The negritude literary movement originated in the 1930s in Paris as a protest against French colonialism, and one of its leading figures was Léopold Sédar Senghor. Negritude literature set out to celebrate African culture and to reaffirm the pride of being of African heritage.
Senghor's poem "Black Woman" is a typical poem of the negritude literary movement in that it celebrates the beauty of Africa. Senghor personifies Africa as a beautiful woman whose very "form is beauty." The personification of Africa is also gentle ("the gentleness of your hands") and has a sonorous voice ("Your solemn contralto voice"). In the sixth stanza, the beauty of nature is described in terms one might ordinarily use to describe a lover. Senghor describes its "mouth making lyrical my mouth" and the "savannah shuddering beneath the East Wind's / eager caresses."
The personification of Africa is also presented as being proud, reflecting the idea prominent in Negritude literature that one should be proud to be African. Senghor implies this pride through the repetition of the line, "Naked woman, black woman." Africa is proud to stand naked, and the source of that pride is the color of her skin, the "colour which is life."
Monday, August 13, 2018
Discuss the poem "Black Woman" as a negritudinal poem
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
Bacteria are single-celled microorganisms that thrive in diverse environments (such as the ocean, the soil, and the human body). Various bac...
-
Note that these events are not in chronological order. The story is told by the narrator, looking back upon her life. The first notable even...
-
It seems most likely you are asking about Michael Halliday's theories of language. He argues children have seven main functions they use...
-
The tension between the three world orders after World War II (1939–1945) manifested itself in territorial, economic, military, ideologic...
-
Under common law, any hotel, inn, or other hospitality establishment has a duty to exercise "reasonable care" for the safety an...
-
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s long narrative poem "Christabel" presents the well-known theme of good vs. evil, but the poem ends with ...
-
Grover Cleveland is known as a reformer. The first Democrat elected after the Civil War, Cleveland has the distinction of being the only Pre...
No comments:
Post a Comment