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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Niyi Osundare and the Materialist Vision: A Study of 'The Eye of the Earth' |
Author: | Bodunde, Charles |
Year: | 1997 |
Periodical: | Ufahamu |
Volume: | 25 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 81-100 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Nigeria |
Subjects: | literature poetry Miscellaneous (i.e. Demography, Refugees, Sports) |
About person: | Niyi Osundare (1947-) |
Abstract: | 'The Eye of the Earth', more than any of the texts of Niyi Osundare, emerging as the most prominent poet of a new generation in Nigeria, encompasses all the material which lends itself to dialectical investigation. Using 'The Eye of the Earth' as basis, the present author explores the materialist vision in Osundare's poetry, notably in his depiction of nature, symbolized in the metaphor of earth, and man's relation to it, and, through this, Osundare's criticism of capitalist ideology. Osundare uses his poetry to bear the vision of the restoration of lost unity with earth. His alternative to the prevailing alienation and social contradictions is a return to earth's productive essence, a return which is to be defined within a collective appropriation of earth, a practice analogous to the communal labour/earth relation in the agrarian structure. Ref. |