Eugène Nielen Marais (9 January, 1871 – 29 March, 1936) was a South African lawyer, naturalist, poet and writer January 9 is the 9th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... See also: 1870 in South Africa, other events of 1871, 1872 in South Africa and the Timeline of South African history. ... March 29 is the 88th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (89th in Leap years). ... See also: 1935 in South Africa, other events of 1936, 1937 in South Africa and the Timeline of South African history. ... A lawyer is a person who advises clients in legal matters and represents them in courts of law and in other forms of dispute resolution. ... Table of natural history, 1728 Cyclopaedia Natural history is an umbrella term for what are now usually viewed as several distinct scientific disciplines. ... A poet exists within a cultural and intellectual tradition and usually writes in a specific language, but the qualities of good poetry are to some extent timeless and address issues common to all humanity. ... The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ...

Eugene Marais – writer, lawyer and naturalist

Image File history File links This photo of Eugene Marais a famous writer in Afrikaans (also wrote in English but less famous for that) is in the public domain under South-African Copyright law where copyright expires 50 years after publication or 50 years after the death of the producer... Image File history File links This photo of Eugene Marais a famous writer in Afrikaans (also wrote in English but less famous for that) is in the public domain under South-African Copyright law where copyright expires 50 years after publication or 50 years after the death of the producer...

His early years, before and during the Boer War

Marais ('Ma-RARE'; second part rhymes with chair) was born near Pretoria^[1]. He attended school in Pretoria, Boshof and Paarl and much of his early education was in English, as were his earliest poems. He matriculated at the age of sixteen ^[2]. After leaving school he worked in Pretoria as a legal clerk and then as a journalist before becoming owner (at the tender age of nineteen) of a newspaper called Land en Volk (lit. Land and (the Afrikaner) People). He involved himself deeply in local politics. His health was poor and he suffered from insomnia; to deal with the latter problem he began taking opiates. (Some claim that his use of drugs was influenced by the philosophy of de Quincey. Be that as it may, Marais eventually became an addict). He married Aletta Beyers but she died eight days after childbirth from puerperal fever only a year later. In 1897 -still in his mid twenties- he went to London to read medicine and law. (He qualified as an advocate). When the Boer War broke out in 1898, he was put on parole as an enemy alien in London. During the latter part of the war he joined a German expedition that sought to ship ammunition and medicines to the Boer Commandos via Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique). However, he was struck down in this tropical area by fever and before the supplies could be delivered to the Boers the war ended. City motto: Praestantia Praevaleat Pretoria (May Pretoria Be Pre-eminent In Excellence) Province Gauteng Area  - % water 1,644 km² 0. ... Boshof is the administrative town in the goldfields region of the Free State Province, South Africa. ... Paarl Rock Paarl (meaning Pearl in Dutch and Perel in Afrikaans) is the third oldest European settlement in the Republic of South Africa (after Cape Town and Stellenbosch) and forms part of the Western Cape Province. ... Thomas de Quincey (August 15, 1785 – December 8, 1859) was an English author and intellectual. ... For other uses, see London (disambiguation) and Defining London (below). ... The Second Boer War, also known as the South African War (outside of South Africa), the Anglo-Boer War (among some South Africans) and in Afrikaans as the Anglo-Boereoorlog or Tweede Vryheidsoorlog (Second War of Independence), was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902. ... Mozambique is a country in Southern Africa, bordering South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. ...

After the war

From 1907 he studied nature in the Waterberg ("Water mountain"), an area of wilderness north of Pretoria. He wrote in his native Afrikaans about the animals he observed. His studies of termites led him to the conclusion that the colony should be considered as a single organism. Although Marias would not have understood why, he was foreshadowing some of the ideas of Richard Dawkins. He also observed baboons at length and he was the father of the scientific study of the behavior of primates. Because Marais refused to translate his works into English, they remained almost unknown outside of southern Africa, which is the only place in the world where Afrikaans is spoken to any degree. Afrikaans is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia with smaller numbers of speakers in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Zambia. ... Families Mastotermitidae Kalotermitidae Termopsidae Hodotermitidae Rhinotermitidae Serritermitidae Termitidae Reference: Earthlife as of 2002-07-26 A termite (also known as a white ant) is any member of the order Isoptera, a group of social insects that eat wood and other cellulose-rich vegetable matter. ... Richard Dawkins Clinton Richard Dawkins DSc, FRS, FRSL (known as Richard Dawkins; born March 26, 1941) is an eminent British ethologist, evolutionary theorist, and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. ... Type Species Simia hamadryas Linnaeus, 1758 Species Papio hamadryas Papio papio Papio anubis Papio cynocephalus Papio ursinus The baboons are some of the largest non-hominid members of the primate order; only the Mandrill and the Drill are larger. ...

His book "Die siel van die mier" (lit. "The soul of the ant" but usually given in English as the "Soul of the White Ant") was plagiarized by Nobel laureate Maurice Maeterlinck, who published "The Life of the White Ant" in 1926, falsely claiming many of Marais' revolutionary ideas as his own. Maeterlinck was able to do this because he was Flemish and therefore understood Dutch, from which Afrikaans was derived. Maeterlinck was as a consequence one of the few people in Europe who had read Marais' original texts. Marais took legal action against Maeterlinck but gained little satisfaction. Marais had by now for some time been an opium addict and suffered from melancholy, insomnia, depression and feelings of isolation. The theft of his ideas weighed heavily on his mind and some say this caused his final demise. He committed suicide in 1936 by placing a shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. This occurred on the farm Pelindaba, belonging to his friend, Gustav S. Preller. For those who are familiar with the dark moods of certain of Marias' poems there is a black irony here; in the local native language, Pelindaba means "the end of the business".... Nobel, (Swedish pronunciation: nou´bell ), can mean: Nobel Prize - awarded annually since 1901, from the request of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel Nobel Prize in Physics Nobel Prize in Chemistry Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Nobel Prize for Literature Nobel Peace Prize Laureates/Winners of the Nobel Prize By Country... Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, Belgian author Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (August 29, 1862 - May 6, 1949) was a Belgian poet, playwright, and essayist. ... Flemish (in Dutch, Vlaams) can either refer to Anything belonging to Flanders (the Flemish nation) or to its inhabitants, the Flemings. ... Opium is a narcotic analgesic drug which is obtained from the unripe seed pods of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L. or the synonym paeoniflorum). ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...

Legacy

Marais' work as a naturalist, although by no means trivial, is held to be of less importance than his contributions as an artist. He is amongst the greatest of the Afrikaner poets and remains one of the most popular, although his output was not large. Opperman described him as the first professional Afrikaner poet; Marias believed that craft was as important as inspiration for poetry. Along with J.H.H. de Waal and G.S. Preller, he was a leading light in the Second Afrikaans (language) Movement in the period immediately after the Second Boer War, which ended in 1902. Some of his finest poems deal with the wonders of life and nature but he also wrote about inexorable Death. He was a religious man and in certain of his works (e.g. "Job") the influence of the Bible is obvious. Although an Afrikaner patriot, Marais was sympathetic to the cultural values of the black tribal peoples of the Transvaal; this is seen in poems such as "Die dans van die reën" (The dance of the rain). The following translation of Marais' "Wintersnag" is by J. W. Marchant: To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

"Winter's Night"

O the small wind is frigid and spare
and bright in the dim light and bare
as wide as God's merciful boon
the veld lies in starlight and gloom
and on the high lands
spread through burnt bands
the grass-seed, astir, is like beckoning hands.

O East-wind gives mournful measure to song
Like the lilt of a lovelorn lass whose been wronged
In every grass fold
bright dewdrop takes hold
and promptly pales to frost in the cold! Look up Veld on Wiktionary, the free dictionary For information on the town of Veldt, see Veldt Township, Minnesota Veld or Veldt, is a field, an open area of land, typically in South Africa or southern Africa, comparable to the Australian outback. ...

The Marais Name

The progenitors of the Marais name in the region were Charles and Claude Marais from the Paris region of France.^[3] The Marais name has retained its original French spelling in South Africa.

References

1. ↑  Opperman, D.J. Undated but probably 1962. Senior verseboek. Nasionale Boekhandel Bpk, Kaapstad. Negende druk, 185pp
2. ↑  Schirmer, P. 1980. The concise illustrated South African encyclopedia. Central News Agency, Johannesburg. First edition, about 212pp.

1. ↑  Ces Francais Qui Ont Fait L'Afrique Du Sud. Translation: The French People Who Made South Africa. Bernard Lugan. January 1996. ISBN: 2841000869'

Bibliography

• The Soul of the White Ant, 1937, First published as Die Siel van die Mier in 1925, in Afrikaans
• The Soul of the Ape , 1919, Published postumously in 1969.

External links

• Eugene Marais the Poet Some key poems by Eugene Marais (in Afrikaans)
• Encounter South Africa Article
• The Soul of the White Ant online
• sahistory.org.za Entry on Eugene Marais
• Works of Eugene Marais Full text of some works by Eugene Marais.