Lee, Bernallyn

LI150
Task: Write a literary analysis essay that examines some aspect of one or more poems.
For more guidance, see associated rubric that will be used to grade the submission.
CHOSEN POEM:
Africa by Maya Angelou

Thus she had lain

sugar cane sweet
deserts her hair
golden her feet
mountains her breasts

two Niles her tears.

Thus she has lain
Black through the years.

Over the white seas

rime white and cold
brigands ungentled
icicle bold
took her young daughters
sold her strong sons
churched her with Jesus
bled her with guns.
Thus she has lain.

Now she is rising

remember her pain
remember the losses
her screams loud and vain

remember her riches

her history slain
now she is striding
although she had lain.
ANALYSIS ESSAY:

The poem “Africa” by Maya Angelou is widely known to be culturally conscious

and written to encourage African Americans to celebrate their cultural roots. It is an
extensive and metaphorical comparison of the continent of Africa to a woman of color
and her beauty, in which it was clearly stated in the first stanza. Although, the speaker
doesn’t just tell a single story about the treatment, the resilience and the survival of
African people. Angelou also deliberately conveyed the beauty, prejudice, despair, and
strong-willingness.
She was also able to juxtapose the treatment and resilience of African and American
women. But what was it with the title that Angelou chose to keep it as simple as that?
Does it imply a more profound meaning that what a reader would normally convey? For
some, they might depict the title as Africa, the continent itself. But if readers would
immerse themselves more profoundly, it won’t be as exactly accurate as they thought it
would. “Africa” grow into a larger-than-life element in the poem, a person able to endure
the revulsions of the previous history. It does so by eclipsing all of the categories that
you could enter it into. If the land is devastated, the people subsist. If the people are
seized, the culture manages to continue as a fragment of their lives.
The meter and form of the poem lies between formal regularity and an absolute
freedom. Eight lines was established in each stanza except for Stanza 2. Also, most
lines have four beats (or syllables), but it only applies in Stanza 1. Some might find this
puzzling and baffling. But to sum up the form of "Africa," it is clearly a disorganized
style. But if you rigidly look, a method behind the madness can be apparently perceived.
Angelou also encapsulated various forms of symbolism, wordplay, and imagery.
Th following are just some of the examples I’ve noticed:

 Lines 1, 7, 17, 25: There's an elaborate term for repetition within a

poem: anaphora. In this case, some version of the line "Thus she has lain"
occurs four times within the 25-line poem.
 Lines 3, 4, 5, 6: The syntactic structure of these lines is repetitive, giving us the
sense of an image that's gradually being built up over time.
 Lines 19, 20, 22: These lines have repeated the first word in a line, and are
considered as anaphora
 Lines 9, 10: The word "white" is repeated twice in two lines, setting it in plain
contrast to the blackness of Africa.

The sweetness related with sugarcane is a difference to the torment and

enduring suffered by Africans caught to work in sugarcane ranches.
 Another symbol used in the poem revolves around the color white, repeatedly in
the second stanza. White is an image of harmony and was truly connected with
renunciation, particularly when under inescapable danger of annihilation. At the end of
the day, propelling militaries used to walk alongside a white banner, valuable in saving
their lives in the wake of annihilation. It is a similar image that has been utilized by
Angelou in a substitute meaning, connecting the appearance of Europeans with
savagery.