Tragic mythopoesis as postcolonial discourse: critical writings clear-sighted and courageous literary-critical discourses of the imme-
diate post-independence period.Thus, even though the articulation
of an idealistic, responsible artistic identity was achieved by a constant
and invariable infusion of the male pronoun into Soyinka’s profiles of
the African writers, his devastating demystification of superficial racial
essences in N ́egritude poetry and aesthetic constructs is a lasting con-
tribution to African postcolonial critical discourse. This is particularly
evident in the famous last paragraph of “The Writer in a Modern African
State”:
The reconciliation of cultures, this leaven of black contribution to the metallic
loaf of European culture, is only another evasion of the inward eye. The despair
and anguish which is spreading a miasma over the continent must sooner or later
engage the attention of the writer in his own society or else be boldly ignored.
For both attitudes are equally valid; only let there be no pretense to a concern
which fulfills itself in the undeclared, unproven privation of the European world.
When the writer in his own society can no longer function as conscience, he must
recognize that his choice lies between denying himself totally or withdrawing
to the position of chronicler and post-mortem surgeon. But there can be no
further distractions with universal concerns whose balm is spread on abstract
wounds, not on the gaping yaws of black inhumanity...The artist has always
functioned in African society as the record of the mores and experience of his
societyandas the voice of vision in his own time. It is time for him to respond
to this essence of himself (ADO,–)
The urgency and eloquence of this passage, addressed in its particular
context to the last gathering of African writers before the outbreak of
the Nigerian civil war, are qualities which pervade all of Soyinka’s early
critical essays. Thetoneof his unique, idiosyncratic critical voice was
not of course always this desperate in the essays. On occasion Soyinka
could combine a playful wit with high seriousness, as is evident in the
following now widely savored short take on Achebe’s mastery of the art
of narrative:
It is doubtful if Achebe’s forte lies in the ability to spit occasionally, or to laugh
from the belly when the situation demands it, but he must learn at least to be
less prodigal with his stance of a lofty equipose. For this has bred the greatest
objection to his work, this feeling of unrelieved competence...(ADO,)
Always in these essays, Soyinka’s delineations of the evolving personal
stylistic and thematic signatures of his fellow African writers are sharp,
and often couched in as memorable turns of phrase as the witticism
concerning Achebe’s “unrelieved competence.” Soyinka pays close, inti-
mate attention to language, the medium of literature, in these essays and