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Page 1: The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of ...archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/African Journals/pdfs/glendora review... · TEACHING WITHOUT THE TEXTBOOKS: New Challenges Of

The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals.   This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/

Available through a partnership with

Scroll down to read the article.

Page 2: The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of ...archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/African Journals/pdfs/glendora review... · TEACHING WITHOUT THE TEXTBOOKS: New Challenges Of

WOl.F SOYINKA

Ibadan

New West AfricanLiterature

TEACHING WITHOUTTHE TEXTBOOKS:

New Challenges Of LiteratureTeaching In A West African

UniversityIMO ESHIET

n a late twentieth century literary culture submerged under by massiveprint, any suggestion of teaching literature without the text may sound asa poorly conceived superstition and for the less cynically disposed, astrange innovation. This is even more so when we consider that the textis the chief source of information, that is, when we consider that the textis an authoritative source providing the basis for the very mode of existence

of a literary work. No doubt a teaching of sorts can be made of literature withoutregards to its construction.

Socio-historical and cultural data such as background and the prevailing ideationalmoods that produced the writers and their literary creations yield great light inclarifying meaning. However, in both oral and written traditions, the form andsubstance of literature, something to hook on to in the pedagogy of imaginativeexperience, is the text. Given the primacy of the text, it is difficult to envisage theteaching of literature without it except in terms of a great difficulty if not a completecuriosity. This, however, is the concrete reality challenging the wits of teachers ofliterature in our prevailing book drought.

Fundamental to any discipline worth teaching is a clear understanding of what thesubject really is. The text which Chris Nwamu's 'Dramatic Literature In Nigeria:Critical Issues For The Playwright' declares as an informative blue-print whichmotivates action and generates interpretative responses and criticisms, derives itsprimacy from the fact that it forms the basis for the illustration and demonstration ofthe excellence of form and pattern which delight us aesthetically and of the greatemotional intensities of literature which give us edification and instruction.

The scarcity of texts not only grossly circumvents such exemplifications, it alsospirals its atrophy to other vital areas. Hordes of lecturers have abandoned theirlecture theatres and whole courses have collapsed due to scarcity of essential texts.

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I remember most vividly the traumatic expe-rience of a brilliant colleague who resignedmore than half a decade ago. A product of theUniversity, she was the first to make a firstclass degree from the department. Proceed-ing to Britain soon after, she finished herMaster of Arts degree on record time fromthe famous London School of African andOriental Studies. That done, she raced backhome with patriotic zeal to take over theteaching of the literature of the Blacks indiaspora from an expatriate whose time wasup.

Frustrated by perennially unavailable texts,she threw open the doors of her private per-sonal library to the rapacity of students.Welcomed voraciously by appreciating stu-dents, her resources and materials were withintwo years worn out, dog-eared, stolen, mis-placed or vandalised. With razor sharp enoughto be used in high delicate surgical opera-tions, rare texts were 'qualmlessly' relievedof vital pages. She realised it only when herlibrary was as bare as a sun-scorched earth. Avictim of the drought and forbiddingly highprices of books, her fortune was a mereincarnation of the fate of libraries looted totheir husk all over the land, only her reactionwas more sincere and different. Acerbic asher experience, she put in a resignation, trans-ferring her enormous skills and talent to thedisposal of the advertisement establishment.Several others have since followed her ex-ample either by stepping aside or transfer-ring to countries where the book culture isstill esteemed.

The constriction that precipitates their exitneeds to be seen from a holistic ambience tobe meaningfully understood. Of consider-able importance is the relation of this factorto a labyrinth of problems common in adistressed economy where the deteriorationof the texture and essence of life in generalensures a sustained hollowness in the sup-plies of essential commodities. A Universityof Calabar Library Report for the periodOctober 1987 to September 1988 describesas 'grossly insufficient' the financial provi-sion for the library's acquisition of books andjournals. Stressing the obvious need for morefund for the purpose of acquisition, the Re-port reveals that while the budgetary alloca-tion was N360,000, as against N500,000 forthe previous year, only a 'mere pittance' ofN101,108.97, was actually expended onbooks and journals.

The shortage of funds for resources develop-ment calls for journal prioritization and sincein the thinking of the establishment, scienceand technology come top, it follows logically

that the arts receive scant attention. A con-tinuous down-turn of emphasis on arts meansthat its teachers have to rely on the skin oftheir teeth in the cultivation, developmentand transfer of the knowledge of the arts,philosophy and science of the beautiful.

This is particularly acute when tracking theintertextual affinities of a bank of literarytexts to other related texts integral to theircontext of situation or literary environment.A prototype text may exemplify and serve asa model of the essential features of a bank ofmetatext. J. P. Clark's 'Abiku' and WoleSoyinka' s poem of the same title easily cometo mind. Clark's prototext provides the mytho-logical framework of Soyinka's metatextualoperations. In a literary situation such as thiswhere the presence of the prototext loomslarge in the metatext, the teacher may wish toelucidate the essential features of the gianttext which resonates in the secondary text aspart of a common cultural and ideationalbackground. He might wish to clarify thearrangement and combination of artistic itemsin the text or depict the new dimensions ofcomplexity added to the shared awareness orintertextual resonance in the successive text.Soyinka's poem Abiku draws from the samefolkloric essence as Clark's but unlike Clarkwho flounders with sentiment and mawkish-ness, Soyinka ritualises the myth for thecelebration of assertiveness, defiance, invin-cibility and freedom.

Again, Soyinka's aesthetic distance from hissubject matter contrasts sharply from Clark'sresponses. His detachment is itself a rejec-tion of Clark' identification. He also offers adifferent version of the human conditionsentimentally evoked by Clark's involve-ment with his subject matter. A tremendousadvantage here is that both texts are oftenavailable and the combined effect experi-ence from them is similar in many ways toviewing both sides of a coin simultaneously.

Not so, such germane texts as Sophocle'sOedipus Rex and Rotimi' s The Gods A re NotTo Blame or Soyinka's The Strong Breed andOsofisan' s No More The Wasted Breed. Joyce •Cary's Mister Johnson and Achebe's ThingsFall Apart, Euripides' Bacchae and Soyinka'sBacchae of Euripides, Clark's The Raft andOsofisan's Another Raft as well as Euripides'Alcestis are intertextually related texts famil-iar to the African literary landscape and ineach of them authors of the metatext expecttheir audience to bring some intertextualmemory in construing the secondary text ifthey are to make meaning in their readingsand to meet each other as writer and reader.The only snag is that the primary texts are not

always there.

In each of these cases, the use ofintertextuality, an obviously respected andancient mode of artistic creation, might besimply to update a social vision or outlookupon the world, demystify somemystifications and radicalise some thinking,values, beliefs and ideas which govern man'scondition and existence as in the case of TheRaft and Another Raft. It may also in theprocess extend the frontiers of knowledge byexploding effete stereotypes or wrongly anduncritically held prejudices and assumptionsor fallacy. In each of these cases the specialfeature of the metatexts is that they arecharged, enriched and intensified in formand thought as they vibrate sympatheticallywith patterns and motifs existing prototypi-cally but amendable to individual artisticstamp and interpretation.

In a learning situation these two banks of text- the prototext and the metatext - naturallyinvite comparisons and contrasts. In trackingthe relations of say, Sophocles' Oedipus Rexand Rotimi's The Gods Are Not To Blame,the teacher may face a formidable task with-out the text to hook on to for the challengeand implication of the interweaving of textsdemand a familiarity with the original aswith the secondary text if befuddlement is tobe avoided. The situation is similar to whatobtains in mythic criticism where the critic isexpected to be conversant with the myth to beable to carry our any criticism of a mythicwork.

Also in introducing the divergence betweenindigenous African theatre making traditionsand Western dramaturgy which is likely toshow up early in any discourse involving thetwo, the scarcity of texts hampers communi-cation in teaching by robbing it of the advan-tages of apractical elucidation of the Africanconcept of the theatre of total appeal in con-trast with Euro-American drama which isanchored in dialogical logistics. In Poetics,his world famous treatise on the craft andprinciples of tragic poetry, Aristotle stressesthe primacy of the verbal resource in thegeneration and resolution of dramatic con-flicts or in his words, the imitation of action.Language with its accessories and embel-lishment is one of the most basically signifi-cant of the six elements of drama Aristotlenames as essential components of dramaticart.

Over and above the significance of the spec-tacular element which comes least and last inAristotle's scheme but extremely vital inAfrican dramatic traditions, the Greek phi-

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losopher approves the rhetorical orientationof Western drama as the chief source for theintensification of thought. Language or dic-tion as he calls it, has from his time remainedthe key element for conveying and express-ing conflict and meaning in Western drama -despite Antonin Artaud's slim but powerfulcampaign for a return to the primordial lan-guage of ritual and magic which is natural totheatre as he argues. This basic component ofthe literary structure needs to be read, lis-tened to or seen when performed in a theatrein order to get a sense of the total form of theliterary work.

Accordingly, the study and criticism of con-temporary literature need a printed text if theteachers and learners are to put themselves incommand of the technical apparatus that theliterary artists have worked with. A study andanalysis of some literary pieces with textualaffinities well exemplifies our discourse. Ifwe attempt to follow the literary structure ofOedipus Rex as i^ unfolds we find that wecannot continue long enough unmindful ofthe pervasive presence of speech in the rubricof the play. We notice at once Sophocles'enormous investment in the resources oflanguage as a persuasive and memorablemode of creating and conveying experience.

The vocabulary range or the fund of imagebearing knowledge explored by the play-wright, the dramatic dialogue finely chis-elled and artfully concentrated to achieve anaesthetically satisfying economy and inten-sity together with action execute the playstory. The element of spectacle is terselyemployed in the exposition to hint at thepoint of reference for action and characterand to point the mood and tragic atmosphereof the play. Similarly, the assets of dance areseverely played down. The play unfolds withthe presentation of the King's Palace, animage which quickly establishes the activeinvolvement of royalty in the conflict drama-tised. In the forefront are alters signifying thepresence and role of the gods in the unfoldingtragedy. Sitting in attitudes of supplicationand grouped around the alters are citizens ofThebes, their kinesics and proxemics signifi-cant of the tragic intimations the play enacts.

These imagery of contending forces harboursubtle clues to the interpretations the play-wright wishes to communicate but to endowthe action with full dramatic and tragic ef-fects, Sophocles' stage- business is realisedpredominantly through dialogue, the lan-guage resource of the dramatist. Gory mo-ments such as when Queen Jocasta commitssuicide and when Oedipus visits violenceupon himself, are conventionally reported.

The idioms and vocabulary of this rhetoricaltradition which sufficiently creates a con-vincing atmosphere in Western dramaturgy,can with the availability of the original text

• be beneficially contrasted with the second-ary text which belongs to a more visualtraditional, steeped, to borrow a phrase fromOsofisan in the structural machinery of rite.The principles of construction in this tradi-tion are themselves under-girded by the codeof such art forms as mine, dance procession,indeed the entire repertoire of ritual.

This gamut is scripted into the play text in aspectacular manner. In his adaptation of theOedipus myth, Rotimi's text extends thescope of tragic conception by going beyondclassical insistence on generic autonomy andpurity to integrate viable strands of the comicin his tragic action. The proxemics andkinesics of the exposition powerfully projectthe complexity of the action and the vari-egated nature of life represented. A danceprocession and merry singing and drummingcharge the dramatic atmosphere whileanticipations of tragic action are suggestedby the clinking of metallic objects, dirging aswell as by the ominous presence of the shrineof Ogun with its cultic emblems of patternedpalm fronds and lone machete stuck in theground. The upsurge and interplay of theaural and the visual, the tragic and the festivestrike a peculiar African note throughout theexpository prologue. These devices drawattention to one of the objectives ofintertextuality which is to give a differentperspective to the original subject matter, inthis case to the variation of the conception oftragedy in another dramatic tradition.

Our brief comparison of the two texts evincesthe eclectic quality of African dramatic lit-erature where the basic projections of thetheatre such as dance power, song intensi-fies, music and visual wit constitute compo-nents as active and influential as dialogic andverbal wit. As literary compositions the textscan gainfully be studied systematically, basedon the principle of literary structure. Theprinted or oral texts guide us through itsunified components and as we participate inthem either by exercising our reading orlistening abilities the total pattern or form ofthe composition emerges at the end.

This is the aesthetically satisfying experi-ence often sabotaged by the critical dearth oftexts. This situation is indeed a most irksomeand an overwhelming educational challenge.It is perhaps responsible in a large measurefor the poor performance levels in the devel-opment of literary and linguistic skills andthe increasing rate of human communication

break down.

Teachers struggle and embark on variousameliorative strategies against the deplor-able scarcity of literary texts. Often ignoringcopyright regulations, volumes of extant textsare qualmlessly cannibalised by both teach-ers and students as they photocopy, duplicateor practice other forms of piracy that servetheir immediate needs. In the process ofperpetuating these illegalities, whole linesare jammed or completely omitted with theresult that vital meaning and form are im-paired and good learning defeated.

The whole idea of teaching literature withoutthe texts is a weird innovation and unless theabnormality is urgently redressed, we mayhave a situation similar to a fellow theoreti-cally instructed in the art of driving withoutever being given a chance at a practicaldemonstration. One of the immediate acci-dents of this unwholesome situation is com-ing to literature through the backdoor, throughsatellite texts such as reviews, critical expo-sitions or commentaries accumulated overtime around the original text. Students drivento their wit gleefully embrace such substi-tutes oblivious to the real thing and to thedulling effects these may have on their con-fidence to develop sensitive, sharp and criti-cal response to unfamiliar literary composi-tions.

The constrictions are perhaps not altogethernecessary. To emerge from the befuddlementand may be open up vital areas of inquirythan we otherwise have done, books could belocally mass produced, under license. GR

END NOTES

Antonin Artaud The Theatre And Its DaubU Trans VictorCord (London: Calder and Boyars. 1970).

University of Calabar Library Report For The Period Orto-ber 19*7 -September 1988.

Chris Nwamu, 'Dramatic Literature in Nigeria: CriticllIssue for The Play Wright,' Solomon Unoh ed. " " TJournal of liberal Studies (Calabar: Centaur Press 19WI-

Michael ( winnings and Robert Simmons, The Lanpugt »/Literature (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 19S3.

(Ma Rotimi. The Gods An Not To Blame.

Sophocles. The Theban Plays trans. E. F. Walling(Harmondsworth: Penguin 1*47.)

Lynn Akembemd and Luly Lewis, A Handbook farAtStudy of Dnuma (New York: The MacmHIan Press !»•*)•

Peter Thomson. The Actum of the Wordtfruttr: Unrfenrfy

ofEieter. 1975).

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