dc.contributor.author |
Gray, Rosemary A.
|
|
dc.date.accessioned |
2016-11-30T06:28:19Z |
|
dc.date.available |
2016-11-30T06:28:19Z |
|
dc.date.issued |
2012 |
|
dc.description.abstract |
Drawing on Ben Okri’s A Time for New Dreams (2011) and Wole Soyinka’s Myth,
Literature and the African World ([1976]1995), this article adopts a literary aesthetics
approach, explaining that mythic conjunctions are inherent in ontopoiesis or the selfinduced
develop-ment of consciousness (Tymeniecka 1992). Okri (2011: 27) argues
that self-creativity or innovation “come from being able first to see what is there, and
not there; to hear what is said, and not said …. And … the art of intuition”, whereas
for Soyinka ([1976]1995: 3) “man’s attempt to externalise and communicate his inner
intuitions” gives rise to cultural mythology. “In Asian and European antiquity ... man
did, like the African, exist within a cosmic totality, did possess a consciousness in
which his own earth being, his gravity-bound apprehension of self, was inseparable
from the entire cosmic pheno-menon,” he asserts (p. 3.). The poems selected reveal
that mythic conjunctions are inherent in such non-dualistic insights. In Okri’s poetry
(1992 & 1999), a higher state of consciousness or “illumination” is the basis for life’s
transitions wrought largely through spirit awakenings via a retrieval of traditional geocosmic
horizons; in Soyinka’s (1972), such transitions accrue from a conscious
reconstruction of the human self, affected by the trauma of solitary confinement. |
en_ZA |
dc.description.department |
English |
en_ZA |
dc.description.librarian |
hb2016 |
en_ZA |
dc.description.uri |
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjls20 |
en_ZA |
dc.identifier.citation |
Rosemary Gray (2012) Mythic Conjunctions in Transit: Ontopoiesis in Ben
Okri's An African Elegy and Mental Fight and Wole Soyinka's A Shuttle in the Crypt , Journal of Literary Studies, 28:4, 25-37, DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2012.735066. |
en_ZA |
dc.identifier.issn |
0256-4718 (print) |
|
dc.identifier.issn |
1753-5387 (online) |
|
dc.identifier.other |
10.1080/02564718.2012.735066 |
|
dc.identifier.uri |
http://hdl.handle.net/2263/58316 |
|
dc.language.iso |
en |
en_ZA |
dc.publisher |
Routledge |
en_ZA |
dc.rights |
© JLS/TLW. This is an electronic version of an article published in Journal of Literary Studies, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 25-37, 2012. doi : 10.1080/02564718.2012.735066. Journal of Literary Studies is available online at : http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjls20. |
en_ZA |
dc.subject |
Mythic conjunctions |
en_ZA |
dc.subject |
Self-creativity |
en_ZA |
dc.subject |
Communicate |
en_ZA |
dc.title |
Mythic conjunction in transit : Ontopoiesis in Ben Okri's An African Elergy and Mental Fight and Wole Soyinka's A Shuttle in the Crypt |
en_ZA |
dc.type |
Postprint Article |
en_ZA |