A Defence of Negritude: A Propos of Black Orpheus by Jean Paul Sartre

Author(s): Abioila Irele, Abiola Irele and Jean Paul Sartre

Source: Transition , Oct., 1975 - Mar., 1976, No. 50 (Oct., 1975 - Mar., 1976), pp. 39-41
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of the Hutchins Center for African
and African American Research at Harvard University

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2934991

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A:BJOILA IRIELE
A Defence of Negritude
A Propos (jf Black Orpheus 19y Jcan Pautl Suarte
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE was the first to give Negritude an
extended critical exposition. It was his famous essay,
"Black Orpheus", which he wrote as a preface to
Senghor's anthology of negro poets of French ex-
pression that defined and consecrated the term, which
has since entered into the popular French dictionary,
Larousse, and may one day be accepted by the French
Academy for inclusion in its official dictionary.
While the concept of negritude has met with con-
siderable success in French intellectual circles, though
not without inspiring some controversy among certain
French African elements, it has met with either
suspicion or open hostility (and even ridicule) among
English-speaking Africans. Much of this attitude
arises, I believe from grave misconceptions about the
real aims of the movement in general, and in some
from prejudice and complete lack of knowledge. It is in
this respect that the recent separate publication of
Sartie's preface in an English translation comes as a
welcome move I.
Satre's essay is in many ways characteristic-
trenchant, lofty altogether compelling, but vei y
personal. Without doubt, in analysing the work of the
Negro poet, he tells us a lot too about himself, and
indeed his interpretation amounts to an act of annexa-
tion: some of his usual themes as a committed writer-
philosopher, and as an active combatant resound
rather loudly in these pages. On the other hand, his
enthusiasms derive also from a definite feeling of identity
with the profound aspirations to which the negro
poets were giving literary expression, as well as from
his great faculty of penetration.
The most obvious aspect of the literature of negri-
tude is its revolutionary character and this was some-
thing that a post-war French intellectual could easily
understand. With Sartre moreover, it fitted in perfectly
with his most important literary concept, that of a
"literature engagee." His belief that the most valuable
literature is that which is involved with a definite
human situation, coincides with the concern of the
negro poet to express in poetic terms the great collective
experience through which the negro race was passing,
and Sartre in presenting the result feels obliged to
explain, "why it is necessary through a poetic experience
that the black man in his present situation must first
take conscience of himself."
This process of self knowledge is first analysed in
terms of the Marxist class struggle, since the revolt of
the black man was directed against an oppression which
*Translated by Samuel Allen and published by Prescnce Africaine is quite uncalled for, since racial consciousness is
(Paris)
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TRANSITION 13
was pre-eminently economic. But we know that the
racial opposition of oppressor and oppressed gave a
new dimension to the age old phenomenon of imperial-
ism as regards the black man.
In the negro experience, the economic exploitation
and political oppression went hand in hand with the
humiliation of his race-they were a denial of his
humanity. This fact can hardly be well appreciated in
this day and age of decolonisation, but when one
considers that Professor Balandier thought it necessary
to entitle the essay which he contributed to the inaugural
number of Presence Africaine, "The Negro is a man"
something of the prejudice which the black man had to
fight against becomes clear. Moreover, the period
before the 2nd World War was the height of colonisa-
tion and the poets of negritude produced the greater
cases,
part of their work during that time. It was a period
when real atrocities were being committed in the name
of civilisation in Aftica, and when, in America, the
wrongs against negroes were not confined merely to
refusal at lunch counters, but went as far as daily
lynching of negroes.
This fact explains the loud public tone, the extreme
self consciousness of the poetry of negritude. But how
could it be otherwise? "From one end of the earth to
the other, the blacks, separated by the language, the
politics and the history of their colonisers, have in
common a collective memory," says Sartre. The Negro
poet is the incarnation of his suffering race, and the
fact that the whip and the gun recur so often in the
imagery of his poetry shows how much his memory
was haunted by the fact of slavery. "My memory is
girded with blood", says Cesaire, and similar sentiments
are expressed in the works of men, as diverse and far
flung as Damas, Diop, Cullen, Guillen, and even J. P.
Clark ("Ivbie"). The historical origin of negritude is
rooted in the revolt of the black man: "Insulted,
enslaved, he redresses himself; he accepts the word
"negro" which is hurled at him as an epithet, and
revindicates himself, in pride, as black in the face of
the white".
Negritude is therefore in the beginning a movement
of black solidarity, sharply differentiated from the
Marxist concept of class solidarity by a racial cons-
ciousness Sartre. describes this aspect of it by a term
which has led to a misconception: "an anti-racist
racism". But the black poets were primarily concerned
with projecting a healthier image of their race and not
arbitrarily proclaiming an inherent superiority, their
purpose was one of definition and affirmation and not
one of aggressive confrontation. Sartre's teim therefore
meant a negro racial pride signed to destroy racialism
itself and the parallel that has been drawn with Nazism
qualitatively different from racialism.
39
TRANSITION [3

Satre distinguishes further how the negro process or expression of revolt in the abstract sense, as one finds
self knowledge is at another remove frorn that of the in the poetry of Blake and Rimbaud, but that it was
white proletariat in that it is an act of exploration of the concerned with objective realities, we can appreciate
self, a descent into the tormented and wounded depth better why it was a necessary phenomenon. The negro
of the black soul. The negro in combatting a given poet denies a concrete social order, white supremacy,
historical situation is obliged not only to grapple with which is founded upon a concrete ideological concept,
the objective reality with which he is faced, but also to that of black savagery and inherent black inferiority,
scour the vast regions of his inner being in quest of a manifested by such concrete facts as slavery, colonial
sustaining force. This double action can be summarised occupation and assimilation. Negritude in this light is
in one phrase-it is an immense act of disalienationi, of certainly a reaction, an act of self defence, at the same
which the protest theme is merely a "point of departure". time, it expresses the aspiration of the negro poet to a
In attempting to define himself, before the white man, plenitude of being, it indicates his claim to an integral
the negro poet strains at his physical and spiritual exile personality by an appeal to the African heritage.
in order to regain something of his integral being. This This appeal takes a double aspect: apology and
is the reason why Sartre gave the title of Black Orpheus glorification on one hand, an attempt at identification
to the negro poet; as he puts it, "because this untiring on the other. In the first respect, the critics of negritude
descent of the negro into himself causes me to think of have denounced its romantic evocation of the African
Orpheus going to reclaim Eurydice from Pluto." past--as if it was not the very privilege of poetry to
dispense with the cold realism of prose. Besides, no
And it is not surprising to him that this process is
poet would ever put pen to paper if he knew that his
carried out by a systematic reversal of white values,
beginning from the very vehicle of expression through words were going to be interpreted literally. In this
respect, it is not to be supposed that Cesaire for instance
which these poets were obliged to transmit their ex-
perience: the French language. Sartre rightly emphasises would be defending cannibalism because he wrote in
Cahier:
the great importance of Surrealism as "the miraculous
arms" of the negro poets' revolt, but his lucidity makes "Because we hate you, you and your Reason,
him realise that, the moment a precise objective purpose We demand for ourselves the precocious dementia
is attached to the unfolding of the interior, something Of the flaming folly of tenacious cannibalism".
more than the passive quietism of Andre Breton's These lines express an identification with the trance
conception of the poetic function is achieved. Surreal- rather than with the objective savagery of cannibal
ism for the poet of negritude is a means of reversing the rites. Nor should one presume too quickly that Damas
human and social order imposed upon him, this order claims exclusive possession by the Negro of the virtues
being symbolised by white rationalism, of which the that he enumerates in "Black Label", which is opposed
free association of ideas and the free conjugation of to the litany of calumnies of the negro by the white man.
forms and images is a negation. Oii the other hand, it is Such lines represent the truculent, rebellious attitude of
also the means of creating a new and different order, the black man hitting back.
derived from the values of what he considers the es- The poets of negritude construct a dream image of
sential man; negritude is: the African past, of a negro "golden age". This is a
natural enough phenomenon; in times of sorrow, one
"the prelude of forests on the move
dreams of happier times. But in the case of the negro
around the bloody neck of the world
poet, his aspiration also takes the form of a vindica-
I1 is my singular hate
tion of his myth through a revalorisation of African
deviating its icebergs in the breadth of
values. There is something here that goes beyond a
true flames". (Cesaire: "Survie"). literary pose-we are faced in fact with a myth in the
The negation of Europe takes the form of a revolt ancient sense, transcendental conception of life. Sartre
against it as well as a search for self. This is why has given this aspect of negritude its most memorable
Sartre describes negritude as "the weak stage of a dialec-
definition-he calls it, in Existentialist terms, "the
tical progression: the theoretical and practical affirma- being-in-the-world of the negro". It is a particularly
tion of white supremacy is the thesis, the position, of appropriate term in its double implication of a negro
negritude as an antithetical value is the moment of apprehension of the universe, and of a voluntary)
negativity." But earlier, he distinguishes between the reconstitution, at the same time a metaphysical and a
"objective negritude" of the values and systems of social attitude.
the negro poet. In designating this latter as the But how far do the poets of negritude express a dis-
antithetical point of a dialectical progression, Sartre's
tinctively negro (African) vision? How far do their
idea is that black affirmation will by a conscious will works define and share in a definite negro sensibility?
dissolve itself into a universal consciousness, "he who
"Is there a systematic explanation of the black soul,
lives his particularism to the end to find thereby the
or a platonid archetype which one can approach without
dawn of the universal." On the other hand, it is ever attaining it ?" asks Sartre. And his own answer
possible to see his progression from a different point is surely the only one: "As all anthropological notions,
of view, that of the black man himself, for whom its
Negritude is an iridescence of being and the duty to be;
thesis would be the pre-colonial negritude, colonial it makes you and you make it." This negro being is
occupation the point of negation, and the new aware- rooted in African tradition which is, unified by a
ness, the "subjective negritude", the synthesis. common philosophical conception, cultural variations
It is because the traditional African life represented notwithstanding: a common ontological outlook which
for the poet of negritude is both a valid human system governs the African psyche and in which the negro inl
anld also something that he could claim for himself America can rightly be supposed to share. This total
that his recreation of the world is based upon it. If we African cosmology is what Senghor calls "the ensemble
bear in mind that the poetry of negritude was not anl of African values" 2.

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At this point, it is necessary to make a digression. A
fundamental basis of negritude is the Unity of African
culture. This assumption has been objected to in many
quarters. But surely there is something in common, in
the way of perception, that distinguishes the negro-
African from the European and the Asian. The unity of
African culture does not exclude internal variations;
it does not mean uniformity.
Apart from empirical considerations such as those
dictated by racial affinity, there are objective proofs of
a fundamental African world system, which embraces
Bantu, Akan, Yoruba, Kikuyu and Zulu together in one
cultural family. 3 This fundamental conception of the
world is expressed in languages, music and art that are
related, and that are surely distinguishable from Euro-
pean and Asian, and more profoundly still in the re-
ligions of the African peoples. I find nothing to contra-
dict the thesis of a unified African universe.
This universe, as Sartre points out, is located by a
historical determination from which the negro poet
retains two main elements: suffering and rhythm, the one
a negative, the other a positive aspect. He suggests that
the theme of suffering is tainted with an, erotic per-
ception: this relationship to sexual desire is developed
at some length, but it seems to me that it would belong
rather to the second element, for he observes that the
theme of negro suffering is far from being one of re-
signation, of a passive masochism. For the passion of the
negro poet is in fact a conjuration of his anguish. Thus
Sartre says, "to the absurd utilitarian agitation of the
white, the black opposes the long authenticity of his
suffering", and this authenticity is revealed by his
rhythm, the outstanding quality of his sensibility, his
pre-eminent privilege.
The combination in the negro of the "objective
negritude", that is of a black apprehension, deriving
from Africa, and of a historical experience, that of
slavery, dispersal and colonialism, results in the sub-
jective negritude which Sartre resumes in these words
"It is rhythm in effect, which cements the multiple
aspects of the black soul ... it is rhythm in the tom-tom,
in, jazz, in the throbbing of these poems, which expresses
the temporal aspects of the Negro existence." That is,
of course, rhythm in the comprehensive absolute sense,
rather than in the purely musical sense of measure.
It is to this particular intensity of negro feeling that
Senghor refers when he says that "emotion is at the
heart of negritude", and when he writes:
"We are the men of the dance
Whose feet renew their vigour
by striking the hard earth".
(Priere aux Masques)
What constitutes this particular emotivity which,
one might remark in passing, Senghor does not make
exclusive of reason, it is difficult to define: just as one
cannot explain easily why European music insists more
on melody, and African music on percussion. There
is much that anthropological psychology could clarify
in this respect. Yet even in the absence of a formal
analysis of the negro psyche, much of the poetry of
*Herskovits and Bastide have studied particular aspects of Afri-
canisms in America in their respective books: "The Myth of the
Negro Past" and "Les Religions Africaines au Bresil".
**Compare the recent studies published under the title "African
Thomas of Dakar published in the journal Psychologie des Peuples
Worlds" edited by Darry Ford (O.U.P.)
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TRANSITION 13
negritude seems to me to express something of a pro-
found African consciousness, and Jahn is right in re-
lating Cesaire's poetry to the works of Tutuola, and
Senghor in making his so often contested declaration
that "the negritude of a poem is less in the theme than
in the manner."
And this brings us to the capital point about the
movement: its ideological implication. The black
poet's descent into himself is an effort to disalienate
his being and to re-establish a concordance with a
distinct essence. For this reason, he reconstitutes this
essence as much as he can from the remains in him of
the African heritage. Yet this march to an original
past is coloured by a historical experience to which hie
has been submitted, imprinted in him indelibly. So
that in the effort to achieve personality, there can, be
no question of a return to the past in its original
form. And this much Cesaire admits:
"For us, the problem is not one of a utopian and
sterile attempt at reduplication, but rather one of going
beyond. It is not a dead society that we want to revive...
it is a new society that we need to create, with the
help of all our enslaved brothers, a society rich with
all the powerful means of modern production, and
warm with all the ancient fraternity."4
The real point about negritude therefore, as a philo-
sophical and social concept, is that it is a lision. Sartre
has put his finger neatly on this point: "Strange and
decisive divergence: the race has transmuted itself into
historicity; the Present black explodes and temporalises
himself; Negritude inserts itself with its Past and its
Future in the Universal History; it is no more a state,
neither even an existentialist attitude, it is a Becoming."
The black therefore affirms his authentic self in order
to take a hold upon his history, desires to shape his
destiny, in order to be allowed to make a voluntary
contribution to the universal civilization. Negritude is
therefore a great human ideal, a reinsertion of the ori-
ginal vitality of a race into the great collective power
of the human race. Such an ideal, such a project, could
surely not have found a better vchicle of expression
than in poetry:
"Because it is this tension between a nostalgic Past
into which the black no more completely enters, and a
future where it will give way to new values, Negritude
fashions itself in a tragic beauty wvhich finds expression
in Poetry".
What is mnore, in Poetry of great aesthetic value.
And because Aime Cesaire seems to me to be Black
Orpheus par excellence, I would like to conclude with
this summary translation of one example of his ex-
pression of this vision, multiplied several times in all
his poetry.
"They have preserved their eyes intact beyond the
most fragile shade of the unpardoned image
For the memorable vision of a world to be built
For the fraternity which cannot but come,
Albeit unsteady."
(Vampire Limi-naire).
*Discolirs sur le Colonialisme (P.A.) Some of Cesaire's prose texts
would repay careful attention, and would dispel such misconcep-
tions about a total return to the past, of which Cesaire is suppos-
ed to be an advocate. A recent study of negritude by Professor
ignores this capital declaration of Cesaire himself.
41