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Littérature nigériane de langue anglaise --- Écrivains nigérians --- 1945-1970 --- 20e siècle --- Histoire et critique

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Contemporary Nigerian literature derives from a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual environment. Owing to its use of the English language, a large part of Nigerian written literature is in dialogue with the whole body of other literatures worldwide. What distinguishes Nigerian literature from, say, American or Australian literature is a distinct interplay of values, which although they might be found to be present in all human culture, do not combine in the same temporal, historical, geographic or ontological space in the same circumstances and dimensions as those which generate the literature that we designate as Nigerian. Within itself, Nigerian literature has yet to determine what constitutes its core values, although these values are embedded in its narratives. If these values are identified and reiterated, it is possible that a canon of Nigerian literature will be determined. This dissertation argues that the category of nation is still valid in literary discourse, especially because both academic institutional practices and socio-political realities support this theoretical position. It argues that cultural globalization is an imperial ruse, another ploy to rob weaker nations of what is left of their identity. Its beneficiaries are the empires themselves. It therefore takes the validity of a Nigerian literature for granted, only identifying and questioning its constituent elements. Although the dissertation acknowledges the larger canon debates, it restricts itself to theorizing a model of evaluation for a Nigerian canon. This study is both theoretical and evaluative. It re-examines such concepts as values, nation, tradition and canon in terms of the overall intention of the work. Both as bases for theorizing its problem and for elucidation, it uses a variety of literary texts. Although this work suggests the constitutive elements of a Nigerian canon, it does not prescribe a list of works or an exclusionary canonical model. What it does is to suggest a set of principles that will guide scholars interested in canon formation.

Littérature nigériane --- Littérature nigériane de langue anglaise --- Canon (littérature) --- Histoire et critique

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The literatures emerging from the postcolonial world bring new dimensions of linguistic heterogeneity to English literature, opening up rich possibilities for the heteroglossia and interanimation of languages celebrated by Mikhail Bakhtin. Two case studies illustrate the "breaking" and remaking of the English language in postcolonial literatures. Pidgins, oral vernaculars born in the colonial contact zone and developed outside institutional channels, compel our interest as linguistic realizations of a subaltern hybridity and as the most markedly "broken" varieties of English. Within Nigerian literature, representations of pidgin English play a variety of transgressive roles. In two specimens of Onitsha market literature, pidgin is spoken only by clownish chiefs, but in one of these, Ogali A. Ogali's 1956 Veronica My Daughter , pidgin also functions as an anti-language providing a critical perspective on the "big grammar" of standard English. In Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease (1960) pidgin is often associated with the seamy underside of life, while in Wole Soyinka's The Interpreters (1965) it is the vehicle for a resistant counterknowledge. Finally, in Ken Saro-Wiwa's Sozaboy (1985), "rotten English," a mixed language strongly colored by pidgin, escapes the confines of quotation marks to become the language of narration. The second case study is of the work of Salman Rushdie, arguably the paradigmatic postcolonial author--a writer positioned between East and West, between the English language and the polylingualism of South Asia, and renowned for his inventive linguistic experimentation. Chapter 7 explores his short story "The Courter," a story of linguistic and personal dislocation and transformation in which a mispronounced word brings about a new reality. Chapter 8 is an extended exploration of the languages in Midnight's Children and the translational magic of Saleem Sinai's "All-India Radio." Chapter 9 examines ways in which Rushdie unsettles borders, redefining the boundaries of words and bringing languages into new relationships by means of such devices as the translingual pun. The concluding chapter briefly explores the implications of this postcolonial breaking of English for the novel and for the language of English literature.

Littérature nigériane de langue anglaise --- Pidgin-English (langue) --- Littérature de l'Inde de langue anglaise --- Littérature nigériane --- Rushdie (Salman), 1947 --- -Polyglossie --- Histoire et critique --- 20è siècle