The Critical Reception of Modern African Poetry

EHESS The Critical Reception of Modern African Poetry (La réception critique de la poésie africaine moderne) Author(s): Oyeniyi Okunoye Source: Cahiers d'Études Africaines, Vol. 44, Cahier 176 (2004), pp. 769-791 Published by: EHESS Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4393435 . Accessed: 31/08/2011 13:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. EHESS is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Cahiers d'Études Africaines. http://www.jstor.org Oyeniyi Okunoye The of Modern Critical African Reception Poetry "To have any sense of evolving African poetics, one must be aware of the sociopolitical significance of literaryexpression and the ideological character of literary theory." Thomas Knipp (1985: 117) The inaugural moment of the scholarly engagement with modem African poetry is best seen as coinciding with efforts at making modem African literature a subject of academic enquiry in the 1960s, the most significant being the Makerere, Dakar and Freetown conferences, all of which were held between 1962 and 1963. The proceedings of the conferences, edited by Gerald Moore (1965), are brought together in African Literature and the Universities. The efforts are remarkable in the sense that they generated the enduring problematics in African critical practice, all of which are associated with the task of clarifying the African literary identity: the crisis associated with the medium of African writing; the dilemma of inventing or appropriating a critical idiom and the deceptively simple question of mapping the African literary tradition. Dubem Okafor (2001: 1) sums these up, saying, "African literature is not only a contested terrain, but the medium of its production and of its discussion is, to say the least, cacophonous"'. The fact that all other problems ever raised in the criticism of African literature are engendered by these underscores their primacy in the assessment of modern African poetic traditions. The conflicting critical standpoints with regard to the possibilities of apprehending African literature will represent critical positions, which have attracted numerous subscribers and reflect changing perspectives on African literature. "Changes in definitions of African literature reflect and respond to political and social realities, trends in literary criticism, and changes within the texts themselves" (Barkan 1985: 27). Modern African poetry, Cahiers d'Etudes africaines, XLIV (4), 176, 2004, pp. 769-791. 770 OYENIYI OKUNOYE very much like other postcolonial literarypractices,is defined in relation to Europeanliterarytraditionswhich provide the paradigms,conventions and criticalprinciplesthat are either appropriatedor negatedin the process of defining the identityof the newer literatures. Any appraisalof the critical receptionof modem Africanpoetry should underscorethis problemby revealing why certain paradigmsand methods are privileged and others marginalised. Inventing a Tradition The first phase of the scholarly investigationof African poetry privileged a Pan-Africanistoutlook,one thattook the existence of a continentalliterary traditionfor granted. This, in reality, remainsthe inventionof Africanistanthologistsand pioneeringcritics of Africanpoetrywho simply willed the traditioninto existence on the pages of such journals of Africanliterature and culture as The Black Orpheus, Transition and African Literature Today, as well as influential anthologies of African poetry. With the obvious exception of Wole Soyinka's Poems of Black Africa (1977), whose title reflects its focus, anthologieslike ModernPoetryfrom Africa co-editedby Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier (1963) as well as A Book of African Verse by John Reed and Clive Wake (1969) operate within a traditionthat is pretentiousin claiming the Africanidentityfor works that do not truly project diverseAfricanexperiences. Whereasmost of these anthologiesmerely representthe work of poets in sub-SaharanAfrica, they adopt the African identity in a metonymicmanner. ModernPoetryfrom Africa anthologises the works of thirty-two poets from sixteen African countries, twenty of whom are fromWest Africa. GeraldMooreis particularlyknownfor taking an Africanuniversefor grantedin studyingAfricanpoetry. This is evident in such essays as "Timeand Experiencein AfricanPoetry"(1966) and "The Imageryof Death in African Poetry"(1968). Romanus Egudu's Modern African Poetry and the African Predicament (1978) and Ken Goodwin's Understanding African Poetry (1982) project a similar outlook, reflecting the critical consensus between indigenous and expatriatecritics of African poetry in this regard. The two studies give a largely distortedpicture of African poetry. Goodwin is the typical nonAfricancritic with a pretenceto an encyclopaedicgraspof Africanwriting. He suggests that his theoreticalformulationcould explain the patternthe growth of African poetry has taken. His thesis is that most of modern Africanpoets first imitatedsome Europeanmodels, so that it is impossible to properly appreciatetheir work without taking this into consideration. He correlatesthe achievementof each of the ten poets he studies with the patternor standardset by their models. But six out of the ten poets-Kofi Awoonor,J. P. Clark,Wole Soyinka,ChristopherOkigbo,LenriePetersand CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MODERN POETRY 771 Gabriel Okara-are from West Africa. He does not go beyond acknowledging the debt of the poets to a received European tradition within which poets like W. B. Yeats, Gerald Manly Hopkins, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound are seen as figures to be imitated. His argument, briefly stated, is as follows: "Thefirst significantstage in the formationof contemporaryAfricanpoetryin English was [... . emancipationfrom nineteenth-centuryculturalimperialismand the voluntaryadoptionof a foreign, but international,twentieth-century culturalimperialism and the voluntaryadoptionof a foreign, but international,twentieth-century style. It was a style comparablein manyways with thatof the AfricanFrancophone poets. [.1. ] The adoptionof the AnglophoneAfricanpoets of an internationalstyle was due to their tertiaryeducation"(Goodwin 1982: ix). Egudu's Modern African Poetry and the African Predicament represents a slightly different tendency in the sense that it recognises the diverse experiences that have shaped the creative imagination of poets from various parts of Africa as generating the tradition. The assumption in his work is that the African experience is thematised in African poetry. For him, African poetry "is intimately concerned with the African people in the African society, with their life in its various ramifications-cultural, social, economic, intellectual, and political" (Egudu 1978: 5). Ironically, Egudu underscores the variety of experiences articulated in African poetry without drawing attention to its implication for the continued validity of the notion of an African poetic tradition. This unproblematic reading of African poetry betrays the weakness of pioneering scholarship. Tanure Ojaide's Poetic Imagination in Black Africa (1996) maps a wider space for African poetry. It not only asserts the uniqueness of the African poetic imagination but also attempts a clarification of same. Fundamental to Ojaide's critical project is the assumption that the Black poetic imagination must be differentiated from the Western tradition of poetry so long as the artistic philosophy of African writers is rooted in traditional African poetic traditions: the artistic principles and practices shared by various Black African societies which also provide the common base for modern African poets and poets of African descent. His work thus represents a more scholarly rendition of the ideas of the bolekaja critics in Toward the Decolonization of African Literature (Chinweizu & Madabuike 1980) in its dispassionate outlook and scholarly temper. It is best read as an attempt at theorising black poetry. He reconciles form with content, seeing both as issuing from the same source. Even though he focuses on modern African poetry of English expression, he makes statements that are supposed to be applicable to a poetic tradition in sub-Saharan Africa and the black Diaspora. The enabling assumptions for Ojaide's work are stated in the second chapter of the book: "ModernAfricanpoetic aestheticsare uniquein possessing a repertoryof authentic African features. This authenticitymanifests itself in the use of concrete images 772 OYENIYI OKUNOYE derivedfrom the faunaand flora, proverbs,indigenousrhythms,verbaltropes,and concepts of space and time to establisha poetic form. Besides (and unlike in the West), content is more importantthan form and images do not aim to reflect the senses. Contentis not perceivedby poet and audienceas extra-literary.The mere fact that foreign languagesare used could occasionallycreate discord in discourse but modem Africanpoetryattemptsto reflectindigenousrhythms. In fact, an authentic Africanworldformsthe backdropof modemAfricanpoetry"(Ojaide1996:30). The discursive site that Ojaide's study occupies derives empowerment from the assumptions of Afrocentric scholars and proponents of black aesthetics who acknowledge shared cultural and artistic principles in sub-Saharan Africa on the one hand, and the black Diaspora on the other. Negritude probably generated the original inspiration for this outlook. G. C. M. Mutiso (1974) states what has almost been taken for granted in the discourse of black art: the essential unity of vision in black expressive culture as evident in an artistic philosophy which privileges functionality and social responsibility. His contention is that "in African societies art has traditionally been highly functional, and [that] the contemporary African writer identifies with this tradition" (Mutiso 1974: 9). Mutiso's claim is a variant of the black aesthetic, which, in a sense, authorises the transcontinental Afrocentric theory of Molefi Kente Asante, and the vernacular theory of Henry Louis Gates, Jnr. (1988) as expounded in The Signifying Monkey. While each of these projects is predicated on a construction of a black literary tradition and its legitimising claims-cultural or historical affinities-they are at best, products of the efforts of black intellectuals committed to making a claim to a unifying black literary heritage. Molefi Asante (1985: 6) claims that "[a]lmost all Africans share cultural similarities with the ancient Egyptians". Femi Ojo-Ade's sustained scholarly preoccupation with constructing a black literary tradition, as evident in Colour and Culture in Literature (1984), constitutes a broader, although less theoretically rigorous, conception of the same tradition. In a significant demonstration of the link between the literatures of Africa and the New World, S. E. Ogude (1983) locates the origin of African literature in English in the slave writings of the eighteenth century. In Genius in Bondage: A Study of the Origins of African Literature in English, he represents Phillis Wheatley as "the first creative talent from the African continent to emerge from that dehumanising phenomenon known as the Slave Trade" (1983: 39). If the earliest approaches to the study of African poetry tended to construct a monolithic African poetic tradition, the paradigm which privileges regional traditions has been more influential in the description of modern poetic production in Africa. This approach resembles the first as it takes the existence of a continental tradition, to which the regions contribute, for granted. The ascendancy of the approach is, arguably, a consequence of the establishment of African literature as an academic discipline. The concern has generally been that of taking the divergences in African writing into account in its appraisal. These divergences are mainly occasioned by CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MODERN POETRY 773 peculiarhistoricaland political developmentsin the regions. The contention of proponentsof the paradigmis that these realities have tended to condition literaryproductionin the regions, so that it becomes possible to draw attentionto sharedattitudes,techniquesor formal orientations. The fact that differentpartsof the continentexperienceddifferentformsof colonialism authorisesthis outlook, licensing such categories as West African, East African and South African poetry. The isolation of South Africa in the apartheidera, coupled with the peculiarityof her literaryproduction, made it necessaryto separatethe poetic traditionassociatedwith her. But not every one of the regions has been sustaininga virile literarytradition. This explains why a South African(as opposed to SouthernAfrican)poetic traditiontended to representthe modem poetic heritage of the region for a very long time. The discourse of regionalism in African writing was first empowered by the anxiety of writerslike Tabanlo Liyong who detecteddiscrepancies in literaryproductivityin various parts of the continent. But it is flawed by the arbitrarinessof the criteria adopted in constructingit. What, for instance, authorisesa West African poetic tradition,consideringthe diversity of her people and the forms of colonialism experiencedin the region? Each of the two sub-traditionsin West African poetry-the Anglophone and the Francophone-is a product of a unique colonial experience. It would then appearthatbasic to the adoptionof the paradigmis the tendency to survey the dominanttrends in the poetic culture of each region. This is largely responsiblefor reinforcingreceived assumptionswith regardto the canon of African poetry, as representativepoets are often identified in each case, especially when such studiesare incorporatedinto comprehensive surveysof the literatureof the regionconcerned. Such worksare significant both for the writersthey recogniseand those they exclude because the paradigm accountsfor the recognitionof certainpoets as representingthe literary achievementof a region. Many critics have, for instance,come to see the work of Okot p' Bitek as synonymouswith East African poetry. This is the case with Timothy Wangusa's"EastAfrican Poetry"(1973). If Wangusa's essay is taken as projectingthe state of East African poetry in the early 1970s, the same cannotbe said aboutGoodwin's study which devotes a chapterto the work of Bitek, apparentlyas the majorpoetic voice from East Africa. By the same token, the works of Kofi Awoonor, Wole Soyinka, ChristopherOkigbo, Lenrie Peters, J. P. Clark-Bekederemoand GabrielOkaraare often takenas constitutingthe canon of AnglophoneWest African poetry, while Dennis Brutus,Oswald Mtshali and MonganeWally Serote have also been taken as the dominant,and therefore,representative voices in South Africanpoetry. This practicehas mainly been legitimised by anthologistsand critics who, in the bid to reflect the dominanttrends in the poetic traditionsof each of the regions, settle for "representative" poets, cognizant of the impossibilityof a comprehensiveliteraryhistory. 774 OYEN[YI OKUNOYE Proof that the criticalstudyof regionaltraditionsin Africanpoetryreinforces canonical assumptionswith regardto the defining characterof the poetic traditionof each region is seen in the orientationof RobertFraser's West African Poetry: A Critical History (1986), Adrian Roscoe's Uhuru's Fire: African Literature East to South (1977) and Adrian Roscoe and Mpalive Hangson-Msiska's The Quiet Chameleon: Modern Poetry from Central Africa (1992). If critics like Roscoe were merelyinterestedin introductory surveys suited for announcingthe emergence of a new literature,others, like Fraser,recognise the inadequacyof such an approachin contemporary studies of African poetry. This is not just a way of acknowledgingthe growthof Africanpoetrybut a way of admittingthat contemporarycritical appraisalsof the traditionshould be groundedin theoreticalframeworks that will at once problematisetheirenquiryand drawattentionto the possibility of theorisingAfricanpoetry, even if the theory will be generatedby the tradition. Fraser'seffort in WestAfricanPoetry is an attemptat interrogating Goodwin's Understanding African Poetry. Contrary to Goodwin's claims, Fraserseeks to establishthat modernWest Africanpoets owe more to their indigenous poetic traditions. He takes the existence of a West Africantradition,one thatbringstogetherthe workof AnglophoneandFrancophone poets, for granted. His work thus representsa remarkableattempt at defining the characterof a regional poetic traditionand is one of the most rigorousstudies in this regard. But it suffersfrom the weaknessidentified with all studies with this orientation-the tendencyto see each of the regionsas a homogeneousculturalformation. But JacobGordon(1971: 23) denies the existence of "homogeneityof thoughtor expressionamongwriters of any particularregion in Africa"altogether. Regionalismmay be problematisedif critics see the possibilityof categorising on the basis of language. Anglophone, Francophoneand Lusophone poetic traditionsin Africaconstitutedistincttraditions. The concept of regionalismwill, in this case, not function as an index of geographical location, as Anglophone, Francophoneand Lusophonewriters are spread all over the continent. DorothyBlair'sAfricanLiteraturein French(1976) demonstratesthis possibility. The case for regional poetic traditionsin Africa is, all the same, best made with caution, as it is capableof creating the impressionthat every partof the continenthas really contributedto the making of modernAfrican poetry. ModernAfrican poetry and by extension, African writing in the Europeanlanguages, is largely writing from sub-SaharanAfrica. What is referredto as the Africantraditionof poetry has equally been sustainedby the outstandingoutputsof Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Malawi, South Africa and the Congo. Any examinationof recent anthologiesof Africanpoetry, notableamong which are FrankChipasula's When my Brothers Come Home: Poems from Central and Southern Africa (1985), Tijan Sallah's New Poets of West Africa (1995), and Tanure Ojaide and Tijan Sallah's The New African Poetry (1999) will confirm this. CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MODERN POETRY 775 This leads to the evaluationof a newer but no less problematicpractice, one that authorisesthe readingof Africanpoetryas an aggregateof national traditions. Emergentscholarshipon national traditionsof poetry has the prospect of seeking to legitimise itself on the basis that nation states in Africa offer a more credible basis for the assessment of African literary production. This is, in part, based on the fact that writers are often identified on the basis of nationality. There is indeed a sense in which African poets have been moreresponsiveto the problems,aspirationsandchallenges within their countries in the last two decades as a way of being relevant within their immediate environments. Critics like Abiola Irele acknowledge the fact that "there has been a movement in African literary studies towards the recognition of national literature in the new African states" (Irele 1990b: 52). Ojaide (1996: 80-81) clarifies this further: "Unlikein the 1960s when the poets were culturallyobsessed, nature-orientedand 'universal', today, old and young poets are addressingtheir national issues more aggressivelythanbefore [... .]. In theirdesire to effect changes,they use the nation state as their startingpoint. The poets are very particularisedin their treatmentof problemspeculiar to their countries. Thus poets from The Gambia, Sierra-Leone,Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe,and South Africa are creating national literatures,making it more plausiblenow to talk about an individualnation's poetry as was not the case before the mid-1970s." A basic theoretical consideration, which is often overlooked, is the fact that every national literaturemust, in reality, project the national spirit. Aijaz Ahmad (1994: 244) has argued that "(a) 'national' literature [ ... has to be more than the sum of its regional constituent parts, if we are to speak of its unity theoretically". It is difficult to take the nation-state as a reliable category for the scholarly exploration of African poetry partly because African nation-states, as constructs of colonial powers, are, in reality, constituted by many ethnic formations. Underscoring the ethno-cultural diversity that characterises African states and consequently hints at the limitation of any critical paradigm that accords the nation state undue privilege, Chidi Amuta (1987: 23) says: "Withoutseeking to underminethe communalityof kinshipties andhistoricalexperiences among the peoples of Africa, what is incontrovertibleis that the social and culturalunity of Africa is very much a unity in diversity. Even within the framework of individualnation-states,there are often as many ethno-linguisticgroupsas one cares to identify." An uncritical acceptance of the nation-state as a category for the analysis of cultural production in Africa is thus capable of giving a distorted picture of the African experience. Adebayo Olukoshi (1996: 45) describes the nation-stateprojectin the continentas an extension of the effort at "nationbuilding"sponsoredby the colonial establishmentin the process of "obliterating ethnic differences". 776 OYENIYI OKUNOYE M. J. C. Echeruo's "Traditional and Borrowed Elements in Nigerian Poetry" (1966) would seem to have taken the existence of a Nigerian tradition of poetry for granted. The question that naturally arises is whether Africa's multi-ethnic societies are capable of sustaining national literatures, considering the fact that most of them are, at best, undecided as to whether they should be regarded as nations. The fact that intra-national conflicts and ethnic crises constantly threaten the existence of the countries points to the fact that they may not really sustain literary traditions that are national in character. The problem varies from country to country but it is possible to illustrate with the cases of Nigeria and Cameroon. Nigeria's many ethnic groups regularly assert themselves and have come to see the country as the invention of the British. Thus, central to the Nigerian sense of collective self-definition is an acknowledgement of the diversity of her peoples and cultural values, so that the continued existence of the country is only guaranteed by the continued consent of the constituent nationalities. In this situation, the definition of a shared literary tradition becomes problematic. The Cameroonian experience reveals another dimension of the problem. At the heart of the problem in this case is the crisis engendered by the challenge of accommodating Anglophone and Francophone communities within a literary tradition, especially when the dominance of the latter within the social sphere has meant the marginalisation of the former. This presents a situation in which the emergence of a literary tradition is undermined by the awareness of an essential conflict generated and sustained by the indelible and destructive identities created and distributed by colonial interests. The emergence of marginal discourse in contemporary Anglophone Cameroonian writing is adequate testimony to the inauthenticity of a unified Cameroonian literary tradition. This underlines the fact that the international boundaries that have come to be seen as defining national identities are, at best, convenient instruments of former colonial establishments to allocate spheres of neocolonial influence and manipulation in Africa. In making a case for an Anglophone, as opposed to a Francophone, Cameroonian literature, Emmanuel Fru Doh (1993: 82) says: "It is obvious thatthereis an AnglophoneCameroonliteratureand, like all literatures, it is a function of the trials and tribulationswhich mark the Anglophone Cameroonian'sexistence from the earliest beginnings in his encounterwith the whitemanuntil today when he finds himself in a dishearteningunion with his Francophone counterpart." Even if national literature is conceived in an unproblematic sense, only a few African countries can boast of a viable literary tradition and certain genres seem to have flourished in particular contexts. It may be possible to talk of the existence of virile national literatures in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Cameroon and the Congo, among others. The novel seems to have flourished most in Kenya, Cameroon and CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MODERN POETRY 777 Senegal, while South Africa and Nigeria appearto have had a normalliterary developmentin the sense that all the major genres have flourishedin their literatures. Evaluationsof the poetic traditionof each of these countries have, in most cases, been integratedinto larger studies incorporating critical essays on their oral, dramaticand fictional literatures. Such works as Bruce King's Introduction to Nigerian Literature (1971), Christopher Heywood's Aspects of South African Literature (1986), Biodun Jeyifo's Contemporary Nigerian Literature (1985) and Charles Angmor' s Contemporary Literature in Ghana: 1911-1978 (1996) demonstrate the possibility of describingthe creative traditionof each of these countries,even though they merely project the literatureof each nation-stateas the aggregateof the contributionsof individual writers. Any exploration of the critical engagementwith the Nigerianexperienceis capableof illustratingthe problems associatedwith privilegingnationaltraditionsin the readingof African poetry. The Nigerian experience is significant not only because it is one of the most developed but also because it is the most influentialand consequently,most representativewithinthe Africancontext. Acknowledging the dominantposition of Nigerianwriting,Nadine Gordimer(1973: 19) argues that "withoutNigeria, English-languageAfrican literaturewould be a slim volume affair". Nigerian poetry is the most developed and has also attracteda variety of criticalresponses. Informedscholarlyopinion recognises the promotion of creative writing by expatriateteacherswithin universitycommunitiesin Ibadanand Nsukkaas laying the foundationfor the developmentof a Nigerian traditionof poetry. The efforts of people like MartinBanham,Ulli Beier and JanheinzJahn at the University College, Ibadan and those of Peter Thomas at the Universityof Nigeria, Nsukka in their early days, are recognisedas the main stimuli for the floweringof creativewritingin these universities. This way of explainingthe Nigerian literarytraditiongained currencyin the 1970s and consequentlyinspiredthe inventionof such labels as the "IbadanSchool" and the "NsukkaSchool" which Chinweizu and his colleagues used unadvisedlyin the process of clarifying the perceived Eurocentricinclinationof early Nigerianpoetry. The Ibadantraditionwas the first to attractcritical attention,being the most influentialof its type in Africa. As early as 1962, MartinBanhamand John Ramsaran(1962: 372) in "West African Writing"could say: "Ibadanhas become the centre of literarycreativity in the country and obviously has an importantpartto play in the guidanceof a Nigerianliterature. Poets have particularlythrived in the country." Criticalevaluationsof the Ibadantraditionhave always drawnattention to the positive impactof such literaryjournalsas The Horn, Black Orphans and the MbariWriters' and Artists' Club in the promotionof her literary culture. Peter Benson's Black Orpheus, Transition and Modern Cultural 778 OYENIYI OKUNOYE Awakeningin Africa (1988), is one of the most ambitiousefforts at recording the Ibadanexperience. It should however be seen as complementing the reflectionsof participant-observers, like MartinBanham's"A Piece that We May Fairly Call our Own" (1961). Appraisalsof the Nsukkaexperience, especially Hezzy Maduakor's"PeterThomasand the Developmentof NigerianPoetry"(1980), EmmanuelObiechina's"Nsukka:Literaturein an African Environment"(1990) and ChukwumaAzuonye's "Reminiscences of the Odunke Communityof Artists: 1966-1990" (1991) underscorethe contributionsof Peter Thomas and the Odunke Community,an informal association of writers and artists, to the making of the Nsukka literary tradition. The privilegingof the Ibadanand Nsukkatraditionsapparentlyprovides a basis for tracinginfluencesin Nigerianpoetry. While "[t]hepoets of the Nsukka tradition[...] have always in their poetry shown a consciousness of the Igbo tradition"(Nwoga 1982: 39), the Ibadanpoets are neitherdrawn from, nor associated with any geo-culturalsection of the country. Thus, while poets like J. P. Clark,Wole Soyinka,Aig-Imoukhuede,MolaraOgundipe, Mabel Segun, TanureOjaide,Odia Ofeimun,Niyi Osundare,Okinba Launko, HarryGaruba,Onookome Okome, Femi Fatoba, Remi Raji and ChieduEzeanahare associatedwith the Ibadantradition,OkogbuleWonodi, Sam Nwajioba, Ossie Enekwe, Obiora Udechukwu,ChukwumaAzuonye, Uche Nduka and Olu Oguibe have come to be identified with Nsukka. ChristopherOkigbooccupies a uniqueplace as he is best seen as belonging to the two traditions. The Nigerian experience demonstratesthe significance of universitycommunitiesas bases for writersin sub-SaharanAfrica, confirmingAdrianRoscoe's argumentin Uhuru'sFire that "Africa'sUniversities are unrivalledcentres of literarydebate and experiment"(Roscoe 1977: vi). Paradigms and Participants The foregoing surveyof the paradigmsfor the study of Africanpoetrymay create the impressionthat much has been achieved in terms of the critical appraisalof African poetry. But modernAfrican poetry has not enjoyed adequatecritical attention. Evidence that the African novel, for instance, has enjoyed considerableattentionis the fact that it is increasinglybeing subjected to serious re-readings,which, in addition to demonstratingthe possibilityof applyingcontemporarytheoriesto it reflect the changingpatternsin Africanwriting. Africandramaticliteraturehas also enjoyedreasonable critical appraisal,reflectingthe diversityof the traditions,experiences and concerns it engages. The rest of this essay will be concerned with exploringthe maincriticalstrategiesadoptedin the studyof modernAfrican poetry. Critical method is conceived here in a loose sense that suggests critical focus, embracingthe assumptionsrooted in contemporarycritical CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MODERN POETRY 779 methods and the more traditionalapproachesassociated with older scholars. The motivationfor this effort is the need to scrutinise the methods and assumptionsthat have shaped the appraisalof African poetry. Thus, the purposeis to illustrate,using representativecritical studies, the variety of approachesso far adoptedin studying African poetry. The earliest phase in the study of African poetry naturallyshowed a great deal of interestin its formalpeculiarity. Pioneeredby Europeancritics of African literatureand a few indigenousscholars,the motivationfor this criticalprojectwas the urgencyof appraisingAfricanpoetryin the light of the Europeantraditionto which they assumedthe emergentAfricanpoets were indebted. This was the vogue in the 1960s and the early 1970s. Dan Izevbaye's doctoraldissertation,entitled "The Relevance of Modem Literary Theory in English to Poetry and Fiction in English-SpeakingWest Africa"(1967), seems to representan intellectualjustificationof this critical outlook. Fundamentalto the preoccupationof studies in this traditionis the notion that African poetry could be read as an extension of European poetic traditions. One of the most objectionablejustificationsof this critical standpointis credited to Adrian Roscoe who in Mother is Gold: A Study in WestAfricanLiteraturesays: "[i]f an Africanwrites in English,his work must be consideredas belonging to English letters as a whole, and can be scrutinisedaccordingly"(Roscoe 1971: x). It is then not surprisingthat assumptionsrootedin Europeantraditionswere often transferredto the reading of African poetry in an uncriticalmanner. This developmentis best read as a transitionalphase, markingthe emergenceof the African critical tradition. Africanpoetry and fiction sufferedmost from this approach. It is remarkablethat studies rooted in this traditionemerged at the time the study of African literaturewas just being institutionalised. The most influentialassumptionson these studies are the fundamentals of the New Critical tradition:universalistpretensionsand the doctrine of art for art's sake which, in the African culturalenvironment,are all irrelevant. Many of the studies with this orientationwere published in the Black Orpheus and the early volumes of African Literature Today. A good example is John Povey's "The Poetry of J. P. Clark:Two Hands a Man Has" (1972). As a study primarilyconcerned with the style of Clark's poetry, it drawsattentionto the influences on his writing,underscoringthe fact that "Clarkis a poet who exists between two worlds and two cultures" (Povey 1972: 36). It is the modestofferingof a scholarwithoutthe necessary cultural literacy for an informed reading of Clark's poetry. Gerald Moore's "Surrealismand Negritude in the Poetry of Chikaya-U-Tamsi" (1979) operateswithin the same critical frameworkas it implies the indebtedness of African poetry to the Europeantradition. But David Dorsey (1988: 27) has rightlyarguedthat "Africanpoetryrequiresspecial attention to culturalparticulars". It would appearthateven when an expatriatecritic feels sufficiently preparedto engage African poetry from the perspective of its concern, there is always a tendency to end up underscoringform. 780 OYENIYI OKUNOYE This perhapsexplains why most of the influentialstudiesof Africanpoetry by non-Africanscholars are essentially concernedwith form. Stating his intentionin WestAfricanPoetry,a seriousattemptat surveyingthe development of West Africanpoetry, Fraser(1986: 2) says that "the emphasis"of his work "is unashamedlyon form". Non-Africancritics of Africanpoetry probablyfeel more comfortableengaging the form of African poetry not only because they may not be sufficiently informedabout the experiences that necessitate its creationbut also because they are generally inclined to privilegingformin the traditionof Anglo-Americancriticalpractice. Gerald Moore, John Povey, MartinBanham,and Peter Thomashave been concerned with probing the African poetic imaginationto determinethe degree of its dependenceon received traditions. The response of African scholars that emerged from the 1970s has reflected a different perspective to the reading of African poetry as it accords sociological data a great deal of importance. Informedby the primacy of commitment,RomanusEgudu,DonatusNwoga, Lewis Nkosi, Kofi Awoonor and Abiola Irele see the need to do away with an outlook on Africanpoetrythat would play down the specificity of referencein African literaryexpressionin the bid to satisfy the universalistcriteriaof the AngloAmericancritical tradition. Thus, their critical outlook assumes a liberal sociologicalorientation. This is reflectedin G. C. M. Mutiso'sSocio-political Thought in African Literature (1974), Kofi Awoonor's The Breast of the Earth (1975), Lewis Nkosi's Tasks and Masks (1981) and Abiola Irele's The African Experience in Literature and Ideology (1990a), all of which are conscious of the necessity of evolving relevantcriticalcriteriaas articulated by Donatus Nwoga's "The Limitationof UniversalCriticalCriteria" (1976), even if this would only mean compromisingor adaptingthe tenets of New Criticism,the traditionwithin which most of them were trained. Thus, they tempera form of formalistappraisalwith some historicalconsciousness. Irele's The African Experience in Literature and Ideology (1990a) offers a classic statementof the doctrineof this generationof African critics, while Emmanuel Obiechina's Culture, Society and Tradition in the West African Novel (1975) and Romanus Egudu's Modern African Poetry and the African Predicament (1978) represent its application to the criticism of the African novel and African poetry respectively. The success of each study informedby the liberalsociological approach is largely a function of the critic's capacity for perceptivecriticism. The fact that there is no coherent theoreticalformulationto authorisea unity of vision and method has meant that it could accommodatea variety of assumptionsas it projectsan outlook on literaryexpressionthatoften reduces critical practice to the correlationof social experience with literary expression. This is particularlyevident in Tayo Olafioye's Politics in African Poetry (1984) and The Poetry of Tanure Ojaide (2001), a reflection of a critical temperin which the concern of the work, especially when it has political significance, is privileged. The approachhas particularlyproved CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MODERN POETRY 781 useful in such surveys as Kofi Awoonor's "The Poet, the Poem and the HumanCondition:Recent West African Poetry"(1979) and Funso Aiyejina's "RecentNigerianPoetryin English:The Alter-NativeTradition"(1988). But it is capableof reducingthe criticaltask to sociological expositionwith little or no insightful reflection as is the case with I. I. Elimimian's The Poetry of J. P. Clark-Bekederemo (1989). It strives in most cases to recon- cile contextwith text in a bid to balancethe social impulsefor poetic inspiration with artisticmethod. It is this method,morethanany otherthatbetrays the povertyof initiativein the criticismof Africanpoetry. Some of the finest studiesin this tradition,like OkechukwuMezu's ThePoetryof L. S. Senghor (1973) andTanureOjaide'sThePoetryof WoleSoyinka(1994) blend sociological informationwith some technical exploration. Studies that concentrate on individualpoets are often more focused, thoroughand confident. But they all seem to recognisethe primacyof commitmentin modem African poetry,an assumptionthatinformstheirtakingthe centralityof thematic pre-occupationfor granted. This in part explains why theirs is still the most influentialmethodfor the study of Africanpoetry, having shapedthe critical practiceof such contemporarycritics of African poetry as Aderemi Bamikunle,Ezenwa-Ohaetoand J. 0. J. Nwachukwu-Agbada.The approach has tendedto give a false sense of accomplishmentto indigenouscritics of African poetry as it is not groundedin a coherenttheoreticalframework. The Structuralistcriticalprojectassociatedwith SundayAnozie may not have made much impact on the criticism of modem African poetry but it representsa majorattemptat indigenisinga Westerncritical methodology. The primarymotivationfor the effort,as Anozie (1989: viii) arguesin Structural Models and African Poetics, is not to "furnish the critical direction" for Africanliteratureas such, but a way of demonstratingthat"thecriticism of Africanliteraturescould use more method,and a more vigorousordering of sense". FrankUche Mowah (1991), following the example of Anozie, in "Towarda StructuralistStudy of AfricanPoetry:An Examinationof the Poetryof Wole Soyinka and Okot p'Bitek",attemptsa structuralistreading of modem African poetry. Both scholars do not acknowledgethe fundamental contradictionin adopting a method that does not take the strong affinity of literaryexpression to social reality into consideration. By discountenancingthe humanagency that facilitates the productionof poetry, Structuralismsevers the essentiallink betweenliteratureandhistory,making it irrelevantin the African context. AppraisingAnozie's critical project, Irele, in "SundayAnozie, Structuralismand African Literature",says: "Theaims and principlesof the structuralistmethodare universalistin theirorientation. For the whole point of the method is to establish the general characterof the humanmind in its symbolising functions"(Irele 1988: 161). The radicalwing of the sociological critics, which is largely constituted by critics immersed in the Marxist critical tradition,representsa vocal, 782 OYENIYI OKUNOYE although less significant, presence in African critical practice. This critical tradition, mainly represented by the work of critics identified with the Marxist insurrection in Nigerian critical practice from the late 1970s and their disciples, imposes the cliche-ridden critical vocabulary of Marxism, with all its exaggerated claims to relevance, on African poetry. This development was associated with the critics operating within the Ibadan/Ife axis in the late 1970's: Biodun Jeyifo, Femi Osofisan, G. G. Darah, Niyi Osundare and Ropo Sekoni. This critical tradition derived inspiration from a 1974 essay of Omafume Onoge entitled "The Crisis of Consciousness in Modem African Literature: A Survey" which later published in Gugelberger's Marxism and African Literature (1985). But the work of Chidi Amuta, Emmanuel Ngara and Udenta 0. Udenta demonstrate its applicability to African poetry. If Georg Gugelberger's Marxism and African Literature (1985) is a ground-breaking effort at making a case for the viability of the Marxist critical project in the African terrain, Amuta's The Theory of African Literature (1989) is an eloquent follow-up, presenting a confident, coordinated and passionate demonstration of the possibility of the method in a sense that would suggest the irrelevance of any other perspective. His reading of Ofeimun's poetry provides an opportunity for him to parade the familiar critical vocabulary of Marxism, which immediately draws attention to its weaknesses and strength. Not only does it prove too predictable and, therefore, unchallenging, it also foregrounds the main problem with this strategy: its self-righteous intolerance of other possibilities of reading. The lack of dynamism in African Marxist critical practice is apparent in the manner it reduces every form of poetic expression to political statement, thereby making each critical exercise incapable of yielding new insights. Emmanuel Ngara's Ideology and Form in African Poetry (1990) and Udenta 0. Udenta's Art, Ideology and Social Commitment in African Poetry (1976), are among the very few book-length studies of African poetry in the Marxist tradition. They are unique in the sense that they reflect the preferences of their authors. Ngara's study, which complements his work on the African novel, provides a broad introductory survey of modem African poetry, one that explores the achievements within the Lusophone, Anglophone and Francophone traditions. Ngara dispenses with the too familiar practice of categorising writers as products of regional literary traditions and privileges authorial ideology, reading the work of each poet as the unique product of a definable creative vision. Making a case for the Marxist critical framework in the African environment, he says: "Thereis no necessarycontradictionbetweenMarxismand Afrocentrismin literary criticism. While Marxismoriginatedin Europehistorically,it is a trulyrevolutionary theory which is well suited to the task of liberatingAfricanliteratureand criticism from Eurocentricism"(Ngara 1990: 7). He further states that "a Marxist analysis of African literature cannot but emphasise the historical and social conditions which have given rise to CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MODERN POETRY 783 African literature"(ibid.). Udenta, whose study is more conventional in its periodization,argues that "the revolutionaryaesthetic method"has the capacityto "domesticatea universalcriticalcriterionto suit the temperand subjectivitiesof the African literaryprocess" (Udenta 1976: xi). Marxistcritics generally exaggeratethe relevance of their method and play down the fact that it is not indigenousto Africa. As Thomas Knipp (1985: 116) argues, "literarytheory (as a whole) is an import into or an impositionon traditionalAfrica-part of the legacy of colonialism". Even though Marxist critics would always labour hard to make a case for the anti-imperialistorientationof their method, their critical projectcannot be said to representan authentictool for the appraisalof African poetry, the claims it makes with regard to its goal notwithstanding. Many African scholars practise Marxist criticism without a critical evaluation of its relevance. Its presence may, therefore,constitute a barrierto the quest for altemative methods of explaining the uniquenessof the African reality in the face of the urgency of stimulatingthe productionof relevant critical knowledge. Other Possibilities The foregoing has highlightedthe trendsin the scholarlyengagementwith modernAfricanpoetry. Much as there are isolated cases of investigations rootedin such criticaltraditionsas Psychoanalysis,Feminismand Semiotics, a clear patternis yet to emerge to authorisean informed critique. The insignificantpresence of the feminist perspective in the canonisationand criticismof modem Africanpoetrycontrastswith the experiencein the criticism of the African novel. This reflects the marginalisationof the female voices in anthologiesof Africanpoetry. Stella and FrankChipasulain the Introductionto African Women'sPoetry stress the fact that its "exclusive focus on women's poetry is a necessary first step towards reversing the objectificationof women and renderingvisible the invisible poets themselves" (Chipasula1995: xvii). The colonial establishment,throughthe machineryof colonial education, providedthe facility for the emergenceof modernAfricanwriting and this equally conditionedits critical reception. Ironically,the growing decolonisation of the African poetic imaginationhas not been matchedby a corresponding re-evaluationof the tools for its assessment. The process of recoveringfrom the corruptinginfluenceof the colonial engagementshould naturallyinvolve a gradualrestorationof values and traditionswhich were either discardedor marginalisedas the Westernpresence became increasingly significant. This viewpointderives inspirationfromthe consciousness that Africanliteraryscholarshipin the postcolonialera must be responsive to the challenges of the age by taking up the responsibilityof clarifying the process of collective self-discovery. 784 OYENIYI OKUNOYE The scholarlyenquiryinto literaryproductionin Africa has, in particular, not been sensitiveto the necessityof re-evaluatingcategoriesandcritical methodologies adopted in the appraisalof African literaryproductionto in view of the peculiarityof the Africanliterary ensuretheirappropriateness experience. This becomes necessary as no informedappraisalof cultural productionin the postcolonial world can overlook the place occupied by the culture of a people. "Criticalstandardsderive from aesthetics. Aesthetics are culturedependent. Thereforecriticalstandardsmustderivefrom culture"(Okpaku 1967: 53). The first step is to recognise the dangerof adoptingor adaptingassumptionsand paradigmsdevelopedin othercultural environmentswhich would easily engenderthe errorof empiricalthinking as has been the case in the criticism of modern African poetry. Chidi Maduka(1988: 186) is rightto have warnedthat"[ainuncriticalassimilation of foreign theories is inimical to the African'sjustifiable quest for cultural identity". The foregoing review shows that critics have not paid adequate attentionto the fact that some of the assumptionsinformingthe privileging of such social units as the nation-statein the descriptionof literarytraditions are both questionableand invalid, so long as ethnic formationsare by far, more influentialsocio-culturalunits in contemporaryAfrica. Most African states are, at best, constructsof the colonial powers that would cease to exist if the constituentnationalitiesfully assert themselves. Ethnicformationsconstitutesignificantculturalunits in the Africancontext. The assertionof ethnic identities within the context of nation-states in Africa in recent times is adequateproof of their influence not only in the sphereof politics but in the makingof the culturalidentitiesof various nation-states. In the context of literarycriticism, the suppressionof the ethnic factorhas takenthe form of erasingthe ethnic presencein the literary history of individualcountries. At best, there has always been a vague referenceto oral traditions,a label that neitherproperlydesignatesthe complex literary resources of diverse people groups nor reflect their nature. Identifyingand clarifying ethnic traditionsin African literaturemay be a majorstep towardsdeveloping a viable alternativeto dominantbut not so relevantmethodsin the clarificationof the Africanliteraryexperience. The survey has, no doubt,exposed the insensitivityof critics of modernAfrican poetryto the necessityof developingan ethno-culturalapproachto the study of modern African poetry. Such an outlook would go beyond the facile explorationof the recourseto the oral which has, moreoften thannot, underscoredmodalvariationto the neglect of such majorfactorsas the ideological importof poetic form, artisticphilosophyand social utility. AlbertGerard (1981: 31-32) has arguedin FourAfricanLiteraturesthat"Africanliterature ought to include within the compass of its definitionthe ethnic literatures of Africa". But an informedoutlook would also recognisethe necessity of situatingsuch literarytraditions,as this paperproposes,within the growing discourse of postcoloniality. This at once acknowledgesthe conditioning impact of the colonial experienceon modernAfricanpoetic traditionsand CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MODERN POETRY 785 enhances the formulation of a relevant critical tool. The essential link between colonialism and modern African writing cannot be denied. "If colonialism changed forever the course of Africa's political and economic history, it also profoundlyalteredits literarydestiny. To date, colonialismrepresents the single most disruptivefactorin Africa'shistory. It is to this epochalintervention that Africaowes the emergenceof its contemporarynation-states. Modem African literaturealso owes its existence to the phenomenonof colonialism" (Williams 1998: 16). 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WANGUSA, 1973 "East African Poetry", African Literature Today 6: 46-53. A. WILLIAMS, 1998 "Literaturein the Time of Tyranny: African Writers and the Crisis of Governance I", The Post Express (Lagos), 18 July: 16. CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MODERN POETRY 791 ABSTRACT Thisessay probesthe productionof criticalknowledgein Africanliterarystudieswith particularreferenceto the study of modern Africanpoetry. It surveys the major paradigmsand methodsin this regard,exploringthe viable alternativesand possibilities for readingthe tradition. ModernAfricanpoetry in the context of the essay refersto Africanpoetry in the received Europeanlanguages-English, Frenchand Portuguese-but for practicalconvenience, its focus is limited to modern African poetry of Englishexpression and, to some extent, FrancophoneAfricanpoetry in Englishtranslation. The study assesses significanteffortsmade by Africanand nonAfricancritics with regardto definingthe traditionof modernAfricanpoetry. The notion of criticalreceptionin the study is, consequently,so inclusivethat it accommodatespracticesas diverse as canon formation,the formulationof criticalcriteria and the constructionof Africanliterarygeography. RtSUME Lar6ceptioncritiquede la po6sie africainemoderne.- Cet articleanalysela production de savoir critiquedans les 6tudes consacrees a la litteratureafricaine,et plus particulierement a la poesie africainemoderne.Nous nous pencheronssur les principaux paradigmeset methodes,en explorantles differentespossibilitesqui permettent de lire la tradition.La poesie africainemodernedans cet article fait r6f6rencea la poesie africainetelle qu'elle est revue dans les langues europeennes anglais, francaiset portugais- mais, pourdes raisonspratiques,l'objetd'etudede cet article se limiteraa la poesie africainefrancophonedans sa traductionanglaise. Nous mettronsen relief les effortssignificatifsmis en ceuvrepar les critiquesafricainset non africainspourdefinirla traditionde la po6sie africainemoderne.De ce fait, la notion de r6ceptioncritiquedans cette 6tude est tellement large qu'elle accommode des pratiquesaussi diversesque l'elaborationde canons, la formulationde criterescritiques et la constructiond'une geographielitt6raireafricaine. Keywords/Mots-c/6s: criticalstudy, criticaltrends,poetry,translation/etudecritique, courantscritiques,po6sie, traduction.