Abstract
Spirituality and poetry: To meet and to seek. This article represents a commemoration lecture in honour of Professor Andries van Aarde. In the article, Lina Spies, emerita professor in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at the University of Stellenbosch, an eminent Afrikaans poet, recounts her spiritual journey as seeker. Spies views her emerging religiosity as the result of her encounters in real life and in poetry. The poem as encounter serves as a dynamic occurrence in which one both searches and finds. The poetry of secular poets like Pablo Neruda receives a religious dimension when they give expression to the ‘vastness of the universe’ as Neruda does in his poem La poesíe (translated as Poetry). For the literary-theoretical foundation of her argument, Spies employs the insights of Camille Paglia, professor of Humanities and Media Studies at The University of Arts in Philadelphia, as especially found in the introduction to her book, Break, blow, burn.Spies’ article focuses on the author’s spirituality as witnessed in her poems and in her translation of the diary of the Holocaust victim, Anne Frank. This spirituality is eschewed from Christian orthodoxy, on the one hand, and simultaneously influenced by the novels of the American-Jewish writer Chaim Potok, which evoked her interest in the American Jewish society and also made her conscious of the Jewishness of Jesus. The author’s spiritual journey of meeting and seeking reaches a peak in her poem Ontdaan (translated as Unsettled), on her reading of Andries van Aarde’s book Fatherless in Galilee: Jesus as child of God.
Highlights
Spirituality and poetry: To meet and to seek
The poem as encounter serves as a dynamic occurrence in which one both searches and finds
The poetry of secular poets like Pablo Neruda receives a religious dimension when they give expression to the ‘vastness of the universe’ as Neruda does in his poem La poesíe
Summary
Dit is die gedig La poesía (Die poësie) uit sy bundel Memorial de Isla Negra, wat hy geskryf het met ’n warm hart en ’n innerlike vrygewigheid toe hy op ‘n eiland aan die Chileense kus van die Stille Oseaan tot rus gekom het. Hy het dit net eenmaal geskilder maar elke doek was Het straatje http://www.hts.org.za na die eindelose ruimte van meditatiewe stilte waarin die blosende jongvrou aandagtig kant klos, die astronoom met stipte blik eerbiedig sy hemelbol aanraak en by die venster uit ’n oomblik peinsend staar. Albei vrouefigure se eensaamheid word in ’n tuiskoms in die liefde opgehef: Rebekka by Isak wat haar onmiddellik liefkry en die Samaritaanse vrou in die vrymakende, grensoorskrydende liefde van God waarvan sy vir die eerste keer by ’n Joodse man gehoor het: Fontein. Maar toe sy merk hy ken haar dors – dat alles in haar troebel was en by haar huis geen man – het sy vir hom haar waterkan laat staan en haastig na die stad toe teruggegaan: Op die plek waar sy moes woon, alleen, Sy tent voortaan – Jood Profeet
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