Alford Council of International English & Literature Journal, 2020
A Nigerian culture is gradually evolving by virtue of the forces of culture formation functioning... more A Nigerian culture is gradually evolving by virtue of the forces of culture formation functioning. What is difficult to predict is the nature of the value system that this culture will generate and transmit. But there is division among Nigerian literary critics concerning the kind of culture they wish to see consolidate in Nigeria. Some think that a modern Nigeria based on the heritage of colonialism will yield an inauthentic culture or a hybrid situation, which is as undesirable, whereas an authentic culture ought to be African. Others demand of literature to 'show the light', by providing models of probity in political life and inclusiveness and tolerance in social culture, and further to project an ideology of commitment to integrated national development. In a market economy, however, a vast range of forces of social change interact in culture generation, and no single one of these forces can alone by itself determine the shape and tenor of values marking a culture. Both scholarly attitudes in respect to a Nigerian culture, moreover, have strong echoes of what Friedrich Nietzsche calls ressentiment. In this paper, we shall explore the distrust frequently encountered in literary studies towards the evolving culture in Nigeria using this analytic of ressentiment. Literary scholarship exercises direct and indirect influence on the evolution of culture, but it is the latter that is of greater concern here, namely the orientation it presses upon literary creativity and the way in which it influences perception of the emerging culture in the wider world.
In his article The Father\u27s Power in Breitbach\u27s Report on Bruno and Achebe\u27s A Man of t... more In his article The Father\u27s Power in Breitbach\u27s Report on Bruno and Achebe\u27s A Man of the People Amechi N. Akwanya analyses Joseph Breitbach\u27s Report on Bruno and Chinua Achebe\u27s No Longer at Ease in order to lay bare the underlying processes of these texts. Undoubtedly the patterns of struggle in the two texts are political, but reading them in exclusively political terms has the consequence that the works are of no further interest once the putative political agenda is identified and described. Akwanya\u27s analysis discloses shared features in the two texts published within two years of each other. In Report on Bruno, there is a democratic system, where the people have their say but in A Man of the People they are kept in the dark about what is really going on and are manipulated and abused by those in power. Their resemblance is at the level of symbolism and this is what Akwanya attempts to unlock using René Girard\u27s theory of mimetic desire
Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman has been much discussed as a clash o... more Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman has been much discussed as a clash of tradition and modernity, with the Colonial District Officer, Mr Pilkings projecting British sensibilities as right reason itself, and can find nothing in him to rouse sympathy for the local people's traditional culture in which the King's Horseman is required to follow the king he serves in death. His sympathy towards them is the patronizing kind, which knows what is best for them, and would take the necessary steps to procure it for them, even against their strong opposition. However, despite the playwright himself suggesting that Mr Pilkings is a catalyser rather than a protagonist, he is clearly entangled as a participant in the relationships of struggle the drama unfolds, which comprise its internal driving force. The main struggle is of course between Elesin, the King's Horseman, and Iyaloja, 'Mother' of the Market, and 'mother of multitudes', the one antagonist pushing the movement of change by default, not by intention, the other demanding total compliance with the cultural tradition. Iyaloja's 'cultural resistance' burgeons with new and unchallengeable energy in the appearance of Olunde the Eleson's son, and by metonymical substitution, the King's faithful Horseman. It will be argued in this paper that the community had come to a threshold that would have led to a cultural revolution-as elaborated by Fredric Jameson-an abrupt and disorientating transition from one mode of production, one social practice to another. It remained only the successful withholding of sacrifice of a life. But the movement of change is interrupted by the almost magical appearance of Olunde.
Literary works are commonly analysed at the level of incidents succeeding one another, but there ... more Literary works are commonly analysed at the level of incidents succeeding one another, but there is also a vertical level of analysis where entities coexist, and by whose functioning the entire work can be apprehended as a totality. It is at this vertical level that archaic forms such a myths may be found to subsist as ‗textual generators', whereas their presence may at first register merely as an echo effect. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart displays numerous incidents which seem more or less self-contained, butare found to embody rich significance when connected to themythical night with agentive possibilities, which is encounteredvery early in the narrative. The effect is to connect all the scenes ofpain and suffering together into one unfolding tragedy pressing onto a moment of culmination. This paper will be guided in exploringthe vertical dimension of the narrative by the theory of mythicideation.
Authenticity is raised by Sartre as a fundamental issue in human existence. It becomes greatly co... more Authenticity is raised by Sartre as a fundamental issue in human existence. It becomes greatly complicated for human existence under colonialism, a situation which is not automatically remedied by political independence. Countries that have passed through colonial tutelage typically have a double inheritance: the cultural tradition which predated colonization and persisted alongside colonialism as the latter was setting up a formal sector aligned to its own interests, and the value system of the colonizing power which becomes diffused in a variety of ways within the indigenous group. Hybridity is one of the consequences of this dual heritage, creating uncertainty as to where and how to ascertain authenticity among the subjects. In Chinua Achebe's <i>Things fall apart </i>and <i>Anthills of the savannah</i>, colonialism yields characters who affiliate to the outsider, as they see in the newcomers an access route to power. It also unveils subjects who cling...
Thinking the present social tensions in Nigeria, there is a sense of a new chapter. There were ea... more Thinking the present social tensions in Nigeria, there is a sense of a new chapter. There were earlier chapters, like the tensions over Sharia Law in the 1980s and the regional and ethnic rivalries that culminated in civil war in the 1960s. Newness here is as in mythopoiesis where the surface properties of a component of an old or received myth are substituted, without affecting the total significance of the myth. The result is that there is underlying sameness in the novelty. This is what occasions for this paper remembrance of Wole Soyinka's <i>Season of Anomy </i>in the functionality of a proverb. <i>Season of Anomy</i> is a work in which a converging pattern of actions, some in pursuit of profit motive, some in the way of exercise of power and domination, still others in selfless community-building efforts culminate in a vast and lethal explosion. This is anomy, but it is coming in <i>season. </i>The time of the reign of this particular ch...
Many readings of Chinua Achebe's novels come with expectations as regards the protagonists. T... more Many readings of Chinua Achebe's novels come with expectations as regards the protagonists. To those whose expectations are not met, the tendency is to unleash moral judgments on these characters. Reading with an 'open' mind, on the other hand, really amounts to reading against the backdrop of the whole literary tradition, which would allow the spotting of similar and contrasting feature to existents in other works. Attempting such a reading is what enables us to see shared features with other literary works. Such are the romantic traits we see in the characters. In this paper, we shall explore the way in which the romantic traits of Achebe's characters reflect in their judgments and actions, giving rise to the particular quality of the tragedies they are caught up in.
In this paper, Okonkwo, the protagonist of<i> Things Fall Apart </i>is shown to be a ... more In this paper, Okonkwo, the protagonist of<i> Things Fall Apart </i>is shown to be a light-bearer, who is not only followed by the narrative eye, but also becomes a contestant for leadership traditionally held by elders who have taken the highest titles in the land.
In literature, innocence is a state that does not endure, in that it is impacted by experience, b... more In literature, innocence is a state that does not endure, in that it is impacted by experience, becomes experience. This paper will draw from the literary tradition of figuration of changes from innocence to experience, especially in William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience to help explore the experiences of the traumatized in some of Achebe's poems. Reflection on these archaic symbols is here hinged on the analytics of tragic irony as elaborated in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism, leading to the major finding that the turmoil seen in several of Chinua Achebe's poems is usually the time of the impact of experience upon innocence, with violence randomly visited on the defenceless. But these poems seem to hint at a possibility of restoration of lost innocence.
Fernando Pessoa has several fictional characters who are claimed to be the authors of various col... more Fernando Pessoa has several fictional characters who are claimed to be the authors of various collections of poetry gathered under his name. In the criticism, these are often seen as figures substituted for himself, while the poems which are not attributed to any of these fictional characters are treated as his own direct speech actions without subterfuge. This is in line with the conventions that have been dominant in discussions of literature, either to start from the author or from what Edward Said calls the 'social and economic outside facts'. With attention turned elsewhere, the literary work itself tends to figure as an instrument in the hands of the author for use in pursuing some purpose. In this paper, we are going to bring back the works into focus. Discourse analysis is helpful in doing this. It is also applied in this paper to help sharpen focus on the characters of discourse, their identities as discourse agents and the objects which exercise them, in order to achieve interpretation of the poems as discourse events.
Literature is studied in different ways and at different levels: as works, namely the productions... more Literature is studied in different ways and at different levels: as works, namely the productions of geniuses, or in Heidegger’s sense of made things, which at the same time share with natural things the sense of being by themselves and self-sufficient; literary works are also studied as part of cultural phenomena and part or even the expression of a cultural tradition. In certain historical reconstructions, they may also be discussed as milestones and representative portrayals of the ethos and sensibility of a period. Their study as things making up a class of phenomena which can be compared among themselves is another level which, like the approaches focusing on the work as a self-sufficient entity, calls for specific kinds of expertise. Originality as an artistic requirement may lead in the study of literature to emphasis on the unique and distinctive features, which are easily identified at the surface level, whereas comparative studies are in real terms a challenge to explore l...
Studies of Paul Celan’s work usually devote substantial sections to his and his family's expe... more Studies of Paul Celan’s work usually devote substantial sections to his and his family's experience of concentration camps during World War II and thus questions might be raised whether these are the issues of his poetry, whether these are anecdotal and of general interest or whether they are the things that comprise his poetry. This study is based on the view that language behaves quite differently in poetry than in the execution of its other functions including historical documentation. Representation is the language function here and the output is an artwork. Condemnation to extermination, ‘collective Jewish martyrdom’, as Bekker puts it, on the basis of one’s ethnic origin, the dire and dehumanizing experiences and the sense of the irrecuperable loss involved are undoubtedly at work in Paul Celan’s poetry, but the poems are nevertheless extraordinary works of art. The paper explores the relationship.
Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy is regarded by some as one of the masterpieces of African literatu... more Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy is regarded by some as one of the masterpieces of African literature, but it presents challenges in reading, leading others, among them literary critics, to pronounce it a failure. There is therefore deep ambivalence over this novel, but it comes from the expectations with which the readers approach it. Literary works may share elements of structure, but that does not mean that they should all be read in the same way, with the same expectations. The history of criticism of African literature going back to the early 1970s has put in place a tradition in which literature is directly connected to the so-called social context as its referential and basis of intelligibility. In response, creative writing is increasingly in sync with this theory, and critics formed in this tradition expect each work to provide a window on that social context. It is taken in this article that this tradition of reading is the reason for the difficulty many have with Soyinka’s texts. Season of Anomy demands both close reading and application of heuristic devices from literary theory and criticism because it is indeed a literary work of art. The master narrative of the superman is applied here to motivate a literary analysis of the work. Opening up Season of Anomy in this way makes it apparent that we are dealing with a great work, deeply grounded in a tradition of art much older than the mid-20th-century theory of engagement, and not a failure of any sort.
The 'overwhelming existence' in Rilke's First Elegy is a being of the Angelic Order, ... more The 'overwhelming existence' in Rilke's First Elegy is a being of the Angelic Order, terrible because even friendly contact with a human can result in the unintended annihilation of the weaker existence. In Eliot's Ash Wednesday, the role of the overwhelming existence is sustained by divinity itself and the moral character of this being as reflected in the language of the Speaker is benign as well as holy and arouses fear in the Speaker because of consciousness of having offended. But there is also in these poems a sense in which the existence of other things lacking the dignity and power of the angels or of divinity exercises a threat the subject cannot withstand, yielding a subject who has only voice. The poetic acts performed in virtue of the utterances of these voices are purely lyrical, without admixture of narration. But there are significant differences. Rilke's lyric is dominantly exclamatory with the underlying tone of ressentiment, and the Speaker's...
Alford Council of International English & Literature Journal, 2020
A Nigerian culture is gradually evolving by virtue of the forces of culture formation functioning... more A Nigerian culture is gradually evolving by virtue of the forces of culture formation functioning. What is difficult to predict is the nature of the value system that this culture will generate and transmit. But there is division among Nigerian literary critics concerning the kind of culture they wish to see consolidate in Nigeria. Some think that a modern Nigeria based on the heritage of colonialism will yield an inauthentic culture or a hybrid situation, which is as undesirable, whereas an authentic culture ought to be African. Others demand of literature to 'show the light', by providing models of probity in political life and inclusiveness and tolerance in social culture, and further to project an ideology of commitment to integrated national development. In a market economy, however, a vast range of forces of social change interact in culture generation, and no single one of these forces can alone by itself determine the shape and tenor of values marking a culture. Both scholarly attitudes in respect to a Nigerian culture, moreover, have strong echoes of what Friedrich Nietzsche calls ressentiment. In this paper, we shall explore the distrust frequently encountered in literary studies towards the evolving culture in Nigeria using this analytic of ressentiment. Literary scholarship exercises direct and indirect influence on the evolution of culture, but it is the latter that is of greater concern here, namely the orientation it presses upon literary creativity and the way in which it influences perception of the emerging culture in the wider world.
In his article The Father\u27s Power in Breitbach\u27s Report on Bruno and Achebe\u27s A Man of t... more In his article The Father\u27s Power in Breitbach\u27s Report on Bruno and Achebe\u27s A Man of the People Amechi N. Akwanya analyses Joseph Breitbach\u27s Report on Bruno and Chinua Achebe\u27s No Longer at Ease in order to lay bare the underlying processes of these texts. Undoubtedly the patterns of struggle in the two texts are political, but reading them in exclusively political terms has the consequence that the works are of no further interest once the putative political agenda is identified and described. Akwanya\u27s analysis discloses shared features in the two texts published within two years of each other. In Report on Bruno, there is a democratic system, where the people have their say but in A Man of the People they are kept in the dark about what is really going on and are manipulated and abused by those in power. Their resemblance is at the level of symbolism and this is what Akwanya attempts to unlock using René Girard\u27s theory of mimetic desire
Wole Soyinka&#39;s Death and the King&#39;s Horseman has been much discussed as a clash o... more Wole Soyinka&#39;s Death and the King&#39;s Horseman has been much discussed as a clash of tradition and modernity, with the Colonial District Officer, Mr Pilkings projecting British sensibilities as right reason itself, and can find nothing in him to rouse sympathy for the local people&#39;s traditional culture in which the King&#39;s Horseman is required to follow the king he serves in death. His sympathy towards them is the patronizing kind, which knows what is best for them, and would take the necessary steps to procure it for them, even against their strong opposition. However, despite the playwright himself suggesting that Mr Pilkings is a catalyser rather than a protagonist, he is clearly entangled as a participant in the relationships of struggle the drama unfolds, which comprise its internal driving force. The main struggle is of course between Elesin, the King&#39;s Horseman, and Iyaloja, &#39;Mother&#39; of the Market, and &#39;mother of multitudes&#39;, the one antagonist pushing the movement of change by default, not by intention, the other demanding total compliance with the cultural tradition. Iyaloja&#39;s &#39;cultural resistance&#39; burgeons with new and unchallengeable energy in the appearance of Olunde the Eleson&#39;s son, and by metonymical substitution, the King&#39;s faithful Horseman. It will be argued in this paper that the community had come to a threshold that would have led to a cultural revolution-as elaborated by Fredric Jameson-an abrupt and disorientating transition from one mode of production, one social practice to another. It remained only the successful withholding of sacrifice of a life. But the movement of change is interrupted by the almost magical appearance of Olunde.
Literary works are commonly analysed at the level of incidents succeeding one another, but there ... more Literary works are commonly analysed at the level of incidents succeeding one another, but there is also a vertical level of analysis where entities coexist, and by whose functioning the entire work can be apprehended as a totality. It is at this vertical level that archaic forms such a myths may be found to subsist as ‗textual generators', whereas their presence may at first register merely as an echo effect. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart displays numerous incidents which seem more or less self-contained, butare found to embody rich significance when connected to themythical night with agentive possibilities, which is encounteredvery early in the narrative. The effect is to connect all the scenes ofpain and suffering together into one unfolding tragedy pressing onto a moment of culmination. This paper will be guided in exploringthe vertical dimension of the narrative by the theory of mythicideation.
Authenticity is raised by Sartre as a fundamental issue in human existence. It becomes greatly co... more Authenticity is raised by Sartre as a fundamental issue in human existence. It becomes greatly complicated for human existence under colonialism, a situation which is not automatically remedied by political independence. Countries that have passed through colonial tutelage typically have a double inheritance: the cultural tradition which predated colonization and persisted alongside colonialism as the latter was setting up a formal sector aligned to its own interests, and the value system of the colonizing power which becomes diffused in a variety of ways within the indigenous group. Hybridity is one of the consequences of this dual heritage, creating uncertainty as to where and how to ascertain authenticity among the subjects. In Chinua Achebe's <i>Things fall apart </i>and <i>Anthills of the savannah</i>, colonialism yields characters who affiliate to the outsider, as they see in the newcomers an access route to power. It also unveils subjects who cling...
Thinking the present social tensions in Nigeria, there is a sense of a new chapter. There were ea... more Thinking the present social tensions in Nigeria, there is a sense of a new chapter. There were earlier chapters, like the tensions over Sharia Law in the 1980s and the regional and ethnic rivalries that culminated in civil war in the 1960s. Newness here is as in mythopoiesis where the surface properties of a component of an old or received myth are substituted, without affecting the total significance of the myth. The result is that there is underlying sameness in the novelty. This is what occasions for this paper remembrance of Wole Soyinka's <i>Season of Anomy </i>in the functionality of a proverb. <i>Season of Anomy</i> is a work in which a converging pattern of actions, some in pursuit of profit motive, some in the way of exercise of power and domination, still others in selfless community-building efforts culminate in a vast and lethal explosion. This is anomy, but it is coming in <i>season. </i>The time of the reign of this particular ch...
Many readings of Chinua Achebe's novels come with expectations as regards the protagonists. T... more Many readings of Chinua Achebe's novels come with expectations as regards the protagonists. To those whose expectations are not met, the tendency is to unleash moral judgments on these characters. Reading with an 'open' mind, on the other hand, really amounts to reading against the backdrop of the whole literary tradition, which would allow the spotting of similar and contrasting feature to existents in other works. Attempting such a reading is what enables us to see shared features with other literary works. Such are the romantic traits we see in the characters. In this paper, we shall explore the way in which the romantic traits of Achebe's characters reflect in their judgments and actions, giving rise to the particular quality of the tragedies they are caught up in.
In this paper, Okonkwo, the protagonist of<i> Things Fall Apart </i>is shown to be a ... more In this paper, Okonkwo, the protagonist of<i> Things Fall Apart </i>is shown to be a light-bearer, who is not only followed by the narrative eye, but also becomes a contestant for leadership traditionally held by elders who have taken the highest titles in the land.
In literature, innocence is a state that does not endure, in that it is impacted by experience, b... more In literature, innocence is a state that does not endure, in that it is impacted by experience, becomes experience. This paper will draw from the literary tradition of figuration of changes from innocence to experience, especially in William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience to help explore the experiences of the traumatized in some of Achebe's poems. Reflection on these archaic symbols is here hinged on the analytics of tragic irony as elaborated in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism, leading to the major finding that the turmoil seen in several of Chinua Achebe's poems is usually the time of the impact of experience upon innocence, with violence randomly visited on the defenceless. But these poems seem to hint at a possibility of restoration of lost innocence.
Fernando Pessoa has several fictional characters who are claimed to be the authors of various col... more Fernando Pessoa has several fictional characters who are claimed to be the authors of various collections of poetry gathered under his name. In the criticism, these are often seen as figures substituted for himself, while the poems which are not attributed to any of these fictional characters are treated as his own direct speech actions without subterfuge. This is in line with the conventions that have been dominant in discussions of literature, either to start from the author or from what Edward Said calls the 'social and economic outside facts'. With attention turned elsewhere, the literary work itself tends to figure as an instrument in the hands of the author for use in pursuing some purpose. In this paper, we are going to bring back the works into focus. Discourse analysis is helpful in doing this. It is also applied in this paper to help sharpen focus on the characters of discourse, their identities as discourse agents and the objects which exercise them, in order to achieve interpretation of the poems as discourse events.
Literature is studied in different ways and at different levels: as works, namely the productions... more Literature is studied in different ways and at different levels: as works, namely the productions of geniuses, or in Heidegger’s sense of made things, which at the same time share with natural things the sense of being by themselves and self-sufficient; literary works are also studied as part of cultural phenomena and part or even the expression of a cultural tradition. In certain historical reconstructions, they may also be discussed as milestones and representative portrayals of the ethos and sensibility of a period. Their study as things making up a class of phenomena which can be compared among themselves is another level which, like the approaches focusing on the work as a self-sufficient entity, calls for specific kinds of expertise. Originality as an artistic requirement may lead in the study of literature to emphasis on the unique and distinctive features, which are easily identified at the surface level, whereas comparative studies are in real terms a challenge to explore l...
Studies of Paul Celan’s work usually devote substantial sections to his and his family's expe... more Studies of Paul Celan’s work usually devote substantial sections to his and his family's experience of concentration camps during World War II and thus questions might be raised whether these are the issues of his poetry, whether these are anecdotal and of general interest or whether they are the things that comprise his poetry. This study is based on the view that language behaves quite differently in poetry than in the execution of its other functions including historical documentation. Representation is the language function here and the output is an artwork. Condemnation to extermination, ‘collective Jewish martyrdom’, as Bekker puts it, on the basis of one’s ethnic origin, the dire and dehumanizing experiences and the sense of the irrecuperable loss involved are undoubtedly at work in Paul Celan’s poetry, but the poems are nevertheless extraordinary works of art. The paper explores the relationship.
Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy is regarded by some as one of the masterpieces of African literatu... more Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy is regarded by some as one of the masterpieces of African literature, but it presents challenges in reading, leading others, among them literary critics, to pronounce it a failure. There is therefore deep ambivalence over this novel, but it comes from the expectations with which the readers approach it. Literary works may share elements of structure, but that does not mean that they should all be read in the same way, with the same expectations. The history of criticism of African literature going back to the early 1970s has put in place a tradition in which literature is directly connected to the so-called social context as its referential and basis of intelligibility. In response, creative writing is increasingly in sync with this theory, and critics formed in this tradition expect each work to provide a window on that social context. It is taken in this article that this tradition of reading is the reason for the difficulty many have with Soyinka’s texts. Season of Anomy demands both close reading and application of heuristic devices from literary theory and criticism because it is indeed a literary work of art. The master narrative of the superman is applied here to motivate a literary analysis of the work. Opening up Season of Anomy in this way makes it apparent that we are dealing with a great work, deeply grounded in a tradition of art much older than the mid-20th-century theory of engagement, and not a failure of any sort.
The 'overwhelming existence' in Rilke's First Elegy is a being of the Angelic Order, ... more The 'overwhelming existence' in Rilke's First Elegy is a being of the Angelic Order, terrible because even friendly contact with a human can result in the unintended annihilation of the weaker existence. In Eliot's Ash Wednesday, the role of the overwhelming existence is sustained by divinity itself and the moral character of this being as reflected in the language of the Speaker is benign as well as holy and arouses fear in the Speaker because of consciousness of having offended. But there is also in these poems a sense in which the existence of other things lacking the dignity and power of the angels or of divinity exercises a threat the subject cannot withstand, yielding a subject who has only voice. The poetic acts performed in virtue of the utterances of these voices are purely lyrical, without admixture of narration. But there are significant differences. Rilke's lyric is dominantly exclamatory with the underlying tone of ressentiment, and the Speaker's...
The history of narrative literature in Nigeria goes back to the early 1950s. It is significant th... more The history of narrative literature in Nigeria goes back to the early 1950s. It is significant that this writing has been developing since the second generation following the founding of the new nation. Literature is a cultural product as well as a producer of culture. Thus Nigerian writing coincides with the emergence of a culture that is broadly Nigerian; and it is actively producing this Nigerian culture. Furthermore, Nigerian writing is underlain by the history of the nation, going back to the very founding of the nation-state. The first phase of this literary history consists in the reconstruction of that historical event, and the mapping of the site of its occurrence. The second phase continues to track the history of the nation by means of the experiences of the exceptional individual. The focus on the exceptional individual is carried over from the first phase of writing; but whereas the privileged space of the latter is rural, that of the former is urban. The contrast gives rise to the two motifs developed as two parts of the thesis. Only in very recent times has attention been shifting away from the epic or quasi-epic individual, who has dominated Nigerian fiction. Increasingly, the focus is on the ordinary individual; bringing to light the way in which his consciousness is being shaped by the public, social events, and the way in which those same events influence the narrative voice itself. The emphasis is on the underlying motifs from the old pre-colonial ideology, which influence the fictional process. These are developed at length in the first part of the thesis, together with the interpretive motifs drawn from contemporary criticism; and they are used here for a rigorous reinterpretation of the better-known Nigerian works, and for the opening and mapping of the new and less well-known writings.
The word theory so frequently collocates with the scientific disciplines that some take it to be ... more The word theory so frequently collocates with the scientific disciplines that some take it to be a scientific term. Conceived as a different order of intellectual productivity than the sciences, use of theory with respect to art therefore strikes some as inappropriate. But if organized knowledge about art is possible, and genuine knowledge about it distinguishable from non-genuine, it must be because theory is at work in this study. Theory as a general statement about something is in fact implicated in the production, consumption, and study of art. The rather insignificant role some critics associate with it in the study may be owing to use of habitual knowledge to the extent of forgetfulness of the need to reexamine and reassess the founding principles. An academic discipline must be wary if the founding principles have become part of everyday discourse and are transmitted as traditional and socially and culturally useful knowledge – if, in other words, the student of this discipline receives his/her basic notions from the social space. This paper examines the theory function in art studies from concern over the undue influence of everyday utilitarian notions of art on the academic study of art in Nigeria.
In the literary tradition covering more than two and a half thousand years, philosophy has been f... more In the literary tradition covering more than two and a half thousand years, philosophy has been frequently mentioned in close proximity to literature, often as different ways of engaging more or less the same activity. We shall look at this matter briefly in the paper. What is not often said, even though many would probably not object to the idea is that literary criticism is a philosophical, rather than a scientific discipline, insofar as it is exercised by the need to understand, lacking the means to explain the phenomenon it is faced with. Three things really are at issue here: literature, literary studies/criticism, and philosophy. There are interrelationships among them, which is why some of the most important works relevant to the study of literary phenomena are by philosophers, normally the very greatest ones among them. We will not be exploring this history in detail, but only the engendering of literary criticism as a result of the philosophical interest in the literary, of which Plato and Aristotle were apparently the first to devote to it sustained attention. But we shall find that evolution and change within the history of criticism have been by following, sometimes without a conscious decision, the methods of reflection inaugurated in Aristotelian metaphysics in which philosophy is established as the knowledge of things through their ultimate causes.
The triangular relation of language-speech-communication, which is implied in the formal approach... more The triangular relation of language-speech-communication, which is implied in the formal approaches to language study does capture a fact of experience, namely, that for a sizeable portion of humanity, language really means the spoken form and is therefore the ordinary and most direct means of communication apart from gestures, at any rate the most flexible. We can distinguish, however, linguistic structures which exist in the oral form only, without being in any way moves in communication. The words of ritual acts are a great example…. In ritual, language takes place purely as speech action; at the opposite end is ecriture (‘writing’), the linguistic structure which occurs only in the written form. These two linguistic forms do not aim to encode or transmit messages: in neither is language a medium. In ritual … language puts the intentional act of the community into effect; in ecriture, language itself is what takes place.
From the first appearance of the form in Nigeria, in the early work of Amos Tutuola, it is alread... more From the first appearance of the form in Nigeria, in the early work of Amos Tutuola, it is already possible to say that the Nigerian novel is traditional, in that it has sought consciously to meet the requirements of the art. It comes of age, that is, at the time it first begins calling forth critical efforts at interpretation and understanding by taking place in a form which is also traditionally very important for a literary culture, the form of the heroic narrative, in Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. On the one hand, it is as if the tradition wishes to leave no one in doubt that it is literary; on the other, the movement from fantasy to the heroic is a kind of sign-signal that this is indeed a tradition.
Criticism is the name of a task established anciently in the Greek tradition with respect to the ... more Criticism is the name of a task established anciently in the Greek tradition with respect to the handling of art objects. Although this manner of attention to art objects was originally part of Greek popular culture, Aristotle dedicating an entire book to it, Poetics or On the Art of Poetry, and reaching into the depths of philosophy in search of explanation, suggests that it had gone beyond a feature of popular culture at his time. The book is treated by some as the representative work of his philosophy, while others suggest that it was first written as a set of lecture notes on the nature and study of literary art. Nevertheless, in the ‘Polemical Introduction’ in his mid-twentieth-century Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye had had to undertake a vigorous demonstration of the status of criticism as an academic discipline. This discipline came into existence because of an object which, of all human-made things, needs to be accounted for, in terms of its being as a distinct entity. It is the presupposition here that the features as well as the object of this discipline established anciently perdures over time and in all circumstances as the foundation which the discipline cannot forsake and still remain itself.
Interview with Reverend Father Professor Amechi Nicholas Akwanya, a Gifted Scholar and Intellectual by Andrew Bula, 2020
Amechi Nicholas Akwanya is a Catholic Priest-cum-Professor of English and Literary Studies at the... more Amechi Nicholas Akwanya is a Catholic Priest-cum-Professor of English and Literary Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he works the job of teaching, researching, and writing. Akwanya is, in many ways, a gifted intellectual figure comparable to only few ─ now or in the past, as there have been 83,058 reads of his open access works worldwide; as he is never out of his depth in matters of literature; and as he is a Professor of Professors, which is to say that some of his former students have themselves become Professors in their own right, etcetera. Even so, this genius of a scholar keeps himself at a remove from the spotlight, living quietly as he does on the campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and his house overlooking its suburbia. This is, in fact, why it has taken me, Andrew Bula, his former student and a lecturer at Baze University, Abuja, gentle prodding for slightly over three years to work up his interest to share these extraordinary episodes of his life, and much else.
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Papers by Amechi Akwanya
Furthermore, Nigerian writing is underlain by the history of the nation, going back to the very founding of the nation-state. The first phase of this literary history consists in the reconstruction of that historical event, and the mapping of the site of its occurrence. The second phase continues to track the history of the nation by means of the experiences of the exceptional individual.
The focus on the exceptional individual is carried over from the first phase of writing; but whereas the privileged space of the latter is rural, that of the former is urban. The contrast gives rise to the two motifs developed as two parts of the thesis. Only in very recent times has attention been shifting away from the epic or quasi-epic individual, who has dominated Nigerian fiction. Increasingly, the focus is on the ordinary individual; bringing to light the way in which his consciousness is being shaped by the public, social events, and the way in which those same events influence the narrative voice itself.
The emphasis is on the underlying motifs from the old pre-colonial ideology, which influence the fictional process. These are developed at length in the first part of the thesis, together with the interpretive motifs drawn from contemporary criticism; and they are used here for a rigorous reinterpretation of the better-known Nigerian works, and for the opening and mapping of the new and less well-known writings.