Léopold Sédar Senghor 1906–2001
joal, senegal
S
enghor was renowned as a poet, teacher, and head of state. He received a
scholarship to study at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he met Aimé
Césaire and Léon-Gontran Damas. He was the chief architect of négri-tude, an intellectual movement the three would develop and popularize together.
Négritude sought to restore pride to the colonized and to raise a cry for their
independence. At the Sorbonne, Senghor studied Harlem Renaissance poetry
and was the first black African to attain the highest rank for teachers in the
country as an agrégé. His poetry is marked by strong rhythm and evocative
patterns, much of it recalling African dance. Until the onset of World War II he
taught high school in Paris. After the war he was elected to the French Parliament
and helped convince Charles de Gaulle to free Senegal from French rule. In 1960
he was elected president of the Republic of Senegal; in 1980 he became the first
African president to step down voluntarily from o≈ce. Senghor returned to
France to pursue cultural interests and in 1990 was elected to the Académie
française. Principal works: Chants d’ombre, 1945; Hosties noires, 1948; Chant pour
Naett, 1949; Éthiopiques, 1956; Nocturnes, 1961; Élégie des alizés, 1969; Lettres
d’hivernage, 1973; Paroles, 1975; Élégies majeures, 1979.
Prayer to the Masks
Masks! O Masks!
Black mask, red mask, masks black-and-white,
Masks from all four points where Spirit blows,
I greet you in silence!
And lion-headed Ancestor, you among the first.
You guard this place from laughing women and sagging smiles,
You exude the eternal air where I breathe my Fathers’ air.
Masks with unmasked faces, stripped of every dimple and every crease,
Who shaped this portrait in your image, this face of mine
Bent over the altar of an empty page,
Listen to me!
A pitiful princess is dying, the Africa of empires,