THE TRAGEDY OF WOLE SOYINKA

I must say before I plough my hand into this, that I am writing this for the benefit of the gross realities that have often played emotions between creators and critics, and I have often wondered what keeps the distance between a creator and a critic, so unfamiliar that both had to stand at fiendish distance from each other, but my answer to that had stood aloof in the wind with no possible response coming to it. For this little discomfort I have laboured my time to shed my mind on this sensitive issue

Perhaps Prof Soyinka did not share the orientation of the Greek critic, that a writer must not import difficult figures into his writing so that he will not become obscure for his audience and that every writer must ensure that his piece of writing is deliberated between terseness and obscurity, bombast and grandeur. Often, most of those who had to read wole soyinka had had a simple mind of entrusting their wits to their instinct to understand his output, while some simply feel that for sheer display of any of his books they signal the infinite belief that they have attained that level of utmost enlightenment. I wouldn’t for instance want to compare Professor Soyinka style of writing with the likes of Conrad, Chekov and Cohen for they seem to be worlds apart yet sincerely I cannot say words apart, obviously the laureate may have been a proselyte of these trios

My concern here is not to criticize wole soyinka for in the opium of his aptitude and the extract from his books, I stand unaccounted for, hence my major priority is to honestly stand between him and his most feared or should I say fierce critic, Chinweizu. When I was an undergraduate and read chinweizu and the bolekajas and their endless ‘attacks’ on the Nobel laureate, I had thought that Chiweizu was only being eaten by discontent of status but over some time and with constant attention to my reason I came to the full realization that perhaps Chiweizu might be in line, being aware that Chinweizu is a structuralist, who strongly supports the celebration of Africanism to the heart of the whole world, rather than beaming a cocktail of African structure, his philosophies would always antagonize Soyinka’s.

Though Prof. Wole Soyinka has been described as a man of letters by some of his African contemporaries and largely by the west and the orients, his cryptic style of writing seem not to present him as an African. I remember one of the discourses between him and Ali Mazuri over the Internet. The latter claimed that the Nobel laureate conflicts the natural cosmology of Africa with the fantasies of his self expressionism. His over all impact on what African literature is is shabby. In his essence, Wole Soyinka has not in true sense evolved to the world the face of African Literature. In the same vein, Durosimi Jones (the first to do a major criticism of Soyinka’s works) in his subtle criticism of Wole Soyinka believes that a writer who writes with nonchalant attention for his audience has not mastered the significance of the art, hence the fierce criticism. While Wole Soyinka in his ever vibrant atavistic reaction thundered in defense that he does not write mediocrity, therefore a mediocre should not hope to understand the focus of his letters. Perhaps the use of words by Wole Soyinka is elaborately outlandish. The intense, cryptic, laborious and poetic quality of his prose language encumbers the understanding of it. In addition, let me quickly say that if Prof. Wole Soyinka had remained a playwright and poet and not venture the depth of his mind on prose maybe he would have had lesser tragedy from his critics, especially on expressionism. His belief that he has cultivated a language more enchanting and psychedelic combines to the outrage against his erudite prowess. Zulu Sofola, a die hard critic of his, had outnumbered series of presentations by the disciples of the Nobel laureate in an essay in which he assays the methods and motif of Prof. Soyinka. In the essay she contributed although sarcastically to other anti-Soyinka critics arguing that the worth of Soyinka works would have been more instrumental to the development of Africa, if only the laureate would arrange his complex metaphors in a fashion of comfort that behoves African specification. With this statement, I wished to ponder whether there is actually a symbolic difference between what we speak as the lingua franca and the excusable complex we articulate daily that Sofola had to describe a language as African specification. In my assumption, I want to believe that she was referring to what is arbitrarily conventional to the African method of speaking; what I visualize as some what lacking in the communicative function of world standard and utilities.
Critics have always bore their heavy criticism on Soyinka’s works, of which some are particularly personal grudges considering the formats of the criticism while some just carry the parameters of schmaltz that are adequately witty.

One of the questions that have often charged the significance of criticism in Africa is the wonder on what qualities a good critic should possess. Resources from wole ‘Soyinka’s society “a good critic”, Esiaba Erobi avows and I quote that a ‘critic is one who knows the way but cannot drive a car’ while a good critic, according to him is one that does not write like Paul Gilroy and Chinweizu. In his belief, “a good critic is not one that finds fault but gives comments that help to understand the work much better, that is, without bias as there are many biased, or what we call ‘cabalistic critics’.” But I dare say that critics’ evaluations are myopically fundamental to their emotions more than the set values by Esiaba Erobi above. As a result, critics are guilty of impassioned criticism, just as they are sometimes of works. a clear example of such emotive schmaltzy criticism is one of Dryden’s on Milton’s paradise lost asserting that the reason why Milton writes free verse is due to his blindness, since without sight he cannot see the beauty therein a rhymed poem. While in spite of the fact that worst poems than Paradise lost, without much attention to the concept of poetry at that time met moderate fate with the likes of Persey Byshey Shelley on Charles webbe the rain.
In my candid opinion, I want to say that there are soft and hard critics, just as there are writers that are hard with their words and some soft with theirs. Everyone cannot be like Femi Osofisan who deliberately avoids creating a spleen for the writers whose work he his reviewing but rather effusively splints the writers flaws by wittingly manipulating an unreachable latent essence for the discovery. And of course my very own Odia Ofeimun, a characteristically critical modem of criticism that was recently described as telling the truth about every work he assesses. It was said or so I read that if you don’t want the truth don’t ask Ofeimun.

Towards the decolonization of Africa in chinweizu’s essay, his resentment against Soyinka, I want to believe is not essentially his language but the lack of Africanism display both of his works and mind. I should stand between both him and the neo negritudist and leftist who sharpen their critic teeth against his Corpus, that Soyinka serves a distorted presentation of African literature which harbours a lacking institute of Africa and her mores. To them the rate at which Soyinka is going, the preservation of African values which others, like Chinua Achebe, Ali Mazrui, Ngugi Wa Thiong o have perspired for would be lost. Perhaps, to Wole Soyinka Africa deserves an accomplishment in the fleeting hi-tech expansion in the world. He is not a scientist but would so much love to create a prodigious route, that literature; especially African literature can be informed of modernism, instead of the conservative metaphors of flaying slavery, racism, feudal leadership and all others. In his subconscious initiative, the development of Africa’s art should not only be a burden of his past but recognition of our miscegenation. It is not possible to quieten this stern affiliation from our psychic. In fact some share more of it than their African values.
In the world of art there are critics and consumers for every written work, either poorly done or fantastic. It is the consummation of every literary output. A work that has not gone through the scalpel and fire of critics, cannot be said to have been tested of its artistic and creative values. It is worthy to know that what stands useful in any literary criticism is for the critic to provide educative insight to a work and not condemn it. The light entertainment that has been provided by both Soyinka and the antagonistic Bolekaja cum Chinweizu over the years has limited both creative expansion and lulled a recommendable African criticism.

Yet in this lingering controversy, I long to understand the solubility of Prof. Soyinka’s prose style, the configurations, permissibility and the voided acceptances. However, he is a man who has been ambushed literarily and for not his tenacity and resoluteness, he would have been down tooled like E.M Forster who in defeat said that the society he writes about no longer exist and John Keats whose exuberance as a Romanists was ridiculed by critics who believe that his muse was not ripe enough for that age and more so the vision he represents. Of course, not forgetting my very own Ayi Kwei Armah who has sustained several accusations from critics, evaluating his writing as too sublime and not in toned with reality. After all he claimed that he is the poets’ poet. As well as Chinua Achebe who thinks that his lantern could no longer shed the artistic innocence needed for the age. Not after his beautiful Africa-captured novels, which have left a distastefull bile on our tongues. I do share the overzealous extract of some critics such as chiweizu, Odia Ofeimun, Tamure Ojaide, Tayo Olafioye, etc but when It becomes too enforced by emotion, the trinity (the creator, the consumer and the critic) becomes unbalanced.

In all I would like to hold that the Wole Soyinka has indeed proved to the ignorant globe that though Africans are not in contention with true tech science and its art but what we do with literature and its art is unchallenging.

Sincerely, I love to know how Soyinka’s mind works and I definitely would appreciate if he would stand the icon he is and remain unshaken