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Tydskrif vir Letterkunde
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.235

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This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Print) 0041-476X - ISSN (Online) 2309-9070
Published by SciELO

[688 journals]

Religious metaphors and the crisis of faith in Wole Soyinka's
poetry
- Abstract: Most commentaries on Wole Soyinka's works across genres engage with his constant invocation of cultural tropes, most of which revolve around Ogun, his self-proclaimed muse. In this article, I highlight the centrality of religious myths and metaphors in a selection of Soyinka's poems, namely, "Idanre" in Idanre and Other Poems (1967), Ogun Abibman (1976), "Joseph", one of the "Four Archetypes" poems in A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972), "Mandela's Earth" in Mandela's Earth and Other Poems (1989), and selected poems under the sections "The Sign of the Zealot" and "Elegies" in Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known (2002). While identifying the limitations of the poet's Ogun trope, I dissect the centrality of faith issues in Soyinka's poetry into two slants. The first, which is seen as encompassing his widely explored Ogun trope, is his use of religious metaphors to intervene on the dystopias in his postcolonial space. The second is his concern with the crisis of faith, a menace that has continued to threaten global peace. After drawing copious examples of religious tropes from Soyinka's selected poems, I focus on the attention given by the poet to crisis in faith relationships. The copious examples of Soyinka's use of religious metaphors lead to the conclusion, at the end of the paper, that access to Soyinka's poetry is best achieved by paying attention to his religious metaphors. I also identify Soyinka's antidote for the crisis of faith which lies in his prescription of tolerance and respect for humanist ideals.
Alienation in Ntshavheni Alfred Milubi's poetry
- Abstract: In this article, I analyse the thematization of alienation in the poetry of the Muvenda poet, playwright, and scholar Ntshavheni Alfred Milubi. Milubi ascribes people's abandonment of moral values to their perpetual frustrations, herein described as alienation. Reference is made to the crumbling African traditional institutions, which, in the past, seemingly functioned as havens for the rehabilitation of alienated individuals in African communities. These institutions are shown to be triggering alienation in the modernising and globalising space, seemingly with no room for recuperation unless one heeds the poet's clarion calls. I restrict my analysis of Milubi's poetry only to social and cosmic alienation, guided by a fixed set of themes, namely, from society, a romantic lover, and God, respectively. The article represents the idea that African-language literatures provide insights into how the indigenes have grappled with the interface between tradition and modernity. The three forms of alienation as treated by Milubi serve as a representative sample of how Tshivenda poetry in particular and African-language literatures in general often register subaltern voices and the ways in which they inscribe their experiences to explain their relationship with God or god(s), society, and intimate partners, among others. This trifocal relationship is essential to the Vhavenda and other African communities because it reveals their concept of cosmology, community, and intimacy.

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