Abstract
M.A.
Although critics have acknowledged the work of Wilma
Stockenstrom and have responded favourably, and although
she has received four awards and prizes for her poetry
up to the publication of Monsterverse, no all-embracing
study of her poetry has been undertaken. Many of the
reviews and critical analyses have failed to give proper
recognition to her first two volumes of poetry.
Consequently the process of development in her work has
been largely overlooked, and Monsterverse, although
acclaimed, has been assessed as "problematic" and totally
"foreign". This study therefore attempts to determine
the tendencies which figure in Wilma Stockenstrom's poetry,
and examines in particular the iconicity of thematics
and prosody as it has developed throughout successive
volumes.
Most of the themes developed in the later volumes are
introduced in her debut work, Vir die Bysiende Leser.
Some of the themes explored in this volume, however,
lose their significance in later volumes. Although the
prosody is still somewhat uncertain in some of the poems,
a few poems already suggest her unique and individualistic
application of this aspect of style. In this early work
it is already apparent that her real power lies in the
writing of free verse. She exploits this verse form
with rich variety throughout her four volumes.
Vir die Bysiende Leser clearly functions as a unit. The
intratextuality of the poems is a striking structural
aspect of. this work. Unity is also emphasized in the
following three volumes, but progressively more attention
is given to intertextuality. Stockenstrom's work clearly
links up with the intertextual tradition which N. P. van
Wyk Louw's Tristia and D.J. Opperman's Komas uit n
Bamboesstok have established in Afrikaans literature.