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Jakob Daniel Du Toit
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Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry
A Study of Poetry
4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul
Famous Poets and Poetic Form
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:
Poetry: First Lines
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Pseudonym:
Totius
Born:
Feb. 21, 1877, Paarl, Cape Colony, S.Af.
Died:
July 1, 1953, Pretoria, Transvaal (aged 76)
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Jakob Daniel Du Toit

South African poet and scholar
Also known as: Totius
Written and fact-checked by
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Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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History

Jakob Daniel Du Toit (born Feb. 21, 1877, Paarl, Cape Colony, S.Af.—died July 1, 1953, Pretoria, Transvaal) was an Afrikaaner poet, pastor, biblical scholar, and the compiler of an Afrikaans Psalter (1936) that is regarded as one of the finest poetic achievements of its kind in Dutch, Flemish, or Afrikaans.

Du Toit was educated in Pretoria, Rustenburg, and Daljosafat, studied at the theological seminary at Burgesdorp, and passed his final examination for the ministry of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1899.

On the outbreak of the South African (Boer) War he joined the Boer forces as chaplain. In 1900 he went to the Free University, Amsterdam, where he received a doctor’s degree in theology in 1903 and then entered the ministry. From 1911 he was professor of theology at the University of Potchefstroom, Transvaal; on retirement in 1949 he was elected chancellor.

Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry
Britannica Quiz
A Study of Poetry

Du Toit was responsible for the greater part of the translation of the Bible into Afrikaans, completed in 1932. The Calvinism and patriotism confirmed in him by the circumstances of his childhood and training are revealed at a high artistic level in his finest poetry, the patriotic poems in Trekkerswee (1915; “Trekkers’ Grief”) and the personal lyrics in Passieblomme (1934; “Passion Flowers”) and Skemering (1948; “Twilight”). These and other volumes—including Bij die Monument (1908), Verse van Potgieter’s Trek (1909), Wilgerboombogies (1912; “Willow Boughs”), Rachel (1913), and Uit donker Afrika (1936; “From Dark Africa”)—also show the influence of the Flemish poet Guido Gezelle.

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