Good day learners. Today we are looking at the poem entitled Love Poem for My Country by Sandile Dikeni. So quickly a brief summary of the poem.
In the poem Love Poem for My Country, the poet and anti-apartheid activist Sandile Dikeni composes a praise song for his native country South Africa. He praises the country's beauty by linking its physical riches with its positive emotional and political qualities. Through various poetic devices and figures of speech, the poet illustrates and celebrates his country's love, peace, joy, health, wealth, and unity amongst its people.
So basically, this is a summary of the poem, and I've provided you with a picture of one of the most beautiful poems of the poem. beautiful provinces in South Africa, just to illustrate basically why does the poet love South Africa so much. So firstly, he praises the natural beauty by making reference to various aspects or natural elements in South Africa. And he also praises the positive emotional and political qualities. So he talks about peace, talks about joy, talks about the love, the unity, the wealth and the health of the country.
So there's various aspects in which... poet praises about South Africa. So quickly we're going to read firstly the poem, thereafter we are going to do an analysis. So I will first be reading the poem out and therefore coming back to the analysis.
So love poem for my country. My country is for love, so say its valleys, where ancient rivers flow, the full circle of life. under the proud eye of birds adorning the sky my country is for peace so sails the fowls where reptiles caress its surface with elegant motions glittering in their pride my country is for joy so talk the mountains with baboons hopping from boulder to boulder in the majestic delight of cliffs and peaks My country is for health and wealth.
See the blue of the sea and beneath the jewels of fish. Deep under the bowels of soil, hear the golden voice of a miner's praise for my country. My country is for unity.
Feel the millions, see their passion. Their hands are joined together. There is hope in their eyes.
We shall celebrate. So very basically, this is a poem where the speaker praises South Africa and all the aspects of it. We're looking at the first line and says, my country is for love. Now the first stanza or the first line of the stanza rather, my country, this is repeated throughout the poem in every stanza where the poet says, my country is for love or my country is for peace.
This repetition, so the literary device that is used here is repetition. And it is used to unite the stanzas and to emphasize the idea that South Africa is the poet's country. It shows belonging, it shows ownership, that the poet loves South Africa.
And it says, my country is for love. So the repetition there is important. So say its valleys.
Now this is the personification. Now if you would recall that personification refers to giving human qualities to inanimate objects. So here the valleys are given the...
personified as speaking so they're given the ability to speak where ancient rivers flow ancient there this word is important because it emphasizes the history and heritage of south africa the full circle of life under the proud eye of birth this is a metaphor adorning the sky so if you go on to the next one you and the next stanza they also talk about repetition there. My country is for peace, so says the fowl. Again repetition, where reptiles caress its surface with elegant motions glittering in their pride.
Here there's reference to reptiles and its skin glittering. If you think about a snake and how its skin looks, this should give you an image of what they're talking about here. If we go on to the third stanza, again repetition, my country is for joy. So talk the mountains with baboons hopping from boulder to boulder in a majestic delight of cliffs and peaks. Again here is repetition and personification.
If we go on to the next stanza, my country again repetition is for health and wealth. See the blue of the sea and beneath the jewels of fish. If you look at a fish and scales and how it glistens underneath sunlight or in the water as well.
So therefore this is a metaphor that is comparing the scales of a fish to jewels that glisten deep under the bowels of soil. Here the golden voice of a miner's craze for my country. My country is for unity. Feel the millions, see their passion, their hands are joined together.
There is hope in their eyes. We shall celebrate. So here shall future tense used to emphasize what South Africa possesses and therefore what is worth celebrating. We shall celebrate.
So for all of these positive aspects of the country, we shall celebrate. We should celebrate what our country has to offer, not only the physical aspects, but also the political and emotional aspects, which are such as love, health, wealth, unity. So the speaker makes reference to not only the.
physical aspects of South Africa and its natural wonders but also to other aspects of the culture and the people of South Africa. So a quick analysis of the poem through a love poem for my country Sandile Dikeni expresses his overwhelming love for his native South African land and its physical and non-physical riches. Physical we spoke about was the land, the valleys, the sea, the mountains, the land of the sea.
aspects such as peace, joy, health, wealth, unity. In these five stanzas, the poet describes the multi-faceted wonders of his home as manifested through tangible and intangible qualities of beauty. Tangible, things that you can touch.
Intangible, aspects such as unity, peace, joy, things that are abstract, you cannot touch. The first four stanzas each focused on a specific type of topography that exhibits natural splendor while emphasizing an emotion or ideal. Each of the first three physical environments is personified to name a positive quality about the country.
The poet touches on each physical level from valleys, the sea, and under the bowels of soil, low, to the felt ground level. to the mountain Thai so you can see this low ground level and high level so there's a there's a different aspects of the physical level and links it to a beautiful aspect of South Africa okay let's go on to the activity that you are required to complete in your resource pack there was a few questions three questions in lesson number eight but I've added a few more just so that you can understand the poem better. So the first one is, name one aspect of South Africa that the speaker praises. So in this poem, you should be familiar with the aspects that the speaker praises.
And this is clearly evident in the beginning of each stanza, whereby the speaker praises South Africa's love, peace, joy, health, wealth, unity amongst its people. And these are evident in each stanza. If you look at 1.2, explain what is personification and we've discussed this.
It refers to giving human qualities to inanimate objects. 1.3, refer to line 2. So, says the valleys. Identify and explain the effectiveness of this figure of speech. So, the figure of speech is personification and a valley is given the human quality of speaking. This is effective because the poet refers to the natural elements such as valleys, south, and mountains to be the witness to the positive aspects of South Africa.
So they say this as evident in, for instance, stanza one, where they say, my country is for love, so say its valleys. So the valleys say this. If we go on to number 1.4, comment on the suitability of the last line, we shall celebrate. Now this is written in Future tense.
Shal is future tense and is used to emphasize what South Africa possesses. and therefore what is worth celebrating. We shall celebrate.
So the poet describes all of these aspects and in the last line it says we shall celebrate meaning in the future we should celebrate or there is much more that South Africa has to accomplish and there is promise in the land and we therefore we shall celebrate all of its beauty, natural aspects, other qualities. political qualities emotional qualities amongst the people we shall celebrate this so it's giving us a positive or optimistic note if we look at 1.5 discuss the tone and style so in this poem speaker describes various features of the country the valleys the mountains and the qualities he appreciates in his country are love peace joy so basically through this The poem is celebratory in tone. So that is the tone, it's celebratory, celebrating the positive aspects of South Africa. And the style of writing is that of a praise song.
It is praising South Africa. If we look at number six, 1.6, what is the poet's intention in writing this poem? So basically this is a simple poem, which the intention is to unite people.
in being passionate about South Africa and celebrating the positive qualities that it has to offer. That is the writer's intention in writing this poem. Okay, so that concludes our lesson for today.