Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Religious Language and Imagery in the Poetry of Okara, Soyinka, and Okigbo

Religious Language and Imagery in the Poetry of Okara, Soyinka, and Okigbo RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE AND IMAGERY IN THE POETRY OF OKARA, SOYINKA, AND OKIGBO BY ARTHUR RAVENSCROFT (Roundhay, Leeds, England) In minds and sensibilities where traditional African culture and religion meet Western religion and culture, the result is not necessarily clash, conflict, and alienation, but often interacting enrichment and an enlarged responsiveness to what lies beyond the outward and visible manifestations of apparently antagonistic cultures. So, at least, it appears in some of the poetry of three Nigerian poets, Gabriel Okara (born 1921), Christopher Okigbo (1932-67), and Wole Soyinka (born 1934). In 'Piano and Drums',' i Okara examines his reactions to the sounds of 'jungle drums' and of 'a wailing piano / solo'. The former take him along 'simple paths' that have been ...fashioned with the naked warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing. While the piano music also beckons, however, its sophisticated convolutions offer no easy journeying: ...lost in the labyrinth of its complexities, it ends in the middle of a phrase at a daggerpoint. Nevertheless, the poet's sensibility enables him to respond in both kinds, and to resolve the polarities by receiving both appeals through the antennae of the poetic imagination, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Religion in Africa Brill

Religious Language and Imagery in the Poetry of Okara, Soyinka, and Okigbo

Ravenscroft, Arthur
Journal of Religion in Africa , Volume 19 (1): 2 – Jan 1, 1989
Download PDF
18 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/religious-language-and-imagery-in-the-poetry-of-okara-soyinka-and-gbzmU1Pb3X

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1989 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0022-4200
eISSN
1570-0666
DOI
10.1163/157006689X00026
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE AND IMAGERY IN THE POETRY OF OKARA, SOYINKA, AND OKIGBO BY ARTHUR RAVENSCROFT (Roundhay, Leeds, England) In minds and sensibilities where traditional African culture and religion meet Western religion and culture, the result is not necessarily clash, conflict, and alienation, but often interacting enrichment and an enlarged responsiveness to what lies beyond the outward and visible manifestations of apparently antagonistic cultures. So, at least, it appears in some of the poetry of three Nigerian poets, Gabriel Okara (born 1921), Christopher Okigbo (1932-67), and Wole Soyinka (born 1934). In 'Piano and Drums',' i Okara examines his reactions to the sounds of 'jungle drums' and of 'a wailing piano / solo'. The former take him along 'simple paths' that have been ...fashioned with the naked warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing. While the piano music also beckons, however, its sophisticated convolutions offer no easy journeying: ...lost in the labyrinth of its complexities, it ends in the middle of a phrase at a daggerpoint. Nevertheless, the poet's sensibility enables him to respond in both kinds, and to resolve the polarities by receiving both appeals through the antennae of the poetic imagination,

Journal

Journal of Religion in Africa – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1989

There are no references for this article.