"Hello I discover something Pero."She banged the door behind her having ran twelve kilometers from city of oderin to the town of soreyan where her grandma died.
"What did you discover that countless heads did not.I hope isn't nauseating like your previous attempt."
"What do you mean my previous attempt?"
Shocked at what she considered an embarrassing statement.
"You said Wole Soyinka is the greatest black man."
"Oh you motherfucker so you don't know.Am I not right?"
"You re wrong "
"You can t even produce a reliable alternative and you say Achebe."
"Hope you re not wrong this time too"
"Am not wrong is still Soyinka the pioneer of the world greatest literary revolution in the lifetime of a single pioneer."
"You re disgracing the history of literature for you to say that."
"Oh over your raving dead body and when we get to trade back in the city.You would hear from kunle again as is fondly called prof.Nobody win argument against him and he said repeatedly he had never lost argument in his entire intellectual life before I mean serious argument "
"Oh prof again!"his eyes lightened
"Oh I see you know.i will box you into this corner and you will see he will never fail to survive this attempt too."
"I don't think he wins this argument and you will see I will win this one."
"Achebe or who?Who initiated Mbari writers club?"
"When you get to prof I fear prof o he is likely going to win but how will he explain.That's my worry especially with his vocabularies."
"Let's go"They enter Keke napep and move onto the next station to board salon car with five thousand naira fare.
They came back into the city in thirty minutes time and saw prof reading newspaper as usual Infront of his home.He was impressed by the two lads and they were excited to meet him and exchange greetings and began the conversation.
"Hello prof she told me you said Wole Soyinka orchestrate and launch the greatest literary revolution in the history of the world in the lifetime of a pioneer and the pioneer is Wole SOYINKA.Is it true?"
"Yes I said it and I m not denying it nor retreating from the statement.It is a fact."
"Oh my gosh prof I fear you o why do uncover facts and hidden history so much easily that others may not.They re quite shocking that in thousand of years to come would,your fiends may never dare to uncover?"
"It is simple because I don't live by prejudice and I live by facts and history."
"She said to me about Mbari writers club who founded it?"
,,"It's wole Soyinka and not uli Beier "
"Not Beier?"she was gobsmacked in golden saffron of tense silence.
"It was Soyinka and uli Beier financed it probably through western funds under his care."
"Uhmmmmm prof."
"The greatest black man ever"
"Oh you still repeat it again?"
"Why won't I?"
"Defend?"
"I shall make references to a long historical trajectory before taking lessons from them one by one drawing clues from each epoch citing instances and influences,checkered antecedence, achievement,impacts and witnessess that prominent writers and publishers attained during their lifetime."
"Let us hear you your cock and bull story"
"It's a long story but to know we shall have to examine the world literary movements then later get down to continental literal movements from Asia America down Africa.Let us start from the time of Hesiod 's Iliad and Homer's Oddysey being the first set of writers and books Europe ever had."
"Uhmmmmm prof "overwhelmingly shocked in extreme silence both with arms akimbo .
"Do you know them Hesiod and Homer with their two books they set up legacy and launching the first literary revolution in Europe.I think this literary revolution was more or less begun in ancient Egypt .A chaotic era of warrior princes,fierce sea pirates and wandering sea traders.In the classical period of 800-200 BCE,I do not want give credit much to them...."
"Why?"
"Because much of their works of arts were stolen from Egypt but this does not seek to undermine their immense contributions to evolution of checkered antecedence .Writers, playwrights such as Plato,Aristotle's, Socrates, Georgias,Aesop, Herodotus, Euripides, Sophocles .By the fifth century they enter their golden age about 499-400 BCE.
Their individual city states thrived with early democracy ,arts ,fine poetry,drama,Philosophy and architecture all erupted in Athens.
Classical Roman period of 200-455BCE came when Greek power declined and gave way to Roman conquest.it happened when the Roman conquered Greece in 146 CE and by 509CE Roman republic was founded.It started small later grew in size and it produced many playwrights too Plautus and Terence.
With almost five hundred years as republic it was engulfed in dictatorship under Julius Caesar and became a monarchy under Caesar Augustus in Roman imperial of period in 27 CE. Popular writers such as Orvid ,Horace ,Virgil and not excluding philosophers Marcus Aurelius and Lucretius.Great orator and jurists Cicero and Quitillian.
Let us fastfoward to Patristic period of c.70-455.A period of early Christian writers like Thomas Aquinas,St.Augustine, Tertullian,St.Ambrose,St.Jerome .You know is a period when St.Jerome first compiled the Bible and Christianity spread across Europe and Roman empire was suffered to death.In 410 CE barbarians attacked Rome and in 455CE finally conquered it.
By the turn of the Renaissance era Brits had become actively engaged in the fast growing literary currents in great Britain that was begun on the continent.
Let me start with the British the nation leading the world literary movements from Renaissance era upwards.
The literary Revolution in great Britain begins with the development of language culture.It begins with the evolution of English language between 450 A.D to 1660 A.D.It is subdivided into the three periods the period of old English 450 AD to 1066 AD about 510 years exactly during the period of Norman invasion.Then from the period of the middle English about 1066 AD to 1500 a period of 434 years.The Renaissance period 1500 to 1600 about a full century happened because the British successfully participated in this European revolution having understood properly their own language and the English were liberated from religious imperialism."
"How many books do you think were published in England during the period?"
"That is where we re going and who inspired them?Some of the writer's like
Chaucer's,Piers Plowman,Sir Gawain and the green knight and Monte'D Arthur by Thomas Malory one of first books printed in England.Mystery plays came out in 1425.While Joan of Arc was burned in 1431, the book of Margary Kempe came in 1432, Shepherd's Play in 1475 and by 1485 William Caxton prints first successful book in England.Hence English publishing history begins at this point and he's the major inspiration behind publishing and printing in the king's country.Spenser the faerie queen and under king James 1 the first of the Stuart king Shakespeare wrote the Hamlet . Shakespeare plays and novels and the most popular book in the old English era is Beowulf set in Scandinavia found a national fame and epic status in England .
After the Norman conquest Anglo-Saxon language in written form became less appealing.Now with the new aristocracy french language became the dominant language in the courts, parliament,polite society .With the entry of the Normans the new English spoken is middle English and it lasted until the 1470s when the late form of English the London based form of English known as the Chaucery standard took over power . Canterbury tales was a significant figure in the evolution of the middle English developing the legimacy of that Middle English at a time dominant language were Latin and french.Chaucer dreamt of hundred manuscripts but did ninety two and twenty four survived.Johannes Gutenberg printing press in 1439 popularised and standardised the middle English like the king's James bible.
Shakespeare plays translated into every language of the world.
Don't forget Walter Scott's historical romances that inspired European artists, painters, composers .The British used their political power to spread their empire worldwide the largest empire at its peak with English tradition governed 23 percent of world population about 412 million people.Hence the colonies like US started to produce significant portion of their literary tradition like plays in English .
In the late 19th to mid 20th century,mordernism as fierce movement raged across Europe and revolutionised writing styles and reshaped literature.They broke down traditional norms and experimented nonlinear story telling .We are talking of stream of consciousness narratives laden with personal emotion and experiences.It gave a deeper tone and we have notable mordernists and great writers like W.B.Yeats, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf,T.S.Eliot, Samuel Beckett,D.H.Lawrence,Williams Carlos Williams etc.
Literary trends in mordernism such as surrealism, streams of consciousness,cubism,Dadaism,futurism,imagism,expressionism, symbolism .This happened shortly after the end of first world war.
Williams Caxton in 2002 was named in a BBC poll as of the top 100 greatest men.He started printing press in England and did publish some of Chaucer's Canterbury tales.Caxton published 100 books and translated 24 of them and was said to have published almost every book in English literature during the period and laid foundation for the British printing press.
Have you never heard that no single English novel ever achieve the universality of Russian novel like War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy or French writer like Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary.It says really that the British were poor writers and most of their literary tradition was controlled by foreigners or majority input were foreign in origin.Take the old English literature of the Saxons leavened by foreign inputs from the latin and Anglo Norman writings.They can't even polish their own language until foreigners came for their defence.Yet it is the medium though which churchmen and the Normans express themselves.Imagine!
Every body looks to Europe for inspiration including the Decadents of late 19th century and mordernists of late 20 th century.The European intellectualism of the 20 th century was reawakened in early eighties as structuralism.Shortly thereafter destructuralism came out with the works of Jacques Derrida
French philosopher .