A MISREADING OF POETIC PROPORTIONS: THOMAS MOFOLO AND LÉOPOLD SÉDAR SENGHOR'S CHAKA(S): TWO AFRICAN TEXTS IN CONVERSATION

Abstract

Léopold Sédar Senghor's Chaka (1951) was published at a time when Hitler's dominion still resonated over Europe, and African countries had begun to claim their right to self-determination. Because Senghor's poem gave centre-stage to a controversial historical figure reputed for his warfare, comparatively little has been written about the poem. Chaka was, at best, denied the critical attention customarily given to the literary and ideological value of Senghor's work and at worst gravely misunderstood by the public at large. One of the elements lacking from this monolithic response to Senghor's poem is the recognition and understanding of its source, Sotho writer Thomas Mofolo's Chaka (1925). It is argued that a text's apparent contradiction and inherent complexity cannot be elucidated without a proper understanding of its intertextuality. This paper will investigate Senghor's reading of Mofolo in order to shed light on the dynamic of a dialogue that happened in the direction most obviously ignored by literary theories still today: not between metropole and peripheries but within the peripheries. Senghor did not simply choose Chaka (the historical figure and novelistic character) but he chose Mofolo as well because his work offered the Senghorian challenge an ideal paradigm: the political and cultural affirmation of what is essentially African through the arts and through literature in particular. The paper proposes a close reading of Senghor's Chaka, to show that the poem is a transcultural version of Mofolo's novel that remains compatible with his ideology of Negritude.