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'n Herwaardering van Olga Kirsch se oeuvre: Identiteit ,moederskap en ballingskap aan die hand van die psigoanalitiese toeriee van onder andere Sigmund Freud,Jaques Lacan en Julia Kristeva

An investigation into the works of poet Olga Kirsch according to psychoanalytical theories reveals interesting possibilities about Afrikaans's sole expressly Jewish poet and only the second female poet to get published in this language. Her yearning to be accepted in Afrikaans circles seems to have...

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Main Author: Minnaar, William Frank Thomas
Format: Thesis
Language:Afrikaans
Published: School of Languages and Literatures 2019
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access_status_str Open Access
author Minnaar, William Frank Thomas
author_browse Minnaar, William Frank Thomas
author_facet Minnaar, William Frank Thomas
author_sort Minnaar, William Frank Thomas
collection Thesis
description An investigation into the works of poet Olga Kirsch according to psychoanalytical theories reveals interesting possibilities about Afrikaans's sole expressly Jewish poet and only the second female poet to get published in this language. Her yearning to be accepted in Afrikaans circles seems to have been thwarted by the rise of racist Nationalist power. Motherhood, a career as educator and having an allochthonous creative language in Hebrew-speaking Israel were some of the factors that muffled the immigrant Kirsch's poetic voice for more than two decades after arriving in Israel in 1948. An inability to make a breakthrough in Modern Hebrew or English redirected her attention to the language she felt best at home in - Afrikaans. Kirsch, however, could not continue writing poetry indefinitely in a language she had been isolated from for so long. Psychoanalysis explores the drives behind Kirsch's writings: the flight from the phallic mother, loss of the paternal love object, longing for wholeness in the safety of the chora, as well as self-actualisation and jouissance through the creative process. Kirsch is reaffmned as an important Afrikaans poet who, with each volume of poetry, shared her life as a sujet en proces with her Afrikaans-speaking readers. Whereas Sigmund Freud's basic tenets and further developments in psychoanalysis by Jacques Lacan form the underlying structure of this research, extensive insights from the prolific theoretician Julia Kristeva have been employed to counterpoint the masculine and arguably paternalistic views of the former two psychoanalysists. Some rediscovered poems have been included in this thesis and comments by Kirsch's family also add a new dimension to our understanding of her as a person and of her creative output. Further sources of information were found in a documentary about the poet, recordings for radio and articles in newspapers and literary magazines. In order to establish Kirsch's value and durability as an Afrikaans poet, the canonisation process and possible changes to the poet's position in it were also taken into account. It appears from these that Olga Kirsch is, albeit not one of the greatest poets due to her increasingly dated language, nevertheless an indispensable part of the Afrikaans literary canon.
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last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:47:08.218Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2019
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/30118 'n Herwaardering van Olga Kirsch se oeuvre: Identiteit ,moederskap en ballingskap aan die hand van die psigoanalitiese toeriee van onder andere Sigmund Freud,Jaques Lacan en Julia Kristeva Minnaar, William Frank Thomas Literature An investigation into the works of poet Olga Kirsch according to psychoanalytical theories reveals interesting possibilities about Afrikaans's sole expressly Jewish poet and only the second female poet to get published in this language. Her yearning to be accepted in Afrikaans circles seems to have been thwarted by the rise of racist Nationalist power. Motherhood, a career as educator and having an allochthonous creative language in Hebrew-speaking Israel were some of the factors that muffled the immigrant Kirsch's poetic voice for more than two decades after arriving in Israel in 1948. An inability to make a breakthrough in Modern Hebrew or English redirected her attention to the language she felt best at home in - Afrikaans. Kirsch, however, could not continue writing poetry indefinitely in a language she had been isolated from for so long. Psychoanalysis explores the drives behind Kirsch's writings: the flight from the phallic mother, loss of the paternal love object, longing for wholeness in the safety of the chora, as well as self-actualisation and jouissance through the creative process. Kirsch is reaffmned as an important Afrikaans poet who, with each volume of poetry, shared her life as a sujet en proces with her Afrikaans-speaking readers. Whereas Sigmund Freud's basic tenets and further developments in psychoanalysis by Jacques Lacan form the underlying structure of this research, extensive insights from the prolific theoretician Julia Kristeva have been employed to counterpoint the masculine and arguably paternalistic views of the former two psychoanalysists. Some rediscovered poems have been included in this thesis and comments by Kirsch's family also add a new dimension to our understanding of her as a person and of her creative output. Further sources of information were found in a documentary about the poet, recordings for radio and articles in newspapers and literary magazines. In order to establish Kirsch's value and durability as an Afrikaans poet, the canonisation process and possible changes to the poet's position in it were also taken into account. It appears from these that Olga Kirsch is, albeit not one of the greatest poets due to her increasingly dated language, nevertheless an indispensable part of the Afrikaans literary canon. 2019-05-15T10:16:20Z 2019-05-15T10:16:20Z 2012 2019-04-26T11:43:47Z Doctoral Thesis Doctoral http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30118 afr application/pdf School of Languages and Literatures Faculty of Humanities
spellingShingle Literature
Minnaar, William Frank Thomas
'n Herwaardering van Olga Kirsch se oeuvre: Identiteit ,moederskap en ballingskap aan die hand van die psigoanalitiese toeriee van onder andere Sigmund Freud,Jaques Lacan en Julia Kristeva
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title 'n Herwaardering van Olga Kirsch se oeuvre: Identiteit ,moederskap en ballingskap aan die hand van die psigoanalitiese toeriee van onder andere Sigmund Freud,Jaques Lacan en Julia Kristeva
title_full 'n Herwaardering van Olga Kirsch se oeuvre: Identiteit ,moederskap en ballingskap aan die hand van die psigoanalitiese toeriee van onder andere Sigmund Freud,Jaques Lacan en Julia Kristeva
title_fullStr 'n Herwaardering van Olga Kirsch se oeuvre: Identiteit ,moederskap en ballingskap aan die hand van die psigoanalitiese toeriee van onder andere Sigmund Freud,Jaques Lacan en Julia Kristeva
title_full_unstemmed 'n Herwaardering van Olga Kirsch se oeuvre: Identiteit ,moederskap en ballingskap aan die hand van die psigoanalitiese toeriee van onder andere Sigmund Freud,Jaques Lacan en Julia Kristeva
title_short 'n Herwaardering van Olga Kirsch se oeuvre: Identiteit ,moederskap en ballingskap aan die hand van die psigoanalitiese toeriee van onder andere Sigmund Freud,Jaques Lacan en Julia Kristeva
title_sort n herwaardering van olga kirsch se oeuvre identiteit moederskap en ballingskap aan die hand van die psigoanalitiese toeriee van onder andere sigmund freud jaques lacan en julia kristeva
topic Literature
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30118
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