Thursday, April 19, 2012

How can I analyze the poem 'Black Woman'?

Perhaps the best approach to your analysis of Leopold
Senghor's poem "Black Woman" is to center your discussion on the theme of Negritude, the
development of African culture by expressing the powerful black presence. This theme is
state in the first stanza as the natural black woman around whom Senghor has grown up;
her color is life and her form is beauty. As a student in Paris, Senghor wrote this poem
to celebrate, not just the beauty of the black woman, but also the woman as a figure of
speech for his continent and country.


His poetic quest,
which was originally written in the lyrical French, is replete with personification, and
simile and metaphor, and imagery. For instance, in the first stanza Senghor writes that
her beauty strikes his heart "like the lightening of the eagle."  In the second stanza,
the woman is perceived as a lover,


readability="9">

Ripe fruit, with firm flesh, dark raptures of
black wine.


Mouth that gives music to my
mouth



Her flesh is
personified and compared metaphorically to a song:


readability="11">

Of the East Wind, sculptured tom-tom,stretch
drumskin


Moaning under the hands of the
conqueror


Your deep contralto voice is the song of the
Beloved



The poet associates
the "black woman" with eternity by using images of the wind, sun, noon, night, stars. 
For instance, pearls become stars on the darkness of her skin.  This use of natural
imagery ties her to nature and his homeland.


While the
first stanza presents "Femme Noire"/"Black Woman" as mother, and the second as love, the
final stanza depicts her as a nourisher.  The poet tells her he celebrates her beauty
before she becomes ashes:


readability="9">

Nude woman, black
woman,


I sing your passing beauty, fixing your form in
eternity,


Before a jealous fate turns you to ashes to feed
the roots of life.


No comments:

Post a Comment

How far is Iago justified in hating Othello?

Iago hates Othello for some of reasons. First reason could be that Othello promoted Cassio in his place; however, Iago wants it and he cosid...