Book Title: The Revolutionary Drama and Theatre of Femi OsofisanBook Author: Chima OsakweCambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle upon Tyne, 2018. 94pp. ISBN (10): 1–5275–1596–6; ISBN (13): 978–1–5296–3.
{"title":"Book Review: The Revolutionary Drama and Theatre of Femi Osofisan","authors":"Aghogho Akpome","doi":"10.4314/eia.v46i2.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/eia.v46i2.8","url":null,"abstract":"Book Title: The Revolutionary Drama and Theatre of Femi OsofisanBook Author: Chima OsakweCambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle upon Tyne, 2018. 94pp. ISBN (10): 1–5275–1596–6; ISBN (13): 978–1–5296–3.","PeriodicalId":41428,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42929218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In his well-known interview with Richard Woodward, Cormac McCarthy had occasion to remark: “The ugly fact is books are made out of books” (Woodward). Using his words as the point of departure for a detailed investigation of a multi-stranded case of intertextuality, I examine the influence of McCarthy’s Blood Meridian on three South African novels – Mike Nicol’s Horseman , Damon Galgut’s The Quarry and James Whyle’s The Book of War – in a way that I hope sheds light on the provenance, literariness and meaning of these texts. Keywords: Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian , Damon Galgut, Mike Nicol, James Whyle
{"title":"Cormac McCarthy and the South Africans","authors":"Gareth Cornwell","doi":"10.4314/eia.v46i2.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/eia.v46i2.1","url":null,"abstract":"In his well-known interview with Richard Woodward, Cormac McCarthy had occasion to remark: “The ugly fact is books are made out of books” (Woodward). Using his words as the point of departure for a detailed investigation of a multi-stranded case of intertextuality, I examine the influence of McCarthy’s Blood Meridian on three South African novels – Mike Nicol’s Horseman , Damon Galgut’s The Quarry and James Whyle’s The Book of War – in a way that I hope sheds light on the provenance, literariness and meaning of these texts. Keywords: Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian , Damon Galgut, Mike Nicol, James Whyle","PeriodicalId":41428,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44021492","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In his exploration of the intertextual strategies employed by contemporary African novelists, Ewan Maina Mwangi (2009) moves beyond the discourse that views African literature as, mainly, a reaction to the colonial experience. He argues, instead, that African novels are primarily engaged in conversation with each other, particularly over gender issues such as the representation of homosexuality and the disenfranchisement of women by male-dominated narratives. Drawing from this argument, and shifting the focus towards the short story in post-1994 South Africa, this article maintains that, by engaging critically with Can Themba’s “The Suit” (1963), Siphiwo Mahala, Zukiswa Wanner and Makhosazana Xaba have created an unprecedented “literary case” in the history of South African literature. It offers a comparative analysis of the six short stories (which represent a unique example of intertextual dialogue among South African writers), and contends that Mahala’s “The Suit Continued” and “The Lost Suit” (2011), Wanner’s “The Dress that Fed the Suit” (2011) and Xaba’s “Behind The Suit” and “The Suit Continued: The Other Side” (2013) should be considered pivotal texts in the South African literary palimpsest, since they deconstruct some of the most controversial features of Themba’s story, and infuse it with ground-breaking feminist and queer narratives.Keywords: Can Themba, Siphiwo Mahala, Zukiswa Wanner, Makhosazana Xaba, short story, feminism, queer narratives
{"title":"“All Futures are Bred in the Bellies of their Past”: Siphiwo Mahala’s, Zukiswa Wanner’s and Makhosazana Xaba’s Intertextual Dialogues with Can Themba’s Short Story “The Suit”","authors":"R. d’Abdon","doi":"10.4314/eia.v46i2.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/eia.v46i2.2","url":null,"abstract":"In his exploration of the intertextual strategies employed by contemporary African novelists, Ewan Maina Mwangi (2009) moves beyond the discourse that views African literature as, mainly, a reaction to the colonial experience. He argues, instead, that African novels are primarily engaged in conversation with each other, particularly over gender issues such as the representation of homosexuality and the disenfranchisement of women by male-dominated narratives. Drawing from this argument, and shifting the focus towards the short story in post-1994 South Africa, this article maintains that, by engaging critically with Can Themba’s “The Suit” (1963), Siphiwo Mahala, Zukiswa Wanner and Makhosazana Xaba have created an unprecedented “literary case” in the history of South African literature. It offers a comparative analysis of the six short stories (which represent a unique example of intertextual dialogue among South African writers), and contends that Mahala’s “The Suit Continued” and “The Lost Suit” (2011), Wanner’s “The Dress that Fed the Suit” (2011) and Xaba’s “Behind The Suit” and “The Suit Continued: The Other Side” (2013) should be considered pivotal texts in the South African literary palimpsest, since they deconstruct some of the most controversial features of Themba’s story, and infuse it with ground-breaking feminist and queer narratives.Keywords: Can Themba, Siphiwo Mahala, Zukiswa Wanner, Makhosazana Xaba, short story, feminism, queer narratives","PeriodicalId":41428,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43060249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy (1883–1933) spent most of his life in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Cavafy liked to think of himself as an historical poet. A large proportion of his poetry is set outside of Greece in the eastern, southern and south-eastern Mediterranean world at a time when the centre of Greek culture had shifted from ‘mainland Greece’ to cities such as Alexandria and Antioch, when a cosmopolitan Greek culture was contained by the Roman Empire, and later when Christianity began to take hold and challenge the Hellenic world and its values. Cavafy also liked to think of all his poetry – whether the setting was his own time and place or that of antiquity – in three categories of historical, philosophical and hedonistic, while acknowledging their overlap.This paper concentrates on his poems of antiquity, and within that on those poems which deal with questions of ambiguity, equivocation, and various forms of non-truth telling. The paper’s critical-theoretical beginning relies on the equivocal prophecies of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, William Empson’s notions of ambiguity and dramatic irony, and Cavafy’s theatrical representation of history, and then turns to Derrida’s essay on the history of the lie.Keywords: Constantine Cavafy, poetry, antiquity, ambiguity, self-deception, William Empson, Jacques Derrida
{"title":"Truth and Equivocation in Constantine Cavafy’s Poems of Antiquity","authors":"R. Field","doi":"10.4314/eia.v46i2.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/eia.v46i2.3","url":null,"abstract":"The Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy (1883–1933) spent most of his life in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Cavafy liked to think of himself as an historical poet. A large proportion of his poetry is set outside of Greece in the eastern, southern and south-eastern Mediterranean world at a time when the centre of Greek culture had shifted from ‘mainland Greece’ to cities such as Alexandria and Antioch, when a cosmopolitan Greek culture was contained by the Roman Empire, and later when Christianity began to take hold and challenge the Hellenic world and its values. Cavafy also liked to think of all his poetry – whether the setting was his own time and place or that of antiquity – in three categories of historical, philosophical and hedonistic, while acknowledging their overlap.This paper concentrates on his poems of antiquity, and within that on those poems which deal with questions of ambiguity, equivocation, and various forms of non-truth telling. The paper’s critical-theoretical beginning relies on the equivocal prophecies of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, William Empson’s notions of ambiguity and dramatic irony, and Cavafy’s theatrical representation of history, and then turns to Derrida’s essay on the history of the lie.Keywords: Constantine Cavafy, poetry, antiquity, ambiguity, self-deception, William Empson, Jacques Derrida","PeriodicalId":41428,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46626865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper considers the place of English Literature as a university discipline in South Africa given the call to decolonise universities in the wake of Rhodes Must Fall. Focussing on historically black institutions (HBIs) and the apartheid government’s minimising of ‘aesthetic education’ (following Spivak’s use of the term) at them, I turn to Zoe Wicomb’s story “A Clearing in the Bush” (1987), which is set at the University of the Western Cape in the 1960s and concerns the attempts of an English literature student to complete an essay on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’urbervilles. Wicomb’s story, I argue, invites us to think about the ambivalent role of English at HBIs and illustrates how literary study can act both as a particularly insidious vehicle for disciplinary power and, potentially, as a means for critiquing such power. Finally, the paper considers how Wicomb’s story remains pertinent today.Keywords: English literature, decolonisation, Zoe Wicomb, Thomas Hardy, Bantu Education, discipline, disciplinary power, aesthetic education, desire, pedagogy, University of the Western Cape
{"title":"The Place of English Literature in the South African University: Zoë Wicomb’s “A Clearing in the Bush”","authors":"K. Highman","doi":"10.4314/eia.v46i2.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/eia.v46i2.5","url":null,"abstract":"This paper considers the place of English Literature as a university discipline in South Africa given the call to decolonise universities in the wake of Rhodes Must Fall. Focussing on historically black institutions (HBIs) and the apartheid government’s minimising of ‘aesthetic education’ (following Spivak’s use of the term) at them, I turn to Zoe Wicomb’s story “A Clearing in the Bush” (1987), which is set at the University of the Western Cape in the 1960s and concerns the attempts of an English literature student to complete an essay on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’urbervilles. Wicomb’s story, I argue, invites us to think about the ambivalent role of English at HBIs and illustrates how literary study can act both as a particularly insidious vehicle for disciplinary power and, potentially, as a means for critiquing such power. Finally, the paper considers how Wicomb’s story remains pertinent today.Keywords: English literature, decolonisation, Zoe Wicomb, Thomas Hardy, Bantu Education, discipline, disciplinary power, aesthetic education, desire, pedagogy, University of the Western Cape","PeriodicalId":41428,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41708314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Captivity narratives are a well-established genre in North American settler literature and many South African shipwreck and captivity narratives also articulated settler identity through fear of indigenous peoples and raised fears of miscegenation. But, as Joe Snader has demonstrated, there are many captivity narratives in European and particularly English writing that offer a more critical view of colonialism and the coloniser. This article explores the relatively neglected latter strand in writing about South Africa, concentrating on three novels: the anonymously produced Makanna, or The Land of the Savage (1834), Edward Kendall’s An English Boy at the Cape (1835), and Isabella Aylmer’s The Adventures of Mrs Colonel Somerset in Caffraria (1858). These novels offer a critical view of colonial expansion and military conquest rather than a moral panic about the dangers of an unsettled interior. Analysis of these novels suggests that these authors developed the genre in response to particular South African circumstances and conditions, supporting Snader’s argument that a European form found a wide range of different expressions in different cultures.Keywords: Captivity narratives, South African literature, colonialism, Edward Kendall, Isabella Aylmer, Makanna
{"title":"Captivity Novels as Critique of South African Colonialism","authors":"I. Glenn","doi":"10.4314/eia.v46i2.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/eia.v46i2.4","url":null,"abstract":"Captivity narratives are a well-established genre in North American settler literature and many South African shipwreck and captivity narratives also articulated settler identity through fear of indigenous peoples and raised fears of miscegenation. But, as Joe Snader has demonstrated, there are many captivity narratives in European and particularly English writing that offer a more critical view of colonialism and the coloniser. This article explores the relatively neglected latter strand in writing about South Africa, concentrating on three novels: the anonymously produced Makanna, or The Land of the Savage (1834), Edward Kendall’s An English Boy at the Cape (1835), and Isabella Aylmer’s The Adventures of Mrs Colonel Somerset in Caffraria (1858). These novels offer a critical view of colonial expansion and military conquest rather than a moral panic about the dangers of an unsettled interior. Analysis of these novels suggests that these authors developed the genre in response to particular South African circumstances and conditions, supporting Snader’s argument that a European form found a wide range of different expressions in different cultures.Keywords: Captivity narratives, South African literature, colonialism, Edward Kendall, Isabella Aylmer, Makanna","PeriodicalId":41428,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47888222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article attempts to move beyond readings of Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness in relation to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and other novels within the Western literary canon. My aim is to transcend the exhausted tropes of “writing back” that inevitably frame black artistic expressions as necessarily engaged with empire, responding to whiteness or trapped in the Manichean self-other dialectic, the obvious danger of which is the implication that black people are objects in the Western project of domination. Blackness, after all, is not merely a reflection of white selfnegation. By contrast I re-read The Heart of Redness as in dialogue with, and contributing to, the broader (and ongoing) existential conversations that black South African artists working in different media and genres have been engaging in for many years now. I argue that these artists have been talking to each other – whether consciously or not – in their adoption of certain motifs or tropes, which they approach from within a range of distinct disciplines, perspectives and historical moments. Keywords : Zakes Mda, Nongqawuse, writing back, tragedy, transdisciplinarity, the Bellow of the Bulls, Black Consciousness
{"title":"Black South African Artists in Conversation: Nongqawuse, ‘The Bellow of the Bulls’ and Other Travelling Tropes in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness","authors":"Yolisa Kenqu","doi":"10.4314/EIA.V46I1.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/EIA.V46I1.3","url":null,"abstract":"This article attempts to move beyond readings of Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness in relation to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and other novels within the Western literary canon. My aim is to transcend the exhausted tropes of “writing back” that inevitably frame black artistic expressions as necessarily engaged with empire, responding to whiteness or trapped in the Manichean self-other dialectic, the obvious danger of which is the implication that black people are objects in the Western project of domination. Blackness, after all, is not merely a reflection of white selfnegation. By contrast I re-read The Heart of Redness as in dialogue with, and contributing to, the broader (and ongoing) existential conversations that black South African artists working in different media and genres have been engaging in for many years now. I argue that these artists have been talking to each other – whether consciously or not – in their adoption of certain motifs or tropes, which they approach from within a range of distinct disciplines, perspectives and historical moments. Keywords : Zakes Mda, Nongqawuse, writing back, tragedy, transdisciplinarity, the Bellow of the Bulls, Black Consciousness","PeriodicalId":41428,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44414299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The 2005 novel Slow Man makes apparent J. M. Coetzee’s interest in the plight of the emigre, not only through the French-born Paul Rayment, but also through the nurse and love-interest, Marijana Jokic. After losing a limb in a bicycle accident, Paul struggles to adjust to his new life. He feels alone and is confronted with a feeling of ‘not belonging.’ As time passes and the Jokic family is introduced into Paul’s life, this sense of displacement becomes overwhelming. The argument of this paper is that Paul’s loneliness is inextricably tied to his relationship to place. Through analysing the link between self and place, exploring the notion of ‘we’ and understanding the concept of home, Paul Rayment’s displacement and its consequences are investigated. Keywords : J. M. Coetzee, Slow Man, place
2005年出版的小说《慢男人》(Slow Man)不仅通过出生在法国的保罗·莱门特(Paul Rayment)，还通过护士和爱人玛丽贾娜·约基奇(Marijana Jokic)，明显体现了j·m·库切(J. M. Coetzee)对流民困境的兴趣。在一次自行车事故中失去肢体后，保罗努力适应他的新生活。他感到孤独，面对着一种“不属于”的感觉。随着时间的流逝，约基奇一家进入了保罗的生活，这种流离失所的感觉变得势不可挡。这篇论文的论点是，保罗的孤独与他与地方的关系密不可分。通过分析自我和地点之间的联系，探索“我们”的概念，理解家的概念，研究Paul Rayment的流离失所及其后果。关键词:j·m·库切，慢男人，地方
{"title":"‘What is this place where I find myself?’: Place and the Self in Slow Man1","authors":"K. Jennings","doi":"10.4314/EIA.V46I1.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/EIA.V46I1.4","url":null,"abstract":"The 2005 novel Slow Man makes apparent J. M. Coetzee’s interest in the plight of the emigre, not only through the French-born Paul Rayment, but also through the nurse and love-interest, Marijana Jokic. After losing a limb in a bicycle accident, Paul struggles to adjust to his new life. He feels alone and is confronted with a feeling of ‘not belonging.’ As time passes and the Jokic family is introduced into Paul’s life, this sense of displacement becomes overwhelming. The argument of this paper is that Paul’s loneliness is inextricably tied to his relationship to place. Through analysing the link between self and place, exploring the notion of ‘we’ and understanding the concept of home, Paul Rayment’s displacement and its consequences are investigated. Keywords : J. M. Coetzee, Slow Man, place","PeriodicalId":41428,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42237104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Though the whaling stations on the South African coast are now closed, whaling in the southern oceans, both ‘illegal’ and ‘scientific’, continues to be a matter of controversy. Exploitation clashes in complex ways with whale-watching as a touristic activity, now a major drawcard to South Africa’s coastline. It appears no thorough survey of the history and sociology of whaling has yet been written, nor of the progression of those emotional investments in the presence of whales that drive animal rights programmes and tourism alike. Such literature on whales as exists in southern Africa throws interesting sidelights on this presence. This article explores the issues through such literary works as Douglas Livingstone’s poetry and the fictions of Laurens Van Der Post, Zakes Mda, Lyall Watson and Mia Couto. Keywords : Whales, whaling, Southern Africa, fiction, poetry, Laurens van der Post, Zakes Mda, Mia Couto, Lyall Watson
{"title":"Narrating Whales in Southern Africa","authors":"D. Wylie","doi":"10.4314/EIA.V46I1.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/EIA.V46I1.2","url":null,"abstract":"Though the whaling stations on the South African coast are now closed, whaling in the southern oceans, both ‘illegal’ and ‘scientific’, continues to be a matter of controversy. Exploitation clashes in complex ways with whale-watching as a touristic activity, now a major drawcard to South Africa’s coastline. It appears no thorough survey of the history and sociology of whaling has yet been written, nor of the progression of those emotional investments in the presence of whales that drive animal rights programmes and tourism alike. Such literature on whales as exists in southern Africa throws interesting sidelights on this presence. This article explores the issues through such literary works as Douglas Livingstone’s poetry and the fictions of Laurens Van Der Post, Zakes Mda, Lyall Watson and Mia Couto. Keywords : Whales, whaling, Southern Africa, fiction, poetry, Laurens van der Post, Zakes Mda, Mia Couto, Lyall Watson","PeriodicalId":41428,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH IN AFRICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46236360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article focuses on three related poems inspired by the geology and archaeology of the Rift Valley, using them to develop an argument about Ben Okri’s humanism, optimism and symbolist technique. All three poems are connected by an imagined locus in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and stimulated by the discoveries of fossils of the earliest hominids. Each is distinguished by focus on a particular type of rock, standing in for periods of human development, and thence with the idea of Africa as the origin of humanity generally. These are meditations on human history and imagination from the earliest appearance in Africa of the predecessors of Homo sapiens sapiens to urgent present-day concerns. Okri suggests that through poetry humankind can leap across a postcolonial self/other divide to straddle the polarities of darkness and light. I suggest that his belief is that, through the Imaginatio Creatix, we can re-dream the world and so access our higher nature. Keywords : African cosmogony, cultural connections, decolonial turns, ius dominandi [urge to control], Ben Okri, ontopoiesis, the poetic muse, Wild (2012)
{"title":"Ben Okri’s Wild (2012): The Muse of Archaeology","authors":"R. Gray","doi":"10.4314/EIA.V46I1.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/EIA.V46I1.5","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on three related poems inspired by the geology and archaeology of the Rift Valley, using them to develop an argument about Ben Okri’s humanism, optimism and symbolist technique. All three poems are connected by an imagined locus in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and stimulated by the discoveries of fossils of the earliest hominids. Each is distinguished by focus on a particular type of rock, standing in for periods of human development, and thence with the idea of Africa as the origin of humanity generally. These are meditations on human history and imagination from the earliest appearance in Africa of the predecessors of Homo sapiens sapiens to urgent present-day concerns. Okri suggests that through poetry humankind can leap across a postcolonial self/other divide to straddle the polarities of darkness and light. I suggest that his belief is that, through the Imaginatio Creatix, we can re-dream the world and so access our higher nature. Keywords : African cosmogony, cultural connections, decolonial turns, ius dominandi [urge to control], Ben Okri, ontopoiesis, the poetic muse, Wild (2012)","PeriodicalId":41428,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH IN AFRICA","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41526347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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