Austin Uzoma Nwagbara, PhD (Lagos)

Department of English, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos

Tel. 234 803 315 7782 Email: aunwagbara@yahoo.com

_________________________________________________________ CREATIVITY AS CELEBRATIONS OF JOY & PAIN: DAVID DIOPS AFRICA AND THE SEMIOTISATION OF HISTORY Abstract The conjuration of history as a metaphor of creativity in African literary discourse represents a seminal reconstruction of the intensity of the collective experiences of the continent, a re-living of its joys and pains. The creative enterprise and the culture of its actualisation in African literary experience to a large extent signify the expression and celebration of the joys and pains of its history. The persistent interjection of fact and fiction in African literary imagination represents the reconstruction and re-enactment of the experiences of the African peoples over time, the revocation of the power of memory as a process of not just probe and recall, but a journey into the collective subconscious of Africans as a celebration of their history through literature. In this sense, creativity is, as well as entails, a complex and intricate process and activity of recall, the conscious invocation of the collective experiences and encounters of the African peoples with their past, their transformation into the present and a projection into the future. This paper therefore sets out to study Diops Africa and its signification of history as a celebrated recall and reconstruction of Africas joy and pain through time and space. It sets out to examine how creative literary discourse constitutes an avenue through which the collective experience of a people is expressed as well as being a medium for marking the joys and pains of their historical realities and interests. Introduction This paper interrogates the idea of literary creativity as a means of celebrating as well as reliving the essence of History as a metaphor of creativity in literary discourse. It attempts to enact in semiotic terms the fact that history is a mindful and ingenious process of recall and revocation and the creative enterprise as medium for breathing life into the process. That is, the paper embarks on an investigation of the presumption that through artful reconstruction of the past in elaborately defined communicative constructs and significations, literature undertakes an ardent and rigorous ritual of recollection and reminiscence which all by itself entails a celebration of the verdant and arid realities of a societys experiences through time and space. Specifically, this paper undertakes an in-depth linguistic and communicative investigation of the interconnection of history and literature in the articulation and depiction of the socio-historical realities of Africa. The idea is to find out ways in which the elements of history collaborate with linguistic and communicative principles to creatively celebrate African peoples essence and being. Using the Peirciean Semiotic paradigm as it theoretical tool, this paper examines Africas encounter with history, especially how through the medium of recall, David Diops poem, Africa is able to utilise the dynamics of history and its significations as a metaphor to recollect and evoke the joys and pains of African peoples through a journey-like incursion into the peoples collective consciousness. Chidi Amuta (1988: 87) reiterates this point when he claims that:

The historian is concerned with empirical data, operating as much as possible at the level of facts in pursuit of specific truths. On the other hand, the literary artist is concerned with historical data to the extent that they provide him with the experiences that constitute the content of his art. But the language of the literary artist does not subsist on facts. He mediates facts in pursuit of both specific and universal truths while trying to please or disturb the process. A well nurtured artistic consciousness rooted in shared experiences, interactions and encounters connect African history and creativity in literary discourse through a sort of convergence of reality and imagination. The intensity of this connection is entailed in the process of recounting and reconstructing the peoples being and identity through the attempts towards re-living the realities of their history an imaginative revocation of the joys and pains of their experiences over time and space. As a conscious re-enactment of the joint socio-historical realities and heritage of the political and cultural life of the people, David Diops Africa, using complex and elaborate semiotic constructs, invokes and recounts the diverse pains and joys of African experiences through multiple communicative and historical significations. Through their literary writings, the writers create intense imaginative projections, assertions and declarations of the shared socio-historical encounters of the political and cultural life of Africa. Through the medium of literary discourse, the writer imaginatively reconstructs Africas history through intense and powerful revocations of the past, actualisation of the present and insightful projections into the future. The ubiquitous signification of history as a metaphor and agent of African literary imagination, which is generally enacted in the persistent interfacing of fact and fiction in creative and communicative dynamics of African literary art and discourse, considerably delineate its communicative and artistic status. Two landmark historical encounters can be considered predominant in the collective ontological experiences of the continent and peoples of Africa. First, there is the encounter with the outside world - other continents and peoples and the implications and consequences of the interactions that ensued. Secondly and quite closely linked to the first, is the issue of the commoditisation of the African and the debasement of his/her collective psyche through slave trade and colonisation. While the latter encounter results in the pervasive colonisation of Africa, a sort of the political disrobing of the essence of the African being, the former produces the mechanism, which ensured the persistent enslavement of the continent signified in the horrendous merchandising of the African, a condition that thrived for more than four centuries. Semiotics Semiotics deals primarily with the nature, form and structure of all possible sign systems and their role in the conceptualisation, establishment and crystallisation of meaning. It is concerned with the interpretation of signs, sign systems and their significations as communication codes in different societies and cultures. In other words, Semiotics investigates the various systems of signs that create the shared meanings that constitute any

culture. According to Newton (1988:171), the basis of Semiotics is the sign any configuration to which there is a conventionalised response. Semiotics (also Semiology), has a Greek ancestry deriving from Semeion, which means sign. As an intellectual and scholarly endeavour, Semiotics originated in the late nineteenth century mainly through the writings of two notable scholars: the American Pragmatist philosopher and logician, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 1914); and the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 - 1913), who coined the term Semiologie (translated into English as Semiology) in 1894. Both were concerned with the study of the life of signs as part of social life (Cobley, 2001: 259). Unaware of each others efforts and works, Saussure and Peirce caused an innovation into linguistics and human communication. They individually posited the possibility of a science that studies the life of signs within society (Eco, 1984:4) which Saussure referred to as semiology, and Peirce named Semiotics. In his original conception of the discipline in Cours de linguistic generale, Saussure presented it as a branch of social psychology, not as a general science of signs. He apparently intended to confine Semiology to the study of public institutional signs, particularly those in which the relation between form and meaning was arbitrary: of these Saussure regarded linguistic signs as constituting the most important class. ((Cobley, 2001: 259) But the Peircean perception of semiotics is based on a generalised system designed as an aspect of logic, which relies on the doctrine of the essential varieties of semiosis which Peirce himself defined as an action, an influence, which is or involves, a co-operation of three subjects, such as a sign, its subject and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in anyway resolvable into action between pairs (Peirce 1931:5.488, 484 as quoted in Eco 1976: 15). To him, a sign is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity (Peirce, 1931-58:2.228 in Malmkjaer, 1991:339). Peirces triadonomy is expressed in these terms: (1) The iconic - a sign that resembles its referent as in a road sign for a double bend: (ii) The indexical - when the sign is associated with its referent: for instance smoke = fire (iii) The symbolic - when the sign and the referent have an arbitrary relationship (Cuddon, 1991: 858) Based on a somewhat different perception, Umberto Eco argues that Semiotics objectively studies phenomena that are reasonably independent of their observations; and it can equally be speculative; in which case it can specify in particular how expressions produced according to the principles of a given system of signification could be considered to be acceptable. In practical terms, Semiotics is explanatory and posits categories that provide a satisfactory working hypothesis upon which communication functions. Eco (1986: 13) notes To see human beings as signifying animals and to see that their ability to produce and to interpret signs as well as their ability to draw inferences is rooted in the same cognitive structures represents a way to give form to our experience. 3

Semiotic theory therefore is more or less an exploration of the conventions that make interpretations possible. Through its principles and structural analysis, Semiotics analyses the signifying practices and interpretative conventions that necessitate communication. In other words, Semiotics ought not be concerned with particular sign systems, but with the signifying process, which both create and/or undermine systems of signs. Signifying History as a Metaphor of Creativity in David Diops Africa Of most negritudists of note, David Diop probably stands out as one of the most erudite and articulate, probably second to Leopald Sedar Senghor, a fellow Senegalese. His contribution to the negritude philosophy and movement is acknowledged mostly in his creative outputs - mainly his poetic writings. Probably, his greatest contribution and singular attribute is in the poem, Africa, in which he optimally articulates his philosophical and artistic perception of Africa, particularly its history, spirituality and relationship with the rest of the world, the west in particular. This poem, which could stand as a seminal description in poetic idiom of Africas development, provides a historical insight and socio-political reenactment of Africas experiences and encounters through space and time. Most importantly, the key point lies in how history is signified and communicated in the poem, Africa, as medium of creativity. The interfacing of the facts of history, literary imagination and communication has remained a pervasive concern in African literary discourse and art. This entails why history has been considered and explored as a close ally of literary communication or discourse and has provided serious impetus and stimulus to literary discourse. Thus, history has not only functioned as a medium of creativity but has more or less sustained the connection between portrayal and the facts of daily existence the feature/facility of imaginative enactment/reconstruction. This could perhaps explain why the projection of ideas and the crafting of language in literary discourse are sometimes conditioned by the antecedents and realities of history. In Africa particularly, history, apart from being a common denominator of literary art, could equally be considered a device for expressing its discourse. It could serve as a key tool of analysis of literary content and artistry. Gakwandi (1977: 1 - 2) commenting on the significance of history to African literary imagination makes the following observations: Modern African Literature has been largely concerned with interpreting the more recent implications of a history extending over a period of four centuries. It may be useful therefore to say a few words about the significant features of this history, which have attracted the creative imagination. Apart from this, history has provided service to African literary thought and imagination in many other spheres and both have collaborated at many levels in documenting the joys and pains of Africas experiences. History and literary creativity have offered reciprocal inspiration to each other in the reconstruction of the African experiences, both being part of an awakening and a search for a new place in the world for the African. (Gakwandi, 1977: 1). In specific terms this fact has been reconstructed in diverse forms in the various expressive media of African literary discourse. David Diops Africa recreates the various historical phases and encounters of the peoples of Africa and how they confronted as they tackled the development challenges of the times 4

from their earliest known history through the struggles towards the termination of the last vestiges of colonialism up to the early point of the attainment of independence in some Africa states. The poem, taking its standpoint from the concluding days of colonialism, reminisces over Africas chronicle of physical and psychological dislocation and disjuncture while it provides a glimpse into the future and its entailments of hope, pomp and lushness associated with the continents attainment of independence. In the poem, Africa, David Diops representation of Africa is captured and projected in multiple historical significations as the poem celebrates the peoples of Africa and their attempts at confronting the challenges of their myriad encounters with history. The main elements adopted in the signification of history as a metaphor of creativity are: time, signified in the three major phases of the transformations of African socio-political experiences the traditional (pre-colonial), the colonial and the independence eras; and, pain, represented in Africas encounters and relations with the outside world and exemplified by the cruelties of the Trans-Saharan and Trans Atlantic trades and the social turbulence of colonialism. Essentially, the poem traces the various phases and experiences of the continent and imaginatively recreates and reconstructs the multiple significations of its history through them. First, let us consider the semiotisation of time and its workings as communicative and imaginative constructs in Diops Africa in line with the Peircean triadic notion of the sign. The interpretation of time in the poem could be undertaken through the iconic, indexical and symbolic paradigms. The perception of time in Africa as an iconic construct derives from its mentalist projections and graphic conceptualisation as expressed through the identified linguistic signifiers. As could be perceived in the excerpts below, the lexical signifiers, ancestral savannahs, grandmother and distant tend to conjure images of Africas primordial countryside characterised by untamed thick, lush dense vegetation (ancestral savannahs), a time tucked away in the remote imagination (distant) of the old and dying generations of Africans (grandmother). Africa of proud warriors in the ancestral savannahs, Africa my grandmother sings of Beside her distant river (Italics mine) These signifiers closely recreate the following semantic notions: Past (ancestral), Age (grandmother), and Physical removal in chronological terms (distant) Towards the end of the poem, other iconic projections of time are expressed as reconstructed in these lines: There splendid alone among white and faded flowers Is Africa, your Africa. It puts forth new shoots The linguistic sign faded flowers conveys the iconic notion of a withering away, receding into oblivion, while new shoots signifies a sprouting, regenerative activity or order. 5

Time is also recreated through indexical projections in which case there is a direct and immediate causal and/or logical outcome between a linguistic sign and its semantic implication. The relation therefore is one in which a sign logically implies an interpretation. Is Africa, your Africa. It puts forth new shoots With patience and stubbornness puts forth new shoots Slowly its fruits grow to have The bitter taste of liberty The idea of growth, newness and birth directly suggest the notion of freshness and passage of time, which is reinforced by shoots, fruits and stubbornness. Eventually, the point is clearly demonstrated in the expression, the bitter taste of liberty as a reference to the torturous experience of the transition from the pains of slavery and the joys and hope of freedom and regeneration. The symbolic projection of time appears quite dominant in the poem as we can identify in the following lines: Impetuous child, that young and sturdy tree That tree that grows There splendid among white and faded flowers Is Africa, your Africa Here, the continent Africa is represented through the symbol of a young, healthy and growing tree. In analysing the various forms of the semiotisation of time as a communicative and expressive tool, we can see how history reconstructs the collective joys and pains of Africa in poetic discourse. Next is the signification of the pains of history as a metaphor of creativity. In this case, history serves as a medium for projecting the pains of Africa and her peoples. Here, the poem recounts through such significations of pain as suffering, humiliation, cruelty, and turbulence. The poem portrays pain through the experiences of suffering and turbulence, which the people encounter especially in their external relations with the rest of the world. The notion of pain is largely conveyed in the recounting of the cruelty of slavery and its attendant humiliation and severe psychological damage on the African consciousness. This is signified in the semiotic connotations of the following lines: Your black blood spilt over the fields The blood of your sweat The sweat of your toil The toil of slavery Are you the back that bends Lies down under the weight of humiliation?

The metaphor of the spilling of black blood signifies the message of suffering which is reinforced by sweat, toil and slavery. Eventually, the point is clearly made in the expression, the weight of humiliation as referring to the torturous experience of slavery. Conclusion David Diops Africa captures through lucid and elaborate semiotic projections and significations the idea of history as a metaphor of creativity and a medium for the celebration of the experiences of the Africans as they wade through the memories of their past and its recollections of their joys and pains. Exploring the notion of history as process of recall and revocation, the poem Africa looks back into the historical phases of Africas socio-political transition and development, and in so doing conveys the realities of its painful humiliation as it rummages through the encounter of her past and the expectations of joys of a golden future. David Diops Africa underakes an incursion into the past of the continent, recounting the evils and sorrows of the period and through them launches into the future portentions of joy. It is in this sense that David Diops creative endeavours in Africa mark a celebration of joy and pain and the semiotisation of her history. References Cobley, Paul (2001). The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics. London: Routledge. Davis, R. C. and Schleifer, R. eds. (1989). Contemporary Literary Criticism. New York: Longman. Gakwandi, S. A. (1977). The Novel and Contemporary Experience in Africa. London: Heinemann. Lidov, David (1999). Elements of Semiotics. Hampshire: Macmillan. Nwoga, Donatus (1967). West African Verse. Essex: Longman. Ogunbiyi, Yemi (1988). Perspectives on Nigerian Literature: 1700 to the Present Volume One. Lagos: Guardian Books Ltd. Senanu, K. E. and Vincent, T. eds. (1988). A Selection of African Poetry. Essex: Longman. Umberto, E. (1976). A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Wright, Richard (1970). Black Boy. London: Longman.