FYI, this item from the Nigerian paper, Vanguard, may be of interest. It is a little long but has some mentions of African languages and literature, and specifically Igbo. It says that it is the second article in a series - the first part is at http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/features/arts/at306082006.html ... DZO
J.O.J Nwachukwu Agbada: The dignity of a critical labourer http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/features/arts/at413082006.html Posted to the Web: Sunday, August 13, 2006 The first part of this material was published in our last edition SIXTHLY, Nwachukwu-Agbada has reaffirmed his humility and commitment to and unreserved passion for the critical enterprise with his forays into the pre-university examination preparatory texts industry, where his quality as a "literary midwife", "a practical critic" whose main job according to Nnolim is "to make hard reading easier for the layman" ("The Critic" 21) become undisputed. Nwachukwu-Agbada in addition to the contemporary engagement of "academic criticism", which is "backed by sound academic preparation and grounded in solid theoretical knowledge of literature" in Nnolim's words, bring his wealth of knowledge to the rescue of the new initiates of literature. Even as a professor, Nwachukwu-Agbada is still neck-deep into this practice which he started two decades ago, and which apart from Ernest Emenyonu rarely finds patronage from established critics. His latest contribution, Exam Focus: Literature in English is the best recognized text in its category. Seventhly, J.O.J Nwachukwu-Agbada has held his nerves to bring some stability to African literature by wading into certain debates and controversies that have created very volatile atmospheres. The most celebrated of these controversies and debates include those surrounding the choice of the language of African creative writing and the Charles Nnolim/Chinua Achebe Arrows of God source melee. We can go on and on to outline the reasons J.O.J Nwachukwu-Agbada occupies a pride of place in contemporary Nigerian literary criticism. In the segment that follow, we shall examine the definitive and strategic critical statements made by Nwachukwu-Agbada by an assessment of some representative works. His abiding interest in orality and history, culture and sociology, literary language and areas of peculiar generic and sub-generic needs shall be our guide. By far, the single most important variant of Nwachukwu-Agbada's criticism and scholarship as a whole is African orality. This does not only account for his awesome interest in Chinua Achebe's significance as Nigeria's foremost traditional novelist in English, but has also compelled some of the most revealing, indepth and refreshing critical responses to a writer whose oeuvre is widely believed to be over flogged. For instance, in the Proverbium essay "Proverbs in Prison. The Technique and Strategy of Proverbs Use in Chinua Achebe's Novels" (1997), Nwachukwu-Agbada sets out to provide an element that majority of the discourses on Achebe's proverbs lack. According to Nwachukwu-Agbada, in spite of the abundance of researches on Achebe's proverbs "none has specifically considered these proverbs as captives of another text, nor has there been any attempt to reckon with them as the author's strategic use of techniques and style". The focus of the above essay is therefore to prove that "Achebe's sporadic return to the Igbo proverb is a conscious artistic act; that he has not `imprisoned proverbs merely to prove that the Igbo love their use; that he has instead employed them to advance his own stylistic aim". The argument of this essay is augmented in the seventh chapter of his book The Igbo Proverb (2002), which examines Chinua Achebe's literary use of the Igbo Proverb. Nwachukwu-Agbada stresses that "one of the domains of Achebe's artistry which easily portrays him as a skillful stylist is his use of Igbo proverbs", and goes ahead to ferret Achebe's use of the proverb for thematic reinforcement, instruction and social control, satire, Irony and sarcasm, characterization and as a rhetorical tool. With studies like the aforementioned and many more, Nwachukwu-agbada has carved a niche for himself as one of Africa's foremost proverb scholars. The essay "Igbo Humour in the Novels of Chinua Achebe" (2004) is representative of a body of Nwachukwu-Agbada's critiques that do not just underline his commitment to Igbo lore and adoration of Achebe's indebtedness to it, but also portray him as a voracious Achebe researcher. Having established that Igbo humour, from which Achebean humour is derived, is located in idioms, proverbs, folktales, anecdotes, myths, songs, rhetoric, satire, sarcasm, irony, invectives and altercations, prayers, analogies, jokes, insults and abuses, sexy vignettes, taunts and puns, Nwachukwu-Agbada further reveals that "Ticklish Proverbs and Comparisons", "Comic Ironies", "Delightful Anectdotes", "Mirthful Myths" and "Authorial Humour" provide the platform on which Achebe turns on the comic especially within his Igbo audience. Probably buoyed by Achebe's sublime expertise in the handling of Igbo oral forms, Nwachukwu-Agbada has since embarked on researches into not just the patterns that occupied Achebe in his novels but several other related areas that speak volumes about not just the richness of the Igbo linguistic repertoire but also the commitment and intellectual energy of a scholar. "Aliases Among the Anambra-Igbo: The Proverbial Dimension" (1991), "Iko Onu: The Tradition of Poetic Insult among Igbo Children" (2001) and "The Glint in the Ore: Latent Educational Values of Igbo Poetic Insult of Similes" (1996), among so many others, are representative of Nwachukwu-Agbada's invaluable contribution to the study of Igbo oral patterns. Nwachukwu-Agbada's enchantment with history also finds unusual expression in his examination of Achebe's fiction. His "Chinua Achebe and His Vision of History" (2004) is a particularist version of the assessment of the relationship between history and African literature by S.E. Ogude in "African Literature and the Burden of History: Some Reflections" (1991) and Theodore Akachi Ezeigbo in "History and the Novel in Africa" (1991). From Nwachukwu-Agbada's exciting and incisive espouse, we gather that history assumes a myriad of forms in Achebe's A Man of the People, Anthills of the Savannah, Arrow of God, No Longer at Ease and Things Fall Apart. These include history "as a backward glance", "as a tale of change", and "as a product of two basic and opposite contending forces of centripetal and centrifugal nature". "Chinua Achebe: The Celebration of Igbo Tradition of Politics in His Novels" (1993) also demonstrates Achebe's status as historian-novelist par excellence. Nwachukwu-Agbada, using Achebe as a historical springhoard explores the nature of the traditional Igbo political system, a part of the cultural matrix which Achebe himself defended in the face of colonial intimidation. The dimensions of Igbo traditional politics which Nwachukwu-Agbada retrieves from Achebe's fiction include "Communal spirit and Consensual Demoncracy", "Elders and the State" and "Delegational Agitation". Nwachukwu-Agbada also discusses the political dimension of Igbo oratorical practices as well as the notion of Western government as a foreign phenomenon and goes on to instructively conclude thus: "Chinua Achebe's depiction of the Igbo tradition of politics is a purposeful attempt to return us to those aspects of our past which we must re-learn for contemporary use." Nwachukwu-Agbada has scored his marks as much as any other critic in the sociological brand of criticism, which Sunday Anozie describes as being "relevant to the needs of the times" especially as it concerns Africa (Winging Words). Nwachukwu-Agbada in this calling conforms to Wilbur S. Scott's thesis that "sociological criticism starts with a conviction that art's relations to society are vitally important, and that the investigation of these relationships may organize and deepen one's aesthetic response to a work of art". "Poverty in Nigeria: Responses to a Human Predicament in Literature" (2001) in which he does a multi-generic and multi-generational examination of Nigerian creative writers' treatment of the subject of poverty is one of the most impressive attempts at viewing the Nigeria society through literature. He passes the following verdict: The approach has varied among local creative writers, occasioned by their experience, education, outlook, social class origin, creed, ideology and culture." Nwachukwu-Agbada has also produced critical assessments of Nigerian civil war literature, the protest tradition, feminism and even Marxism. On the African scene, Nwachukwu-Agbada has shown similar sociological concern, especially against the background of an unfavourable political history coupled with the rough contemporary African political terrain. For instance, in "Freedom and Defeatism in Okot P' Bitek's Poetry" (1988) and "No One Can Stop the Rain: Agostinho Neto and His Poetry of Optimism" (1995), Nwachukwu-Agbada reiterates the fact of the nationalist weapon which poetry was in especially the African struggle for independence. The intriguing thing about Nwachukwu-Agbada's sociological critiques is the very enlightening background information he profers concerning the socio-political, historical, cultural, economic and even religious context of the work being discussed. Nwachukwu-Agbada's disposition validates Oladele Taiwo's position that "for criticism to give a true reflection of the work of art, the critic must understand thoroughly not only the language of the author but also the socio-cultural circumstances surrounding the work" (Social Experience). Morever, Abiola Irele insists that the critic must not merely be seen "as an interpreter of literary texts but as a partner with the writer in the social dialogue which every work initiates ("Literary Criticism"). The next category of Nwachukwu-Agbada's critical efforts include those that serve the purpose of filling some critical gaps in African literature. Some literary forms, as both player and observer can attest to in Nigeria, have been starved critical attention in Africa. The short story and the novel written in the indigenous African language for instance, have not attracted an encouraging volume of criticism. P.O. Iheakaram has noted about the short story: "There is at the moment, a dearth of criticism of the Nigerian short story by Nigerians" ("The Short Story in Africa"). Earlier, Charles Nnolim had observed that "we all have to neglect the short story as a genre worthy of critical attention" ("The Critic" . Nwachukwu-Agbada's "The Short Story As a Respository of the social Histories of Two Third World Cultures: Samuel Selvon and Chinua Achebe" (1990) is a contribution to this area of dire need in African literature. Beyond this fairly notable achievement, Nwachukwu-Agbada establishes in this essay a similarity in both the Caribbean and African Socio-historical contexts, thereby situating a relationship in artistic motivation: "The truth is that the artistic vista which seems to establish the interrelatedness of the heritages of Africa and the Caribbean is the people's common texture of social history which their writer's cloak in poetic humour". Furthermore, the essay "Tradition and Innovation in the Igbo Novels of Tony Ubesie" isolates him, alongside a few others like the highly illustrious Ernest Emenyonu and Nolue Emenanjo as articulate critical voices of Igbo language literature in Nigerian. In this essay, Nwachuku-Agbada, in consonance with Emenyonu and P.A Ezikejiaku acknowledges Ubesie's impressive profile as the king-pin of the Igbo Language novel in contemporary Nigerian literature. He also agrees with the duo of Emenyonu and Emenanjo that Ubesia fulfils his social obligations as a creative writer in spite of writing in Igbo. A number of Nwachukwu-Agbada's critical discourses have helped calm frayed nerves in some of the controversies that have beset African literature. Nwachukwu-Agbada's interviews with Chinua Achebe, which was published in Commonwealth: Essays and Studies as "A Conversation with Chinua Achebe" is widely believed to have ended the Achebe/Nnolim Arrow of God source controversy. About this highly strategic interview, Amanze Akpuda stresses that "this encounterÂ… firmly lays to rest an old literary controversy" (Reconstructing). Similarly, in the essay "The Language Question in African Literature", Nwachukwu-Agbada re-examines the debate on the delicate issue of the language of creative writing for Africans with a prescriptive motive. Having closely reviewed the issue and the opinions of other African writers, Nwachukwu-Agbada tries to tie the several loose ends generated by the imbroglio. Throwing sentiments to the wind, he calls to attention the predicament of the African Writer in the language question and avers that although Obi Wali, Frantz Fanon and Ngugi wa Thiong'o have agitated uncompromisingly for the jettisoning of the language of the colonizer" (16), the African writer cannot exactly do that because of several reasons. Chief among these reasons is that "if he has to earn enough to survive as a writer, if he has to earn royalties for personal sustenance, he has to be published in a foreign language". In foregrounding his neutral but very instructive stance, he endorses Achebe's advocation of "a new English", recommends Chinweizu, Jamie and Madubuike's proposal of a return to the oral nuances of the mother-tongue option and sanctions the pidgin English alternative. Nwachukwu-Agbada has also made an impact in the polemical dimension, most notably on the theory of art. The persuasiveness one encounters in an essay like "The Artist and the Search for Peace in a Developing Nation" approximates the achievements of the likes of Ngugi wa Thiong'o in "Barrel of a Pen: Resistance and Repression in Neocolonial Kenya" and "Writers in Politics and Emmanuel Obiechina in "The Writer and His Commitment in Contemporary Nigerian society". The crux of his argument in "The Artist" can be captured in the following lines: "a responsible, functional artist realizes soon enough that there can be no peace without Justice and freedom, and therefore grapples with these latter issues as a preamble towards the attainment of stable, lasting peace" (4). "Drama and Theatre for Rural Emancipation in Nigeria: A modest Proposal" (1989) is a particularized version of this category of Nwachukwu-Agbada's essays. Like Tracie Chima Utoh in "Theatre and the Nigeria society" (1995) and August Boal in "Theatre of the Oppressed" Nwachukwu-Agbada advocates the full utilization of the theatre medium to sensitize and conscientize the Nigerian people concerning events and developments in their society. The essays "Women in Igbo-Language Videos: The Virtues and the Villainous"(1997) and Mbari Museum Art: Covenant With a God Fulfilled" (1991) are perhaps the most indicative of the dynamism and versatility which we have identified with Nwachukwu-Agbada earlier in this paper. While many established critics of Nwachukwu-Agbada's generation wait to be reminded that the film genre deserves attention just like literature, he has quickly spotted the link between the film script-writer and the literary/creative writer, and the film actors and characters in a play or novel. According to him, "the screen writers of this early period of Igbo-language video film development seem to have followed similar pattern noticed in many different literatures". Nwachukwu-Agbada, like an Ezeulu who vowed to be like Eneke the bird, who saw the need to fly without perching since men have learnt to shoot without missing, envisages a situation which L.O. Bamidele puts in proper perspective: "the new forms of entertainment and communication have become a sort of visual literature that aspires to replace the novel and the traditional verse as the bell tolls for their future death" (Literature and Sociology). Ruduph Arheim, one of the greatest ever film theorists and critics, reinforces Bamidele's standpoint: "the motion picture will soon carry the imitation of nature to an extreme ("The complete film"). Traditional mythology Nwachukwu, Agbada's profile as an art (in general) critic is further pronounced in Mbari Museum Art: Covenant With a God Fulfiled". In his usual engaging and expository fashion, Nwachukwu-Agbada gives a muti-dimensional socio-cultural and and historical background to the Mbari art, which leaves his audience with insights into the relationship between the Igbo traditional mythology/religion and art. In conclusion, what Nwachukwu-Agbada represents in the Nigerian critical institution cannot possibly be captured in a piece of paper. What have attempted here should more accurately pass for a summary. Only a well conceived, superbly executed festschrisft can do justice to Nwachukwu-Agbada's colossus personality in Nigerian criticism, and literature in general. That Nwachukwu-Agbada is surprisingly just fifty-two is good news for a system where the titans seem to have conspired to deny the present generation of their revered present. In terms of painstaking elucidation, explanation and critical discrimination which Daniel Izevbaye preaches, and accessibility of language in this era of academic and linguistic exhibition as advocated by Nnolim, one can hardly find a more sensitive African critic. Finally, Nwachukwu-Agbada fits into the mould of the ideal critic, as proposed in the introduction to D.J Enright and Ernest De Chickera's English Critical Texts (1982): "A critic must be emotionally alive in every fibre, intellectual capable and skillful in essential logic, honestÂ… a good critic should give his reader a few standards to go by. He can change the standards for every new critical attempt, so long as he keeps the faith" *************************** Disclaimer ***************************** Copyright: In accordance with Title 17, United States Code Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material posted to this list for purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. ******************************************************************** Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
