van Wyk Louw produced among his most famous works his debut 1935 volume of poems, Alleenspraak ("Monologue"), the 1937 poetry collection Die halwe kring ("The Semicircle"), the verse epic Raka, and the 1956 tragedy Germanicus.
van Wyk Louw is quoted on the Afrikaans Language Monument in Paarl, Western Cape Province; in his quote, he views Afrikaans as a bridge that connects Europe with Africa.
He earned a master's degree in German at the University of Cape Town, where he later taught.
He finished his academic career at the University of Witwatersrand as head of the Dutch/Afrikaans department.
Opperman (Senior Verseboek, Nationale Pers 1962), one of the notable Afrikaner poets of the first half of the twentieth century, was in no doubt that van Wyk Louw was the greatest Afrikaner poet of the period.