongeduld en om en om
sal daar ‘n rus ooit uit die onrus kom?
Hoe lank bly ons in hierdie kring
se dol en brak verbittering
van ek en jy, van ek en … skielik
uit mekaar verskrik …
O waar is jy? O waar is jy?
Dit kring om jou, dit kring om my,
en kringend gaan om jou en my
die tyd verby, die tyd verby.
12. TWEE STEDE
Onmagtig moes ek met gespanne drade
uitgryp oor die skeiding tussen my en jou,
gryp met die swart draf van pale
teen die heuwels uit,
die wit vlug
van briewe deur die lug
en treine wat deur tonnels fluit.
Uiteindelik is ons nouer aan mekaar verbonde,
maar tussen my en jou ruis altyd nog
riviere, stiltes en afgronde.
13.VREES VAN DIE ARBEIDER
Bitter dwaal ek met die skande
dat my moeë en vereelte hande
nie die dinge bring aan jou
wat jy van my kan eis as vrou;
jou oë wat in stiller ure wys
jy droom oor ‘n “verlore paradys”!
In my groei die grou vermoede
jy het my in my groot armoede
sonder liefde sonder haat
al maande, jare reeds verlaat.
14.FABEL
Onder misbredie
in die reën uitgestrek,
voer twee erdwurms
‘n spits gesprek
oor “ek” en “jy”
en “my kontrei”
oor “hier was eerste
my krot van klei”.
‘n Toevallige graaf
het toevallig gesak,
die twee erdwurms
middeldeur gekap:
Vier erdwurms
ruk slymerig voort-
die “ek’s” en die “jy’s”
twyfel waar hulle hoort.
In digter bredie
by die herontmoet
het elkeen beleef
homself gegroet.
HERMAN CHARLES BOSMAN – TELLME ABOUT THE MOON:
When I last set foot in South Africa the one man in it I really wanted to meet died the afternoon I stepped on the quay at Cape Town. Weeks later somebody handed me a copy of a South African review called TREK which carried a memorial article about him. It had a photograph too: striking light-coloured eyes – personable – an Afrikaner face; elegant trilby hat – a smile part sardonic, part rueful – a precipitation of gaiety and intelligence. It was a good photograph.#
Those who knew or knew of Bosman – since his death he has been something of a cult among the young intellectuals in Johannesburg – speak of his wildness, charm and unexpectedness. His conversation exhilirated, he saw things from the unconventional, sometimes the uncomfortable angle: a realist who wished to be a romantic.
#
Of Afrikaner stock, he was born at Kuils Rivier, near Cape Town, in 1905. However, the family soon moved to the Witwatersrand, where his father, a miner, was killed in an accident.
As soon as he had taken his degree he married # and accepted a dead-end teaching post in the desolate Groot Marico district of the Transvaal. He spent a year alone in this remote corner of the veld, teaching the children of a thinly-sprinkled population of Afrikaner cattle-smugglers and frontiersmen who belonged to a pastoral society almost completely insulated from the twentieth century. These old Afrikaner farmers, living without telephones, radio, books, or the cinema, were naturally accomplished raconteurs with a fund of material drawn from generations of gossip and the events, comic or tragic, of life on remote farmsteads. Himself an Afrikaner, Bosman was easily able to identify himself imaginatively with their self-sufficient pre-industrial way of life. The were the last remnants of the Trekkers.
#
WILLEM PRINSLOO’S PEACH BRANDY
Returning to Johannesburg, Bosman walked straight into trouble. His mother had meanwhile re-married. Her husband, a Scottish widower, had a grown family of his own: one night, shortly after he came back, some sort of a clash took place between Bosman and one of his step-brothers in a moonlit bedroom. Bosman picked up a hunting-rifle and loosed off. # The stepbrother was killed on the spot. # As a result Bosman was arrested and sent for trial. # At the age of twenty-one he heard himself being sentenced to death.
#
MURDER
For a month he waited in the condemned cell, which he shared with another prisoner. This man was executed. At the last moment arrived a reprieve for Bosman; his sentence had been commuted tofour tear’s hard labour. It was in Swartklei goal that Bosman began writing the first of his stories about the Marico farmers.
#
DRIEKA AND THE MOON
Yet the people of the Marico thought well of his stories, which many have read. In answer to my question, Did he write truthfully of life in the bushveld? they would say invariably, “Ja, dit was ons.”
His friends thought it typically Bosmanesque to defer a housewarming party until they had lived in the house for almost three-quarters of a year.
The Friday night of the party there was such a terrible storm that guests were marooned overnight; and some of the cars had to be dug out the next morning. With no proper rest, and sustained only by stimulants such as cigarettes and Coca-cola, he managed to work his 2 pm to 2 am shift to get the Sunday Express out on schedule. But even as people were settling down to read it, his brother-in-law Andrè was rushing him to Edenvale hospital.
“Put down: ‘Born Kuils River, died Edenvale Hospital,’” he advised the clerk taking his particulars. The doctors roared with laughter and pronounced him fit to go home, where he collapsed later that day never to regain consciousness. His words were not only prophetic, they were the perfect Bosman ending.
Of course, those of us who love him have never really believed in his death. His friend Gordon Vorster insists: ” He is part of our scene and part of our culture; and those ephemeral things – culture and poetry – are perhaps spoken on the wind and blown away easily and yet they are the most permanent things. Much more permanent than any of your factories, any of your buildings or any of your great cities. Because it is a permanence of the spirit; and that is the only permanence that a nation really has.”#
Puppet play script
RAP:
Hello kids and settle down
for we bring smiles and not a frown
we tell stories about knights
and a dragon that can spit and bites
CHORUS:
We’ll meet a boxer, name of Rocky
But for our story he’ll be Crocky
He’s been hit a little bit hard
that makes him not so very smart
We’ll talk about three little pigs
and a wolf who is one’s honeybunch
will he take her to his digs
or will he have her for his lunch?
but first before we start the show
listen to what you ought to know:
We hope that you enjoy the show
so mister soundman go-go-go
AGENDA:
ANCHOR 1: Good day and welcome to Agenda. My name is Speek Robinson: Tonight we have an indepth look at life in a school for knights in the 51st Dragon, an interview with Crocky, a very beat-up ex-boxer, and another episode in our serial: The Wolf and the three little pigs, also known as the Bacon and the Beautiful. But first the news, over to Pêllie Short:
ANCHOR 2: Thank you Speek. The case of the cracked egg-shell continues: after weeks of negotiations, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men decided to call it a day. Mr Humpty Dumpty of Wonderland, who had a great fall off a wall recently and cracked his skull, cannot be saved and is to be cooked for breakfast tomorrow morning. He will leave behind three omelettes, a chicken and a scrambled egg. Also, we are still searching for two children: Hansel and Gretel has been missing for some days now and is believed captured. The chief suspect, Ms Wynona Witch could not be traced for comment. And now for the weather, over to you Speek:
ANCHOR 1: Thank You Pêllie. It should be warm in places, with possible coolness to cold weather in others. Some rain is expected in areas and in others there will be none. From the North Pole comes the pleasant news that a cold front is expected wich should arrive in time for Christmas. And now, for an on-the-spot report on the 51st dragon, over to Professor Wiener Schnitzel, up above our heads in Shadow-land.
ASST PROF: Thank you Speek……
…………………………………………………..
After 51st Dragon:
ANCHOR 2: And after that serious drama, time for a quick advertisement. Do you have no energy? Is your life an endless swinging from tree to tree? Do you feel like a real baboon at times? For fast relief, try Cashew nuts, the nut to turn the mildest of monkeys into an orang-utang! You’ll go ape about it! With us in the studio we have a real live hero. Speek, will you please show in mister Crocky, flat-face, Kid:
ANCHOR 1: Thank you Pêllie….
…………………………………………………..
After Crocky:
ANCHOR 2: And now, for the 3 099 456th episode of The wolf and the three little pigs:
WOLF: Also known as the Bacon and the Beautifu-u-u-u-ul. And I, Wolf at the door III is of course, the beautifu-u-u-ul!
CROOK: Oh Carolwine, I wish you would stop turning this place into a sty! Look at this mess!
CAROLWHINE: Oh Crook! I love him so. This Wolf at the door III with that lean and hungry look about him. When he looks at you with those hungry eyes…He turns my knees to….to…
CROOK: Bacon?
CAROLWHINE: Oh yes, bacon! But you know Crook, that Aikona! She’s always making eyes at him, and she tells me he’s not my type! She says he will have me for breakfast! What a nasty thing to say! She says his mouth drools and his breath smells and she says I’ll make a real vienna of myself. I said i loved him sooo and he holds me close and growls sweet nothings in my ear… and then she asked me if I ever heard of someone called Little Red Riding Hood…. and I didn’t understand it at all. I think she’s jealous and she is a real pig.
CROOK: That’s easy for you to say. Well dear Carolwhine, if you want a wolf for keeps, it’s no skin off my back….
AIKONA: Aikona!
TOGETHER: It’s Aikona!
AIKONA: Yes, It’s me! I heard those words! I tell you that wolf is bad news! He not only has a taste for you Carolwhine, but he also fancies a bit of Crook and a bit of me. And you know what I said wen he asked me for a walk in the dark? I said…
Together: Aikona!
AIKONA: How did you guess? Anyway, I told him I come from a long line of prime pork and would not be seen in the company of such a low-life creature. Why, my great uncle Porky II spent his last days at the table of a king.
CROOK: Yes, with an apple in his mouth.
AIKONA: I heard that! even so….Oh WOLF!
WOLF: I heard a pig call my name! I am Wolf at the door III and I’ve been kept waiting long enough! Oh where is that lovely little Carolwhine of mine! Oh where are her chops, her hams, her beautiful little bacons…
CROOK: Ag stop hamming and get on with it.Look you’ve made Aikona faint already.
WOLF: I am here to pick up my lunch. Eh.. I mean my love .. my life! My Carolwhine!
CAROLWHINE: Oh Wolf!
CROOK: Now look, you’ve made her faint as well. Ag nee sies you bad-smelling brute! You could at least have brought some mud with you. We are only pigs here you know. Well cowboy :You can take your stupid toothy grin and woolly face and bad breath, and drive off into the sunset, and make it chops-chops okay!
WOLF: OwwOOOOOwowOOOO! I’ll miss her soOOOO!
ANCHOR 1: Will Crook find a way to accept Wolf into the sty? Will Aikona stop behaving like a .. well like a pig? Will Carolwhine find true love at last, or will she be served for breakfast? Tune in tomorrow for the next breath-taking episode of The Wolf and the three little pigs also known as the Bacon and …
WOLF: the Beautifu-u-u-ul! And remember, who is the Beautifu-u-u-ul! I Wolf at the Door, is the Beautifu-u-u-uu-l!
ANCHOR 2: Well That was Agenda for tonight: We end with our main story: Good news: The missing children, Hansel and Gretel have been found. They arrived home on the back of a swan ten minutes ago. And with that bit of good news it’s Goodbye from me: Pêllie Short…
ANCHOR 1: And From me Speek Erasmus.
TOGETHER: Have a banana: Pipsqueak!
…………………………………………………..
Script: THE FIFTY-FIRST DRAGON
THE FIFTY-FIRST DRAGON
by Heywood Broun
Freely adapted by Renier van Loggerenberg (c) 1992
ASST PROF:Good day children and gather round, for today you will hear the story of Gawaine le Coeur Hardy, the greatest hero inthe history of the school for knights. It is a story about magic words, bravery, self-confidence and the fifty-first dragon.
CLASS:Gawaine! Gawaine! Come on! Come on out! It’s jousting-class! Come and wrestle with us! Come out and break your neck like a man! Come on you sissy!
HEADMASTER:Assistant professor of Pleasaunce, come over here will you?
ASST PROF:Yes, right away mr Headmaster.
HEADMASTER:Concerning the case of ehm Gawaine le Coeur-Hardy.
ASST PROF:The case of Gawaine le Coeur-Hardy.
HEADMASTER:You don’t have to repeat everything I say. Right?
ASST PROF:Right.
HEADMASTER:I said don’t repeat everything I say. Right?
ASST PROF:Right… Yes sir.
HEADMASTER:Good. Well where was I?
ASST PROF:Gawaine le Coeur-Hardy, sir.
HEADMASTER:Yes, a very unpromising young man.
ASST PROF:A very … indeed sir. The least promising of the lot.
HEADMASTER:He is a tall and sturdy chap, but I believe he lacks ehm..
ASST PROF:Spirit, sir?
HEADMASTER:That’s right Assistant professor. The boy lacks spirit. Why I believe he hides in the woods when the jousting class is called, although his companions and members of the faculty told him the lances are padded and the horses are no more than ponies and the fields are unusually soft for late autumn. Is that true?
ASST PROF:Yes sir, he doesn’t seem too enthusiastic too go out and break his neck like a man…
HEADMASTER:Precisely. The boy lacks spirit. And that leaves us with only one thing to do.
ASST PROF:Expulsion sir?
HEADMASTER:No, I think I’ll train him to slay dragons.
ASST PROF:DRAGONS! I mean dragons sir? He might be killed.
HEADMASTER:So he might. But… we must consider the greater good. We are responsible for the formation of this lad’s character.
ASST PROF:Are… are the dragons particularly bad this year?
HEADMASTER:I’ve never known them worse. Up in the hills to the south last week they killed a number of peasants, two cows and a prize pig. And if this dry spell holds there’s no telling when they may start a forest fire simply by breathing around indiscriminately.
ASST PROF:Would a.. ahem any refund of the ..uh tuition fee be necessary in case of an accident to young Coeur-Hardy?
HEADMASTER:No, that’s all covered in the contract. But as a matter of fact he won’t be killed. Before I send him up in the hills I’m going to give him a magic word.
ASST PROF:That’s a very good idea. Sometimes they work wonders.
HEADMASTER:Very well then. Start the lessons!
ASST PROF:(to audience):From that day on Gawaine specialised in dragons. In the mornings there were long lectures on the history, anatomy, manners and customs of dragons. Gawaine did not distinguish himself in these studies. He had the marvellously versatile gift for forgetting things. But in the afternoons he showed to better advantage, for then he would go down to the south meadow and practice with a battle-ax. Och it was a thrilling sight to see Gawaine charging across the field toward the dummy paper dragon….
GAWAINE:A murrain on thee! Away with higher petrol prices!
Fly now! Pay later!
ASST PROF:It never took him more than one stroke to behead the dummy dragon. Gradually his task was made more difficult. Paper gave way to papier-mâché and finally to wood, but even the toughest of these dummy dragons had no terrors for Gawaine. One sweep of the ax always did the business. There were those who said that when practice went on until dusk and the dragons threw long, fantastic shadows across the meadow, Gawaine did not charge so impetuously nor shout so loudly….
GAWAINE:Oh deary me… Oh my goodness, Oh please don’t kill me…..
ASST PROF:It is possible there was malice in this charge. At any rate, the Headmaster decided by the end of June that it was time for the test.
HEADMASTER:Come on in mr Le Coeur Hardy . Sit down. As you know, only last night a dragon had come close to the school and ate some of our lettuce! Lettuce! Do you know what that means! No, of course you don’t! Anyway the faculty has decided that you are ready. When you leave you will take your diploma and collect a new battle-ax. Now sit down boy! Have a cigarette. Oh, I know it’s against the rules, but after all, you have received your preliminary degree. You are no longer a boy. You are a man. Tomorrow you will go into the world, the great world of achievement. Match?
GAWAINE:No thank you sir, I’ve got one of my own.
HEADMASTER:Why you’re puffing away as if you’ve been smoking for many years. Here you have learned the theories of life, but after all, life is not a matter of theories. Life is a matter of facts. It calls on the young and the old alike to face these facts, even though they are hard and sometimes unpleasasnt. Your problem, for example, is to slay dragons.
GAWAINE:Th-th-they say that those dragons down in the s-s-south wood are five hundred feet l-l-long.
HEADMASTER:Stuff and nonsense! The curate saw one last week from the top of Arthur’s Hill. THe dragon was sunning himself down in the valley. The curate didn’t have an opportunity to look at him very long because he uhm felt it was his duty to hurry back to make a report to me. He said the monster – or shall I say, the big lizard? – wasn’t an inch over two hundred feet. Now come back mister le Coeur Hardy! Sit down! The size has nothing at all to do with it. You’ll find the big ones even easier than the little ones. They’re far slower on their feet and less aggressive, I’m told. Besides, before you go I’m going to equip you in such a fashion that you need have no fear of all the dragons in the world.
GAWAINE:I-I-I-I’d like an enchanted cap, sir.
HEADMASTER:What’s that?
GAWAINE:A cap to make me disappear.
HEADMASTER:O-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho. You mustn’t believe all those old-wives’ stories. There isn’t such a thing. A cap to make you disappear indeed. What would you do with it? You haven’t evev appeared yet. Why, my boy, you could walk from here to London, and nobody would so much as look at you. You’re nodoby. You couldn’t be more invisible than that. Now stop that whimpering immediately. Don’t worry lad; I’ll give you something much better than an enchanted cap. I’m going to give you a …. magic word. All you have to do is repeat this magic charm once and no dragon can possibly harm a hair of your head. You can cut off his head at your leisure. Let me just glance at this book… Sometimes… the charm is a whole phrase or even a sentence. I might for instance, give you ‘To make the” – no, that might not do. Ithink a single word would be best for dragons.
GAWAINE:A short word.
HEADMASTER:It can’t be too short or it wouldn’t be potent. There isn’t so much hurry as all that. Ah here’s a splendid magic word: ‘Rumplesnitz.’ Rum-ple-snitz. Do you think you can learn that?
GAWAINE:Sumpleritz, no… simple rutz, no sumple ritz, rimple snutz, risplesmutz, rumplesnutz, rimplesnitz, rumplesnitz! That’s it! Rumplesnitz And if I say Rumplesnitz, the dragon can’t possibly hurt me?
HEADMASTER:Yes. If you only say eh-Rumplesnitz, you are perfectly safe.
ASST PROF:Now girls and boys, do we all know the magic word? Yes, that’s right… Now whenever you see a dragon and Gawaine doesn’t remember the magic word, you will all say:… That’s good! The next morning, the headmaster ssaw Gawaine to the edge of the forest and pointed him to the direction in which he should proceed:…
HEADMASTER:Now then my boy, you look as if you haven’t slept a wink! All the excitement of your big day, I dare say! Now look there, there about a mile away, can you see the cloud of steam over that open meadow?
GAWAINE:Rumplesnitz, Rumplesnitz, Rumplesnitz…Yes sir…
HEADMASTER:Now my boy, I assure you that under that cloud of steam you will find a dragon. Off you go then!
GAWAINE:Rumplesnitz, I mean, yes sir, ah goodbye sir. I ah wonder if it would be better to approach the dragon on the as in practice, or shall I walk slowly to it. Rumplsnitz. Ooh I better remember… Rumple snitz
DRAGON 1:FEE FI FO FUM! I smel the blood of an Engelsman! I am the meanest, worstest, biggest, ugliest, hottest, most baddest dragon in the whole world. Float like a dragon, sting like a – a -a dragon that’s me, ha-ha! Come out, come out wherever you are, I want to braai you with my cadac-breath, come on , I want to make a tjoppie-tjommie of you!
GAWAINE:Oh g-g-g-g-g-g-goodness ! It is such a large dragon… and and and it does seem d-d-decidedly aggressive. It l-l-looks like a gigantic t-teapot gone mad! Oh NO! I’ve forgotten the magic word! Please someone help me! It’s a- uh–kli-l-pum- Rumplesnitz!!…. Good heavens, off popped his hed! I must say it is even easier to kill a real dragon than a wooden one if you only say ‘Rumplesnitz’.
ASST PROF:Gawaine brought the ears home, and a small section of the tail. Oh we were so proud of him…but the Headmaster wisely kept him from being spoiled by insisting that he go on with his work. Every clear day Gawaine rose at dawn and went out to kill dragons.
GAWAINE:Hi ho hi ho It’s off to work I go, I’ll kill and slay a dragon a day Hi ho hi ho, hi ho hi ho….
ASST PROF:Such a fine boy. The Headmaster kept him at home when it rained, because he said the woods were damp and unhealthy at such times and he didn’t want the boy to run needless risks. Few good days passed in which Gawaine failed to get a dragon. On one particularly fortunate day he killed three, a husband and a wife and a visiting relative. Gradually he developed a technique. Pupils who sometimes watched him from the hill-tops a long way off said he often allowed the dragon to come within a few feet before he said ‘Rumplesnitz’. He came to say it with a mocking sneer. Occasionally he did stunts. Once when an excursion party from London was watching he went into action with his right hand tied behind his back. The dragon’s head came off just as easily. As Gawaine’s record of killings mounted higher and higher, the Headmaster found it impossible to keep him completely in hand. He fell into the habit of stealing out at night and engaging in long drinking bouts at the village tavern. It was after such a party that he rose a little before dawn one fine August morning and started out after his fiftieth dragon.
GAWAINE:Oh (hic) If the ocean wash whishky, and I (hic) wash a dragon, I’d be sho shcared of Gawaine, I’d shtay on the wagon (hic)…
ASST PROF:His head was heavy and his mind sluggish. He was heavy in other respects as well, for he had adopted the somewhat vulgar practice of wearing his medals, ribbons and all, when he went out dragon hunting. The decorations began on his chest and ran all the way down to his abdomen. Thay must have weighed at least eight pounds.
DRAGON 2:Oh dearie me, I was warned not to come too close to this meadow. I have heard of this knight. I know there is no salvation in the quickest thrust of the head, for this hunter is protected by a magic spell… Oh dearie me, but I have lived long and well, and my insurance is paid up, so I’ll just wait and hopefully something will turn up.
GAWAINE (whistling):Well you are a fair sized dragon aren’t you. Ugh you must be the ugliest, most hideous monster I’ve ever seen. Come out and fight me like a man! Coward. Well if you’re not going to move then I will come to you. I’ll just say:…. Oh dear, oh dearie me.
DRAGON 2:What’s the matter?
GAWAINE:I’ve forgotten the magic word.
DRAGON 2:What a pity. So that was the secret. It doesn’t seem quite sporting to me, all this magic stuff, you know. Not cricket, as we used to say when I was a little dragon; but after all, that’s a matter of opinion.
GAWAINE:Well uhm er..
DRAGON 2:Could I possibly be of any assistance? What’s the first letter of the magic word?
GAWAINE:Well uhm, I think it begins with an ‘r’.
DRAGON 2:Let’s see; that doesn’t tell us much, does it? What sort of a word is this? Is it an epithet, do you think?
GAWAINE:(nods)
DRAGON 2:Why, of course, reactionary Republican. Not? RRRadical royalist? M-m. Robust receptionist? Nope. Well, then we’d better get down to business. Will you surrender?
GAWAINE:W-what will you do if I surrender?
DRAGON 2:Why, I’ll eat you.
GAWAINE:And if I don’t surrender?
DRAGON 2:I’ll eat you just the same.
GAWAINE:Then it doesn’t mean any difference, doesit?
DRAGON 2:It does to me. I’d rather you didn’t surrender. You’d taste much better if you didn’t. You see, if you don’t surrender you’ll taste better because you’ll die game. Now die!
GAWAINE:(Hits dragon’s head off) Oh dear me. I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz’. I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz. Oh dear, dear me. I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz’. I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz.
ASST PROF:Gawaine didn’t remain frightened very long after the death of the dragon. His mood was one of wonder. He was enormously puzzled. He was sure that he didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz’ and yet there was no question that he had killed the dragon. In fact, he had never killed one so utterly. Never before had he driven a head for anything like the same distance. Twenty-five yards was perhaps the best previous record. All the way back to the knight school he kept rumbling about in his mind seeking an explanation for what had occured. He went to the headmaster….
GAWAINE:I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz’
HEADMASTER:Ha-ha-ha-ha. I’m glad you found out. It makes you ever so much more of a hero. Don’t you see that? Now you know that it was you who killed all these dragons and not that foolish little word ‘Rumplesnitz’.
GAWAINE:Then it wasn’t a magic word after all?
HEADMASTER:Of corse not. You ought to be too old for such foolishness. There isn’t any such thing as a magic word.
GAWAINE:But you told me it was magic. You said it was magic and now you say it isn’t.
HEADMASTER:It wasn’t magic in a literal sense, but it was much more wonderful than that. The word gave you confidence. It took away your fears. If I hadn’t told you that, you might have been killed the very first time. It was your battle-ax that did the trick.
GAWAINE:If I hadn’t of hit ‘em all mighty hard and fast any one of ‘em might have crushed me like a, like a
HEADMASTER:Egg shell.
GAWAINE:Like a egg shell.
HEADMASTER:An egg shell.
GAWAINE:Like a egg shell. Like a egg shell.
ASST PROF:All through the evening meal people who sat near him heard him muttering.
GAWAINE:Like a egg shell. Like a egg shell.
ASST PROF:The next day was clear, but Gawaine did not get up at dawn. Indeed, it was almost noon when the principal found him cowering in bed, with the clothes pulled over his head.
HEADMASTER:Come on, you lazy-bones! Into the forest with you! You’ll be all right as soon as you get a couple more dragons under your belt! It would be a shame to stop such a fine run. Why, counting that one yesterday, you’ve killed fifty dragons. See there, over that thicket hangs a meagre cloud of steam! It is obviously quite a small dragon. Off you go. See you soon!
ASST PROF:But Gawaine did not come back that night, or the next. In fact he never came back. Some weeks afterward brave spirits from the school explored the thicket, but they could find nothing to remind them of Gawaine except the metal parts of his medals. Even the ribbons had been devoured. We all agreed that it would be just as well not to tell the school how Gawaine had achieved his record and still less how he came to die. We believed it might have a bad effect on school spirit. Accordingly, Gawaine has lived in the memory of the school as its greatest hero. No visitor succeeds in leaving the building today without seeing the great shield which hangs on the wall of the dining hall. Fifty pairs of dragons’ ears are mounted upon the shield and underneath in gilt letters is “Gawaine le Coeur-Hardy. He killed fifty dragons” And you know, the record has never been equalled.
A2 Drama and Theatre Studies: Structured Record Advice
The following questions are intended to help you to deepen the level of analysis that you are putting onto your sheets. The format of the answers is up to you. You may if you wish keep a set of pointers on the sheet which will remind you of the actual point you wish to make in a full essay, or you may wish to write the point in more detail. Whichever, you must make sure that you can use the sheets to answer the questions that come up in Unit 4.
1. How did your role emerge and how was it communicated?
This is so you can write about how you played the character(s). Are you using a physical approach, a verbal approach or something from your own experience. What can you identify with in the character? What is causing you problems and how are you trying to overcome this? How are you determining the walk and gestures of the character? What about the way that they speak? Are you analysing their attitude and motivation? Have you written a small biography for them? What about the use of costumes or props that help to define character. You also need to consider how the character speaks, vocabulary as well as speech patterns.
2. In what way was the stimulus material developed through the drama process?
This should include the research that you did and the ideas that you had as a consequence of this research. The ideas that you came up with on character, structure, design, staging, costume, movement, language, props, venue, ways of working, etc. You can also include the ideas that you suggested but were not used or were tried but didn’t work as this is all part of your analysis of the development process.
The key is to identify how the piece developed as a result of the initial input of ideas. In particular, mention anything which may have been suggested at the very beginning as an initial response and shaped your early work, but later changed as the piece matured.
3. How did group skills contribute to the development of the drama?
Be honest here. There is no need to vent your anger and frustration, but at the same time you should be realistic. Try and write about people’s different working patterns and their strengths and weaknesses. How were the various tasks allocated within the group? Are any of the group particularly good at devising or scripting? How did the group tackle the issue of directing? How did the group contribute to your own personal development?
4. In what ways were acting techniques or design elements and dramatic form used to achieve the intended effect?
Note the emphasis of the question here. You look at the rehearsal process and the final piece. Again the need to show a link between what you are attempting to “tell” your audience and how you are trying to do that is vital.
Genre: burlesque, comedy (greek, roman, black comedy, satire, romantic, commedia del arte), documentary theatre, epic theatre, expressionsim, farce, formalism, kabuki, liturgical drama, masque, morality play, music theatre, melodrama, naturalism, noh play, pantomime, pastoral, political theatre, physical theatre, realism, revue, romanticism, symbolism, theatre of the absurd, theatre of cruelty, theatre of fact, tragedy, tragi-comedy, vaudeville, verse drama and the well made play.
Form : soliloquy, monologue, dialogue, narration/narrative, episodic, cinematic( voice over, flashback, montage) , aside, physicalisation, montage, song, heightened language, plot and sub plot, blank verse, chorus, mime, alienation, repetition, simultaneity, tableau, parallel plotting, act/scene structure and thought tracking.The key here is to explain why things either worked or not. What made the form or genre so useful for communicating your ideas?
5. How did the group plan for a range of responses from the audience?
Back to the key element again. You should know how you want the audience to react to your piece. Ask friends what they thought and then try and identify why it worked, if it did, or why it didn’t. How were you trying to create the reaction that you were after from the audience? You must be aware of the way in which you are seeking to use the various elements of drama in order to communicate to the audience. Everything in your drama should be planned and considered for the effect it will have on the audience. But remember, people view things differently. We all come from different backgrounds, expectations, experiences and cultural reference points. This affects the way we process and understand ideas, concepts and symbols. Don’t despair if they missed the point, the emphasis here is on you being able to show that you are fully aware of the process.
6.How did rehearsals and the production process contribute to the final performance?
What devising techniques were you using in order to develop your piece? What challenges did you face during the process and how did you overcome these? After the preformance has taken place, look back, what issues were you worried about in the process of devising and how did these issues finally turn out ? If you were working towards a particular effect/genre/atmosphere in your piece, how did you try and create this in rehearsal? If you showed work in progress to your teacher or to others, how did this affect your final performance? The last few sessions running up to the performance are usually very important as it is then that the piece really begins to take shape. If you have a dress and/or technical rehearsal, what issues are raised by them and how did these turn out?
7. Explain how research material was gathered and used.
Fairly straight forward this one. The key is to trace the initial idea from the relevant stimulus and show how it developed into a fully fledged piece of the drama. You can talk about how the group shared and used source material even ideas that seemed good but somehow couldn’t be shaped into something that was part of the drama.
8. Evaluate the ways in which ideas were communicated to an audience.
This is one of the many questions that relates to an essential principle in Drama, namely that of the link between what you are communicating and how you are going about it. I would start here with a statement of the main dramatic question of your piece and then a statement of the dramatic question highlighted in any sub scenes. Obviously if you can’t do this then you haven’t thought about what you were doing in any detail so go away and do it now. Once you have the MDQ. You can then identify which techniques ( genre and forms ) you are using in order to present the MDQ. Try and establish a clear link between the way you were working and what you wanted to communicate. If a particular style or form seemed appropriate then you need to say why. Cover all the applicable elements of drama i.e. lighting, costume, props, language, staging etc.
9. Explore the impact of social, cultural and/or historical conditions on the work.
This is linked to the MDQ. What was your initial knowledge of the subject matter? How did research affect this? Remember, if you don’t have an opinion on the subject matter of your material then you are not able to say anything meaningful to your audience. What are the existing opinions of your group and your audience on the theme that you are tackling in your piece? Is there an historical perspective? Are you challenging this? Are you using any historical material or theatre styles? All pieces are influenced by your own social and cultural backgrounds.
10. Indicate how the influences and ideas of other playwrights and/or directors,designers and performers have been used.
Again a question which seeks to give insight into how the piece came about. Anything can be included in this section. Make sure that you chart the link between the source and what this became in your devised piece. You may include a person you know who provided a starting point for a character or perhaps an experience of your own which was useful in helping you to develop the piece as well as the more obvious articles, shows and pictures that you have seen. The course is meant to be an holistic one so if you can refer to work you have done in other sections of the course, so much the better.
Rehearsal 19 Nov 08
Well done everyone – it’s starting to look like a play. Now stay focussed, listen to each other on stage & keep it real!
You’ve been tangoed!
A2 Drama performance
Hi Guys – 19th OK then? Sean – please ensure that the posters get printed – the cast – run through, run through, run through
