Paper –14 The African Literature ,What is the meaning of 'Negritude' Explain it with reference to Wole Soyinka’s Telephonic conversation and Dedication.

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Q. What is the meaning of 'Negritude'? Explain it with reference to Wole Soyinka’s Telephonic conversation and Dedication.

Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: Akinwándé Oluwo̩lé Babátúndé S̩óyinká, pronounced [wɔlé ʃójĩŋká]; born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian playwright and poet. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to be honored in that category.

Telephonic conversations this poem is written by ‘Wole Soyinka’. Poet deals with racism and relation of black and white people. Talk about first world country and third world country. A black man wont to perchance home (land) from white lady. There is telephonic conversation between them. Telephone is symbol of connecting people, it is tool of communication.  But here in poem it shows distance between two people and nation also. Lady represents first world country and black man represent third world country (nation). Here we found Frantz Fanon’s concept of “Black skin and white Mask”. In this poem both are rich, necklace shows richness of lady and black man want to buy home so it shows richness of black man. But lady over power man because she represent or belongs to ‘first world nation’.  Lady is colonizer and man is colonized. Location place (home) white colony and for Negro man it is kind of achievement. In this poem we found that lady asked several question, like ‘where are you from? How dark? Are you light or very Dark? After this there is a deep silent. Silent suggest so many things. Silent is ill manner silent. Here we have one question that who is really dark? Black man gives self-confection, ‘I am African’ and many other things. Word use by man “Madam” is shows man gives respect to white lady. I’m not fully dark, don’t go with my color, and in this poem we found that man give his identity to that lady. But lady not give her identity. At the end of the poem there is one line, “About my ears-‘Madam,’ I pleaded, wouldn’t you rather See yourself?” it shows that what men think and mentality of white lady. When we look at this poem with post-colonial perspective, how white people feel superior and black people are inferior. What white people think about black people? That they are always bad and cruel, black people are barbaric, uncultured and uncivilized people.

Négritude

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Négritude is a literary and ideological philosophy, developed by francophone African intellectuals, writers, and politicians in France during the 1930s. Its initiators includedMartinican poet Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor (a future President of Senegal), and Léon Damas of French Guiana. Négritude intellectuals disapproved of French colonialism and claimed that the best strategy to oppose it was to encourage a common racial identity for black Africans worldwide. They included the Marxist ideas they favored as part of this philosophy. The writers generally used a realist literary style, and some say were also influenced somewhat by the Surrealism style, and in 1932 the manifesto "Murderous Humanitarianism" was signed by prominent Surrealists including the Martiniquans Pierre Yoyotte and J. M. Monnerot.

Negritude, originally a literary and ideological movement of French-speaking black intellectuals, reflects an important and comprehensive reaction to the colonial situation. This movement, which influenced Africans as well as Blacks around the world, specifically rejects the political, social and moral domination of the West. The term, which has been used in a general sense to describe the black world in opposition to the West, assumes the total consciousness of belonging to the black race.

In contrast to this broad definition, a narrower one pertains to artistic expression. The literature of Negritude includes the writings of black intellectuals who affirm black personality and redefine the collective experience of blacks. A preoccupation with the black experience and a passionate praise of the black race, provides a common base for the imaginative expression in association with romantic myth of Africa.
The external factor defining the black man in modern society is colonialism and the domination by the white man, with all the moral and psychological implications. Negritude rehabilites Africa and all blacks from European ideology that holds the black inherently inferior to the white -- the rationale for Western imperialism.

Leopold Sedar Senghor, president of Senegal, who further defines Negritude in his poems and writings, rejects the classical white/black view that races can be mutually exclusive saying, "Race is a reality--I do not mean racial purity. There is difference, but not inferiority or antagonism." Senghor believes in the expression of values of traditional Africa as they are embodied in the thinking and institutions of African society, but he does not desire a return to outmoded customs, only to their original spirit. His interpretation of Negritude has become the most clear definition and a model for other writers.

In contrast, Wole Soyinka reacts against Negritude, which he sees belonging to colonial ideology because it gives a defensive character to any African ideas. The artist, for him, is a reformer who draws on the past for significant lessons and proceeds to what he calls "the re-appraisal of the whole human phenomenon." This view balances the more romantic view of the early Negritude writers.

Soyinka takes into account the imperfections of the past, which he accepts as inherent to the human condition and which he takes as an invitation to question the present. He provides something important to the idea of Africanism that he finds missing from Negritude. In the colonial period, the innocence of Africa had to be stressed, but the new generation of African writers and intellectuals have been freed from colonial restraints and express African reality very differently.

The poem centers on the conversation between an African man calling a British landlady about a space for rent. The man correctly assesses that the woman will have reservations about renting to him because of his skin color but what surprises him is her question, “HOW DARK?” He tries to answer “West African sepia” and “brunette,” but goes on to explain that he is not an easy-to-categorize color. The poem ends with his question, “Wouldn't you rather / See for yourself?” This implicitly invites her to evaluate him as a whole person, instead of by his color, which does not define his identity.

Soyinka writes the poem in free verse (no meter or rhyme) and includes dialogue, which gives the poem its playful feel. Also, Soyinka includes creative and offbeat elements to the speaker’s thoughts and speech; for example, the speaker describes his bottom as “raven black,” a humorous and even inappropriate detail. All this serves to strengthen the speaker’s concealed frustration; he handles the situation as gracefully and humorously as he can, which makes his situation appear to the reader as all the more undeserved and unjust.

Conclusion:-

all African poems reflect African culture and what African people think about colonizer people. We found that how British people go there and started ruling over them, enslaved them, make them slave. What are the views of African people on the so called civilization? Generally we found that cultural conflict is one of the most prominent points in African poem or literature. Through this poems we found that all poet tryst to discusses one problem, problem of his ancient heritage because of the attack of western culture

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