Lady Anne

Antjie Krog is professor at the University of the Western Cape.

Throughout Lady Anne there is a rugged, gripping quality to Krog’s language, digging deep into the nature of South African life and her own self-challenging relationship to it…. There is a substance here, a regard, a responsibility, a creative response which is in keeping with the original nature of the volume when it was first published during the turmoil of the last decade of apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s. This is an extraordinary opportunity to present a writer of tremendous significance to a wholly new realm of readers.

• Acknowledgements Preface PART IOn board Sir Edward Hughes 23rd Feb. – 17972.30 South latitude / 17 West longitude / 9th Mar. – 1797The Country of the Lindsays of the Byres(a letter from Fife, 1300, writer unknown)Song written before the birth of Lady Anne Lindsay (1750)“two years next month / since my last poetry volume”“once more / before an empty page”Kroonstad March ’86hail Lady Anne Barnard!Cape of Good Hope 4th May – 1797PART IICape of Good Hope 10th July – 1797Castle October 1797Castle 12th Oct. – 1797Castle 1798Auld Robin Gray written by Lady Anne BarnardGossip from diaries and lettersOld Lady Lindsay from ScotlandTo Windham 1st Nov. – 1793St Wolstans near Dublin 10th Dec. – 1793Dublin 12th July – 1794Kroonstad first state of emergency July 1985first Christmas weekend under the second state of emergency 1988II“because among mine I feel more and more ill at ease”to have or to begnomeparolecape of good hopeLady Anne as guide because a hero needs a bard“I think I am the first” – Lady Anne on Table MountainPART III (V) The Drup Kelder Tuesday 8th May – 1798Farm of Jakob van Reenen Sunday 13th May – 1798Monday 14th May – 1798Tuesday 15th May – 1798Tuesday 22nd May – 1798St Andrew’s Fife Scotland 25th Aug. – 1987visit to Balcarresthe ballad of Andries Dundas-DekkerGenadendal 10th May – 1798Thursday 31st May – 1798PART IV 20th Nov. – 1798Paradise November 179817891793“given line: macho men give me the creeps”plea to be liberated“one day my husband feels I do indeed deserve”slaughtering cattle for the Dutch Reformed Church fêteLady Anne at the microwave oven“I smell him young behind the breadcutting machine”ma will be lateIIII will always remember“strategically I do my best”ballad of the power gameillnessCastle of Good Hope 14th Dec. – 1799Vineyard 14th May – 1800Journal (“This sets loose so many images.”)Journal (“empty lies the interior of the land”)Vineyard 16th Feb. – 1801PART III (end)January 1802new alphabettransparency of the solethe heart is the toughest part of the bodyLady Anne Barnard: remembered for her parties in my history booka poem about guiltGothic House Wimbledon 1806Wimbledon May 1807Cape of Good Hope June 1807Cape of Good Hope August 1807Wimbledon November 1807Wimbledon 1808neither family nor friendsepitaphEndendSources About the Poet