Abstract or Introduction
Though a powerful and celebrated critic and by now a good and fine creative writer, Shadrach A. Ambanasom has a characteristic tendency of inviting his critics to the dialogue table to tell them that he knows where the weakness in his work is and is therefore ready to
accommodate whatever criticism this may attract. In the preface to Homage and Courtship, he comes out apologetically to give reason for his choice of subject matter and his consciousness of the criticism that is likely to follow: Of course I am well aware that the poems may not find favour with some critics because they do not carry a ready perceptible ‘political punch’, the criterion fashionable these days in some Anglophone quarters for the confinement of the seal of relevance to literature. (v-vi) Then, he goes on to self defence by expressing his “humble opinion”: Important and central as politics is in our corporate existence, it should not be the one and only subjected matter of our literature. In any case, it is not given to just any writer to produce genuinely good political literature. May those capable of pursuing more vigorous committed writing do so; may our our radical visionaries bloom. But let there be room for liberal humanist too. (vi)
- Quote paper
- Oscar Chenyi Labang (Author), 2008, Against The Current: A Review of Shadrach Ambanasom´s "Homage and Courtship", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/119879
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