African History and Poetic Decoloniality: The Poetries of Kamau Brathwaite and Kofi Anyidoho in Perspective

Abstract

Abstract

Debates on decolonisation of any genre of African literature have been mostly focused on the use of English and other European languages as medium of expression. The reason for the trend might not be far-fetched as most postcolonial critics like Brown, Boehmer and Ashcroft admit that what constitutes the aesthetics of a postcolonial text is its hybrid language. However, the critics’ focus on language creates a gap in their notion of the postcolonial aesthetics. Using Kamau Brathwaite’s and Kofi Anyidoho’s works, this paper proposed that what constitutes the aesthetics of postcolonial literature is not limited to the “hybridity of the language of the postcolonial texts” but includes dialectics of history and tradition. The paper therefore examined how the two poets adopt history as a decolonisation tool to challenge and rewrite colonial masters’ erroneous account about Africa and her history. An exploration of The Arrivants and Ancestral Logic and Caribbean Blues revealed that the postcolonial writers’ adoption of history and oral tradition as a medium is effective in regaining African authentic history, which has been debased by European crooked account about the precolonial and present states of the continent and her people. Therefore, debates on decolonisation of any genre of African literature should not be restricted to the language of postcolonial texts. Other aspects of texts should be explored.

Key words: Decolonisation, African history, Colonialism, Poetry, Oral tradition, Oral history.