Semantisch verraad

This article offers an in-depth reading of the poetic cycle Het graf van Pernath (1977; Pernath’s Tomb) by the Flemish author and novelist Hugo Claus (1929-2008). The cycle is only one of the many tributes to the prominent post-experimental Flemish poet Hugues C. Pernath, who died in 1975. First, the present article shows how Het graf van Pernath displays a complex attitude towards the genre tradition of the tombeau littéraire in particular and funerary poetry in general. Claus’s poems intricately respect, oppose and transform both traditional formal conventions of the genre and dominant conceptions of death and grief. Second, this article demonstrates how Claus’s exploration of the funerary tradition goes hand in hand with an exploration of the genre of confessional poetry, which has become the dominant paradigm in the post-Romantic lyric. Indeed, Claus’s critical poetic homage to a befriended poet can also be interpreted as a critical unmasking of both authors’ very own poetic practice as a form of semantic deceit.