Kontein Trinya (Prof) | Rivers State University of Education,Port Harcourt,Nigeria (original) (raw)

Papers by Kontein Trinya (Prof)

Journal of the African Literature Association, 2012

Sprawling the southern extremity of Nigeria in the west coast of Africa is a mass of wetlands lac... more Sprawling the southern extremity of Nigeria in the west coast of Africa is a mass of wetlands lacerated by tortuous rivers and creeks. It is the Niger Delta. With an area of about 70,000 square kilometres, it boasts "the 3rd largest contiguous mangrove forest in the world" (http://mangroveactionproject.org/). As far back as in 2003, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) had estimated that the region was home to about 20 million people representing 40 different ethnic groups speaking about 250 languages and dialects covering more than 5,000 communities (The Journey so Far 18).Until 2000, when Nigeria's President at the time, Olusegun Obasanjo, created the Niger Delta Development Commission as a development intervention instrument for the impoverished region, "Niger Delta" was essentially a geographical label for the delta of the River Niger with its other major and minor tributaries that empty into the Atlantic Ocean. With the creation of that Commissi...

World Journal of English Language, 2015

Much has been commended about the poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African. A uni... more Much has been commended about the poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African. A unique feature of the poet, which this paper investigates, is his binary vision of the conflicts in his pre-independence society; conflicts involving two 'parts' in opposition, reflective of the perennial conflicts between the forces of Apartheid on one hand, and the oppressed on the other. Brutus's vision finds eloquent expression in the binary structure of his poetry, a structure executed especially in his images that often involve two opposing parts, or comprising two parts related at the same time as they are paradoxically opposed. It is the poet's stylistic projection of his context, as well as the commitment of his art to social cause.

The horrible experiences of slavery and racism have elicited various responses, which have found... more The horrible experiences of slavery and racism have elicited various responses, which have found expressions in the literatures (oral and written) that have marked the landscape of history and contemporary experience. The responses have differed according to the writers’ respective contexts. In the very early oral forms, for example, specifically the Negro spirituals, Africa stood out as the symbol of the freedom that was a constant dream. Accordingly, “Canaan” and “the promised land” became metaphors that expressed that yearning, while “Egypt” and “Pharaoh” respectively described America the land of their harsh experiences, and the slave masters themselves. With time, however, Africa gradually ceased to hold the same attraction to all Blacks in the Diaspora. Some began to see Africa merely as a romantic object of pedigree curiosity. Their lands of Diaspora had come to stay not merely as adopted homes but as home.

This literary critical study of Chinua Achebe’s short story, “The Madman,” considers popular clin... more This literary critical study of Chinua Achebe’s short story, “The Madman,” considers popular clinical and majority definitions of madness in contrast to the minority self-definition of those so classified, as well as their conception of the “others,” especially in the traditional context of the Igbo culture of southern Nigeria that provides the cultural perspective from which this renown writer offers his redefinition of insanity; an indicting redefinition that stamps not a few of the ‘respectable’ majority with the same label. According to this literary perspective, reinforced by other African works on the subject, madness is more plural than published, but merely a matter of degrees, the dominant definitions and classifications themselves being only the opinion of the voiced majority.

This paper attempts a critical panorama of the nascent poetry of the Niger Delta of Nigeria; a re... more This paper attempts a critical panorama of the nascent poetry of the Niger Delta of Nigeria; a regional poetry still in the process of defining itself, but a poetry characterized by its social themes bordering on the ineluctable protest against the painful gulf between privilege and privation. It portrays the poets as messianic minstrels mourning the stifling irony of an endowed people mangled by their wealth that enriches others. It considers the works of such recent poets as Ibiwari Ikiriko, Gilbert ’Ebinyo Ogbowei, Barine Ngagee, Daniel Ogum, and others whose voices it identifies as the creative expressions of the same contemporary agitations for economic and political justice that have lately martyred writers like Ken Saro-Wiwa. Although it is too early to speak of a Niger Delta literary style, the paper highlights several techniques by which the poets seek to draw attention to their theme of exploitation, and describes their content as a mirror of their context.

In spite of its several subject matters and its possible layers of meanings, Dennis Brutus’s poet... more In spite of its several subject matters and its possible layers of meanings, Dennis Brutus’s poetry is held together by an underlying structure of thesis and antithesis; of two parts frequently in a relationship of opposition. This feature derives from the poet’s vision of South Africa as comprising two related but frequently opposing parts, namely Apartheid on the one hand, and the oppressed on the other. In this paper, the attempt is to show how Brutus further works the theme of hypocrisy into his poems through the ironies and paradoxes he highlights, of contents at variance with their ambient context. From several perspectives, it would appear that the paradox (in its several forms) suggests itself strongly to this poet as a fitting figurative paradigm for the obsessive social vision he describes.

Every literature bears the imprints of the social context from which it has derived. Even extrem... more Every literature bears the imprints of the social context from which it has derived. Even extreme Formalist/Structuralist readers, who insist that a poem should be, not mean; that poetry has no referents outside itself; that the value of a poem ends in its intellectual enjoyment rather than in any social applicability it could possess, concede in very significant ways that a work of art does not create itself, and that the keys to certain aspects of its profundities lie in its historical origins. Rhythms of Crisis does not deny the social complexities out of which it has emerged. Its very blurb states:

Much has been commended about the poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African. A un... more Much has been commended about the poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African. A unique feature of the poet, which this paper investigates, is his binary vision of the conflicts in his pre-independence society; conflicts involving two ‘parts’ in opposition, reflective of the perennial conflicts between the forces of Apartheid on one hand, and the oppressed on the other. Brutus’s vision finds eloquent expression both in the structure of his poetry as well as in the images that often involve two opposing parts, or images comprising two parts related at the same time as they are paradoxically opposed. It was the poet’s projection of his context as well as the commitment of his art to social course.

In his article, “Scriptorial Aspirations to Orality,” Kontein Trinya makes critical observations ... more In his article, “Scriptorial Aspirations to Orality,” Kontein Trinya makes critical observations deriving from Ozidi the choreographic epic drama of the celebrated Nigerian playwright, John Pepper Clark. He attempts to describe the status of oral literary features in the written form, and the implications thereof for the classification both of the written form and the transmuted oral features. While conceding that a certain degree of orality is possible in print through the use of oral literary devices, he argues that the printed text is merely script aspiring to the sublimity of orality through the generic transplants. He maintains, furthermore, that the fixed form with its transmuted oral imitations, being merely a shadow of its dynamic theatrical self, were better described as ‘oralistic,’ and the oral features ‘imprisoned’ in it as (he proposes) scriptostatic.

The attempt in this essay is to highlight the creative use to which contemporary African writers ... more The attempt in this essay is to highlight the creative use to which contemporary African writers have put the resources of oral tradition, and the critical implications of the crossbreeding. Three categories of fiction are designated for the investigation: cotemporary fiction with traditional content; traditional narratives in contemporary form, and contemporary fiction with traditional narrative styles. While the enhancements that oral features bring to contemporary African fiction are highlighted, it is also admitted that oral resources have been disastrously overdone by writers in whose inept opinion a work was ‘African’ to the extent of its elaborate dressing in traditional artefacts. The conclusion is that the traditional aesthetic reservoir is an inexhaustible mine awaiting the next ably prospecting contemporary writer.

The poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African freedom fighter is often an intricat... more The poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African freedom fighter is often an intricate combination of content and form, with its sometimes overt, sometimes covert but pervasive structure of bipartition involving multiple units of paired (often volatile and conflicting) opposites. This paper shall largely explore how skilfully he casts that theme of horror against the contrasting backdrop of music, by which he further stresses the dimensions of the horrific conflicts between victims and victimizers.

It is the persuasion of this paper that the binary vision of Dennis Brutus is the tacit censorious expression of his creative perspective on the social conflicts in Apartheid South Africa; unspeakable conflicts for whose imperative expression even the devices of music become a (sometimes camouflaging, sometimes accentuating) technical paradigm.

This paper examines Athol Fugard’s creative exploitation of the means of drama in garnished prote... more This paper examines Athol Fugard’s creative exploitation of the means of drama in garnished protest against South Africa’s apartheid. The focus is on his three plays: “Sizwe Banzi is Dead," "The Island," and "Statements after an Arrest under the Immorality Act,” in the collection entitled Statements: Three Plays. The paper explores Fugard’s unique introspection into human emotions, his themes on the depersonalising system, and his furtive techniques arising from his social context of creative censor.

This critical study of Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North and Mariama Ba’s So Long a... more This critical study of Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North and Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter will consider (1) the conflict between genders, (2) the conflict between cultures, and (3) the culturally transcendental nature of the inter- and intra-gender conflicts, as well as the interrelationship between the gender and culture conflicts. In terms of the third respect, the primary issues of gender and culture merely become metaphors for their wider referents – Europe and (oriental) Africa.

In Season of Migration…, the extra-generic implications of the clash find expression in the characterization. Even though Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter shares a similar orthodox, Islamic cultural context as Season of Migration…, it does not share Tayed Salih’s cultural ambiguity, especially due to its Feminist-Womanist perspective. In both novels, gender is merely an item in a matrix of cultural dilemmas.

This paper is an attempt primarily at highlighting, in the anti-Apartheid poetry of Dennis Brutus... more This paper is an attempt primarily at highlighting, in the anti-Apartheid poetry of Dennis Brutus, a characteristic binary structure of thesis and antithesis, which is suggested both as Brutus’s poetic enactment of the South African experience of mutually hostile parts, and as his technique of drawing attention to his theme of suffering through the often mismatching parts that frequently constitute his paired structure. Furthermore, the paper sees in that recurring structure, as well as in the nature of the poet’s overwhelming images of pain, an unconscious so conditioned by the contextual reality of bellicose parts, that it generates those symbols and images of pain that themselves are a critical referent to the antecedent social context of hostile halves.

This paper approaches the theme of human rights from the perspective of racism (social and politi... more This paper approaches the theme of human rights from the perspective of racism (social and political discrimination based on biological differences) and sexism (the discrimination of the woman based on the opinion that she is less able than the man). Those were issues that engaged the greater attention of black writers of the mid-twentieth century, such as Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, Lorraine Hansberry, and Ralph Ellison. From a survey of selected works by African-American writers of that period, the paper argues that the black population, while it hailed the structural racial reforms, was concerned that the legislative dismantling of segregative structures had not changed the fundamental discriminatory attitude of whites. It further shows that the black woman faced another kind of discrimination not only as a person of colour but also because of her gender; discrimination, sadly, even from her own black society.

It has been argued by cognitionist critics that the context-dependent communicative attributes of... more It has been argued by cognitionist critics that the context-dependent communicative attributes of oral literature confer on it an inferior status relative to writing in which meaning is made clear independent of the immediate referents; that oral literature and non-literate cultures are incapable of abstract thought, as in the written tradition. It has also been argued, etymologically, that oral literature, not being written, is a preposterous concept. This essay seeks to address those positions by answering the following three questions: Is there an oral literature? What are the peculiarities of oral literature? What is the nature of the difference between orality and literacy?

Journal of the African Literature Association, 2012

Sprawling the southern extremity of Nigeria in the west coast of Africa is a mass of wetlands lac... more Sprawling the southern extremity of Nigeria in the west coast of Africa is a mass of wetlands lacerated by tortuous rivers and creeks. It is the Niger Delta. With an area of about 70,000 square kilometres, it boasts "the 3rd largest contiguous mangrove forest in the world" (http://mangroveactionproject.org/). As far back as in 2003, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) had estimated that the region was home to about 20 million people representing 40 different ethnic groups speaking about 250 languages and dialects covering more than 5,000 communities (The Journey so Far 18).Until 2000, when Nigeria's President at the time, Olusegun Obasanjo, created the Niger Delta Development Commission as a development intervention instrument for the impoverished region, "Niger Delta" was essentially a geographical label for the delta of the River Niger with its other major and minor tributaries that empty into the Atlantic Ocean. With the creation of that Commissi...

World Journal of English Language, 2015

Much has been commended about the poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African. A uni... more Much has been commended about the poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African. A unique feature of the poet, which this paper investigates, is his binary vision of the conflicts in his pre-independence society; conflicts involving two 'parts' in opposition, reflective of the perennial conflicts between the forces of Apartheid on one hand, and the oppressed on the other. Brutus's vision finds eloquent expression in the binary structure of his poetry, a structure executed especially in his images that often involve two opposing parts, or comprising two parts related at the same time as they are paradoxically opposed. It is the poet's stylistic projection of his context, as well as the commitment of his art to social cause.

The horrible experiences of slavery and racism have elicited various responses, which have found... more The horrible experiences of slavery and racism have elicited various responses, which have found expressions in the literatures (oral and written) that have marked the landscape of history and contemporary experience. The responses have differed according to the writers’ respective contexts. In the very early oral forms, for example, specifically the Negro spirituals, Africa stood out as the symbol of the freedom that was a constant dream. Accordingly, “Canaan” and “the promised land” became metaphors that expressed that yearning, while “Egypt” and “Pharaoh” respectively described America the land of their harsh experiences, and the slave masters themselves. With time, however, Africa gradually ceased to hold the same attraction to all Blacks in the Diaspora. Some began to see Africa merely as a romantic object of pedigree curiosity. Their lands of Diaspora had come to stay not merely as adopted homes but as home.

This literary critical study of Chinua Achebe’s short story, “The Madman,” considers popular clin... more This literary critical study of Chinua Achebe’s short story, “The Madman,” considers popular clinical and majority definitions of madness in contrast to the minority self-definition of those so classified, as well as their conception of the “others,” especially in the traditional context of the Igbo culture of southern Nigeria that provides the cultural perspective from which this renown writer offers his redefinition of insanity; an indicting redefinition that stamps not a few of the ‘respectable’ majority with the same label. According to this literary perspective, reinforced by other African works on the subject, madness is more plural than published, but merely a matter of degrees, the dominant definitions and classifications themselves being only the opinion of the voiced majority.

This paper attempts a critical panorama of the nascent poetry of the Niger Delta of Nigeria; a re... more This paper attempts a critical panorama of the nascent poetry of the Niger Delta of Nigeria; a regional poetry still in the process of defining itself, but a poetry characterized by its social themes bordering on the ineluctable protest against the painful gulf between privilege and privation. It portrays the poets as messianic minstrels mourning the stifling irony of an endowed people mangled by their wealth that enriches others. It considers the works of such recent poets as Ibiwari Ikiriko, Gilbert ’Ebinyo Ogbowei, Barine Ngagee, Daniel Ogum, and others whose voices it identifies as the creative expressions of the same contemporary agitations for economic and political justice that have lately martyred writers like Ken Saro-Wiwa. Although it is too early to speak of a Niger Delta literary style, the paper highlights several techniques by which the poets seek to draw attention to their theme of exploitation, and describes their content as a mirror of their context.

In spite of its several subject matters and its possible layers of meanings, Dennis Brutus’s poet... more In spite of its several subject matters and its possible layers of meanings, Dennis Brutus’s poetry is held together by an underlying structure of thesis and antithesis; of two parts frequently in a relationship of opposition. This feature derives from the poet’s vision of South Africa as comprising two related but frequently opposing parts, namely Apartheid on the one hand, and the oppressed on the other. In this paper, the attempt is to show how Brutus further works the theme of hypocrisy into his poems through the ironies and paradoxes he highlights, of contents at variance with their ambient context. From several perspectives, it would appear that the paradox (in its several forms) suggests itself strongly to this poet as a fitting figurative paradigm for the obsessive social vision he describes.

Every literature bears the imprints of the social context from which it has derived. Even extrem... more Every literature bears the imprints of the social context from which it has derived. Even extreme Formalist/Structuralist readers, who insist that a poem should be, not mean; that poetry has no referents outside itself; that the value of a poem ends in its intellectual enjoyment rather than in any social applicability it could possess, concede in very significant ways that a work of art does not create itself, and that the keys to certain aspects of its profundities lie in its historical origins. Rhythms of Crisis does not deny the social complexities out of which it has emerged. Its very blurb states:

Much has been commended about the poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African. A un... more Much has been commended about the poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African. A unique feature of the poet, which this paper investigates, is his binary vision of the conflicts in his pre-independence society; conflicts involving two ‘parts’ in opposition, reflective of the perennial conflicts between the forces of Apartheid on one hand, and the oppressed on the other. Brutus’s vision finds eloquent expression both in the structure of his poetry as well as in the images that often involve two opposing parts, or images comprising two parts related at the same time as they are paradoxically opposed. It was the poet’s projection of his context as well as the commitment of his art to social course.

In his article, “Scriptorial Aspirations to Orality,” Kontein Trinya makes critical observations ... more In his article, “Scriptorial Aspirations to Orality,” Kontein Trinya makes critical observations deriving from Ozidi the choreographic epic drama of the celebrated Nigerian playwright, John Pepper Clark. He attempts to describe the status of oral literary features in the written form, and the implications thereof for the classification both of the written form and the transmuted oral features. While conceding that a certain degree of orality is possible in print through the use of oral literary devices, he argues that the printed text is merely script aspiring to the sublimity of orality through the generic transplants. He maintains, furthermore, that the fixed form with its transmuted oral imitations, being merely a shadow of its dynamic theatrical self, were better described as ‘oralistic,’ and the oral features ‘imprisoned’ in it as (he proposes) scriptostatic.

The attempt in this essay is to highlight the creative use to which contemporary African writers ... more The attempt in this essay is to highlight the creative use to which contemporary African writers have put the resources of oral tradition, and the critical implications of the crossbreeding. Three categories of fiction are designated for the investigation: cotemporary fiction with traditional content; traditional narratives in contemporary form, and contemporary fiction with traditional narrative styles. While the enhancements that oral features bring to contemporary African fiction are highlighted, it is also admitted that oral resources have been disastrously overdone by writers in whose inept opinion a work was ‘African’ to the extent of its elaborate dressing in traditional artefacts. The conclusion is that the traditional aesthetic reservoir is an inexhaustible mine awaiting the next ably prospecting contemporary writer.

The poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African freedom fighter is often an intricat... more The poetry of Dennis Brutus the anti-Apartheid South African freedom fighter is often an intricate combination of content and form, with its sometimes overt, sometimes covert but pervasive structure of bipartition involving multiple units of paired (often volatile and conflicting) opposites. This paper shall largely explore how skilfully he casts that theme of horror against the contrasting backdrop of music, by which he further stresses the dimensions of the horrific conflicts between victims and victimizers.

It is the persuasion of this paper that the binary vision of Dennis Brutus is the tacit censorious expression of his creative perspective on the social conflicts in Apartheid South Africa; unspeakable conflicts for whose imperative expression even the devices of music become a (sometimes camouflaging, sometimes accentuating) technical paradigm.

This paper examines Athol Fugard’s creative exploitation of the means of drama in garnished prote... more This paper examines Athol Fugard’s creative exploitation of the means of drama in garnished protest against South Africa’s apartheid. The focus is on his three plays: “Sizwe Banzi is Dead," "The Island," and "Statements after an Arrest under the Immorality Act,” in the collection entitled Statements: Three Plays. The paper explores Fugard’s unique introspection into human emotions, his themes on the depersonalising system, and his furtive techniques arising from his social context of creative censor.

This critical study of Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North and Mariama Ba’s So Long a... more This critical study of Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North and Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter will consider (1) the conflict between genders, (2) the conflict between cultures, and (3) the culturally transcendental nature of the inter- and intra-gender conflicts, as well as the interrelationship between the gender and culture conflicts. In terms of the third respect, the primary issues of gender and culture merely become metaphors for their wider referents – Europe and (oriental) Africa.

In Season of Migration…, the extra-generic implications of the clash find expression in the characterization. Even though Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter shares a similar orthodox, Islamic cultural context as Season of Migration…, it does not share Tayed Salih’s cultural ambiguity, especially due to its Feminist-Womanist perspective. In both novels, gender is merely an item in a matrix of cultural dilemmas.

This paper is an attempt primarily at highlighting, in the anti-Apartheid poetry of Dennis Brutus... more This paper is an attempt primarily at highlighting, in the anti-Apartheid poetry of Dennis Brutus, a characteristic binary structure of thesis and antithesis, which is suggested both as Brutus’s poetic enactment of the South African experience of mutually hostile parts, and as his technique of drawing attention to his theme of suffering through the often mismatching parts that frequently constitute his paired structure. Furthermore, the paper sees in that recurring structure, as well as in the nature of the poet’s overwhelming images of pain, an unconscious so conditioned by the contextual reality of bellicose parts, that it generates those symbols and images of pain that themselves are a critical referent to the antecedent social context of hostile halves.

This paper approaches the theme of human rights from the perspective of racism (social and politi... more This paper approaches the theme of human rights from the perspective of racism (social and political discrimination based on biological differences) and sexism (the discrimination of the woman based on the opinion that she is less able than the man). Those were issues that engaged the greater attention of black writers of the mid-twentieth century, such as Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, Lorraine Hansberry, and Ralph Ellison. From a survey of selected works by African-American writers of that period, the paper argues that the black population, while it hailed the structural racial reforms, was concerned that the legislative dismantling of segregative structures had not changed the fundamental discriminatory attitude of whites. It further shows that the black woman faced another kind of discrimination not only as a person of colour but also because of her gender; discrimination, sadly, even from her own black society.

It has been argued by cognitionist critics that the context-dependent communicative attributes of... more It has been argued by cognitionist critics that the context-dependent communicative attributes of oral literature confer on it an inferior status relative to writing in which meaning is made clear independent of the immediate referents; that oral literature and non-literate cultures are incapable of abstract thought, as in the written tradition. It has also been argued, etymologically, that oral literature, not being written, is a preposterous concept. This essay seeks to address those positions by answering the following three questions: Is there an oral literature? What are the peculiarities of oral literature? What is the nature of the difference between orality and literacy?