The polarization of the countries of the world into developing and                                                                         developed nations has brought in its wake a dichotomy in the perception of ideas, concepts and cannons by different specialists in these divides. One of such distinctions is ‘whether the literary artist should or should not be concerned in his work with happenings in his society.’ This question has been the subject of robust debate among critics and artists over the ages. The originators of the art-for-art’s sake club are of the opinion that artists should be independent of their society, that happenings in their environment should not be subject for their works. Members of this group would frown at a Christopher Okigbo getting involved in a civil war to the extent of enlisting in the Army. They would grimace at a Wale Okediran standing for election or a Wole Soyinka forming a political party.

 

       This body of gentlemen and ladies holds tenaciously to the impression that ‘good art is static.’ Fortunately the champions of this cause have their origin in the so-called developed societies of Europe and America. Such developed societies have attained certain reasonable peace and harmony in the manner, pattern and rhythm of governance. So the art connoisseur and practitioners in such society may be content with singing the praises of birds, bees and trees or writing about the snow and flowers just as Ngugi  wa Thiong  ’o,  reporting in his Writers in Politics  that he saw his own son trying to memorize a poem by William Wordsworth. The boy had recited:

 

                                   I wonder’d lonely as a cloud

                                   That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

                                   When all at once I saw a crowd,

                                    A host of golden daffodils

                                    Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

                                    Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

    

         Ngugi asked the boy: ‘What are daffodils?’ His answer after looking at the illustration in the book: ‘Oh, they are just little fishes in a lake!’ 

 

          In the developing social system, the society where all sorts of preventable diseases and afflictions still assail the masses; a society where poverty, deprivation of all shades, nepotism, misplaced priorities, abandoned projects, general directionlessness and lack of credible leadership are the quotidian features! I am referring to a society where a ruler had the temerity to pack the equivalent of a million pounds sterling of state money in a suitcase and hop in a plane! A collection of human beings where vice is rewarded with garlands and bouquet of flowers; a society where the collective will of over fourteen million of its citizens could be scuttled without as much as a blink. Indeed, I am talking about the society so debased with leadership insensitivity that one is tempted to believe George Alfred Henty, a British journalist and novelist, writing his ‘fictional account of parts of the Ashanti war’ in his novel, By Sheer Pluck,  that,

 

                    Africans are just like children…They are either

                    laughing or quarrelling. They are good-natured

                    and passionate, indolent but will work hard for

                    a time; clever up to a certain point, densely stupid              

                    beyond. The intelligence of an average Negro is       

                    about equal to that of a European child of ten years.       

                    A few, a very few, go beyond this, but these are

                                               exceptions…. They are fluent talkers, but their ideas 

                                               are borrowed. They are absolutely without originality     

                                               absolutely without inventive power. Living among

                                               white men, their imitative faculties enable them to

                                               attain a considerable amount of civilization. Left

                                               to their own devices they retrograde into a state little

                                               above native savagery.

 

                   Though Mr Henty’s opinion about Africans as reiterated above may sound parochial and hasty but if we Africans put on our thinking caps, we may begin to

pin point one or two or even more of our rulers  who aptly fit the description Mr Henty had painted.

 

                    In a situation where the challenges identified earlier subsist; it is almost impossible to tolerate the attitude of art for art’s sake patronage, especially, if it is granted that literary work is imaginative communication. And in every communication interaction, there must be a feedback. Then it follows that every work that attains literary standard should, as a matter of compulsion, elicit a form of response, a feedback, from its receivers. This view, which orchestrates a mutual bond between the artist and the reading public, supports Ngugi’s attitude while quoting Arnold Hauser that:

                                                                                                

                                          All art aims to evoke; to awaken in the observer, listener

                                         or reader emotions and impulses to action or opposition.

                                         But the evocation of man’s active will requires more than

                                         either mere expression of feelings, striking mimesis of

                                         reality, or pleasing construction of word, tone or line: it

                                         presupposes forces beyond  those of feeling and form which

                                         assert themselves simultaneously and in harmony with

                                         emotional forces, fundamentally different from them. The artist

                                         unfolds these forces in the service either of a ruler-- whether

                                         despot or monarch—or of a  particular community, rank in

                               society or financial class; of a state or church, of an association or

                               party; or as a representative or spokesman of a form of government, a  

                               system of conventions and norms: in short, of a more or less rigidly

                               controlled and comprehensive organization.

                                               

                                         Again, Ewen supports this position when he sees:

                                             

                                                           the writer in Africa and the Third World

                                                           countries (as) the contributor to and or creator/

                                                           sharper of the nation’s enlightened opinion; he

                                                           is the doctor and it is he who must diagnose and

                                                           then prescribe the right drug for the nation’s illness;

                                                           he is to a great number of people, the light whose

                                                           beams guide the ark to safety.

 

                              Ngugi’s and Ewen’s stance here underscores the reality that the artist

                               is born in a society, he lives in the society, the body of experience he

                              garners as he grows up is a reflection of the quality of the society in

                              question. His whole life-outlook is conditioned by happenings in that

                              society.  His works therefore must be based on the realities of his

                              society; and inasmuch as he uses language to express his works, and

                              his audience receive his work, then a response there must be. This is

                                the position of a crop of artists and critics who oppose the view of the

                               art-for art’s sake club.

                             

 

                              The Task

                                   The burden of this work is an examination of the ways

                              and means by which works of art emanating from the budding polities

                              of the world can elicit reactions from the readers. However, before this

                              is done, it is pertinent to clarify the nature of the response or reaction

                              a work should attract from its recipients. Egudu captured the essence                

                              when he said:

 

                                                      One’s reaction to a literary work may not be              

                                                       a simple course of physical action (and it does        

                                                       not have to be); it may be only a mental or emotional

                                                       reaction, which can ultimately lead to action--physical        

                       or intellectual.

                                   

                                      So much for the need to react. Who is to react? A cursory                                

                             examination of the social structure of a developing society is enough to

                             reveal the identity of the entity that should react. Elementary sociology

                            informs us that a typical society is stratified into the rich, the middle

                            class, and the poor. The compartmentalization is such that members of

                            a class can move to another step on the ladder given certain conditions.

                            In the developing countries of Africa and allied places however, events

    over the years have gradually firmly illustrated that the rich, in league    with the rulers have eliminated the link between the rich/ruler and the poor/peasant. This open secret prompted Odejimi to affirm in the blurb of his absurd literature that,     

                                      

                                                … now that the Nigerian middle class is dead and about

                                                to be buried, the author has a patriotic mission…                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The patriotic mission of the writer in a developing society

                           should be predicated on the reality that the rulers have marginal control

                           over the wealth of society; its distribution rests solely on their whims

                           and interests. The compulsive greed and avarice of these rulers and their

                           rich collaborators have rendered the peasants economic and social

                            laggards.        

 

                                  Placed in this static socio-economic desperation, the ruled/masses                           

                           are faced with only one option characterized by dual dimensions. The

                           choice is for them to employ every means available to

                          effect the sensibility of  the rich/ruler. This is the instrument literary

                          works are better positioned to provide the oppressed peasant. The other

                          dimension is that, should the ruler/rich refuse to modify their perception

                         of and attitude to their responsibility as custodians of the collective               

                          wealth, literary works have the prerogative of arming the peasants

                          with the basic weapons with which to effect the desired alteration in the

                         ruling equation.