Poets and Politics: Speculation on Political Roles and Attitudes in West African Poetry

Extract

A literary scholar runs a certain risk when he ventures into the troubled waters of African politics. But a poet—whether it is Shakespeare carefully plotting his historical plays to conform to and support the Tudor position on the Wars of the Roses or Wordsworth confusing the atmosphere of the French Revolution with the air of heaven or Ginsberg howling with rage and existential despair at the sight of democracy betrayed—makes political statements. Sometimes these statements are only subtly and indirectly political; at other times they are specific and topical. In either case, they are part of the milieu in which a political culture flourishes. They are, in fact, part of the political culture itself.

I want to examine several of the ways in which indigenous poets of West Africa have functioned as part of the developing political culture. And I want to address myself specifically to political culture—a term of some exactness which nevertheless allows considerable latitude for analysis and speculation. The political culture of a society might be described as the political system internalized in the perceptions, judgments, feelings, and attitudes of its people. In their important study, Civic Culture, Almond and Verba (1966: 15-16) have this to say about the “orientation” which constitutes political culture:

… the political orientation of an individual [and by extension of a group of individuals—in our case a group of poets—thus we come to the concept of themes in literature/ can be tapped systematically if we explore the following:

1. What knowledge does he have of his nation and of his political system in general terms, its history, size, location, power, “constitutional” characteristics and the like? What are his feelings? … What are his more or less considered opinions and judgments of them?