The Tweede Asem ("Second Breath") is a phase (c. 1917–1934) within

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

-language

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

that came in the wake of the zenith of Afrikaans poetry that described the sufferings of the

Anglo-Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

. The term also encompasses the work of the so-called Twintigers ("writers of the twenties"). The giants of the war era, such as Totius, Jan F. E. Celliers, or

C. Louis Leipoldt Christian Frederik Louis Leipoldt ( ; 28 December 1880 – 12 April 1947), usually referred to as C. Louis Leipoldt, was a South African poet, dramatist, medical doctor, reporter and food expert. Together with Jan F. E. Celliers and J. D. du ...

, having come more or less to terms with the past, began at this time to address topics such as religion or nature. Meanwhile,

Eugene Marais Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the sin ...

, while a contemporary of the war poets, stands out by his choice of material. Younger poets who emerged during this era are Toon van der Heever, A. G. Visser, H. A. Fagan, A. D. Keet, J. R. L. van Bruggen, and Theo Wassenaar. As the Anglo-Boer War receded into the past, however, the conflict remained a topic, but became rather a vehicle for the depiction of romanticized history, rather than a personal crucible that required the expression of suffering. As a result, the Twintigers remained overshadowed by their predecessors. In addition, they fade in importance to the growing professionalism of the succeeding generation, the

Dertigers The Dertigers, or "writers of the thirties," are a group of Afrikaans-language South African poets who achieved new heights of eloquence in the young language's early decades of the 20th century. The Dertigers arose after the Tweede Asem ("Second ...

. Nonetheless, the Twintigers can be credited with the development of the love poem and the cultivation of the nature poem in Afrikaans.

References

Poetic forms Afrikaans literature South African poetry {{SouthAfrica-stub