Boucquey Thierry (General Editor). Encyclopedia Of World Writers. 3 volumes
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue
française (Anthology of new Negro and Malagasy
poetry in French, 1948) appeared. It included exis-
tentialist philospher Jean-Paul SARTRE’s well-known
essay, “Orphée noir” (“Black Orpheus”), which
describes négritude from a Marxist perspective.
Initially, the négritude movement primarily in-
fluenced French-speaking colonial writers, but it
gradually became more global. The core group ex-
panded to include a number of African and West
Indian poets, including Jacques Rabémananjara, a
poet and playwright from Madagascar who met
Senghor and Césaire in Paris in the 1950s, and Guy
Tirolien, a West Indian poet who met Senghor in a
German prison camp during the war. Many in-
volved in the négritude movement critically ex-
amined assimilation, world wars, and the suffering
of black people in their writing. They also pro-
moted political and intellectual freedom, as well
as the value of African life and traditions.
Senghor published his systematic statements on
négritude in Liberté I: Négritude et Humanisme
(1964), a collection of essays. On négritude, Seng-
hor wrote,“To establish an effective revolution, our
own revolution, we first had to cast off our bor-
rowed clothes—the clothes of assimilation—and
to assert our négritude.” Césaire took an even more
revolutionary interpretation of négritude than
Senghor, as can be seen in his Discours sur le colo-
nialisme (Discourse on Colonialism), (1950) which
displays his Marxist allegiances.
The spread of the négritude movement to black
student writers in France, Africa, and the
Caribbean during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s re-
ceded in the 1960s when fewer and fewer négritude
themes appeared in writers’ works. More recently,
however, such writers as Abiole Irele, Biodun Jey-
ifu, and Omafume Onoge have been returning to
the literary and ideological issues of négritude.
Some have criticized the movement’s reliance on
NATIVISM and ahistoricism, as well as its representa-
tion of women and its failure to achieve revolu-
tionary change. Many, however, still recognize
négritude’s significance as an empowering, histor-
ically grounded, and pertinent literary movement.
Works about Négritude
Ahluwalia, Pal. “‘Negritude and Nativism’: In Search
of Identity.” Africa Quarterly 39, no. 2 (1999).
Arnold, James A. “Négritude Then and Now.” In
James A. Arnold, ed., A History of Literature in the
Caribbean: Vol. I, Hispanic and Francophone Re-
gions. Philadelphia: Benjamins, 1994.
Asante-Darko, Kwaku. “The Co-Centrality of Racial
Conciliation in Negritude Literature.” Research in
African Literatures 31, no. 2 (2000).
Claxton, Hadiya. “Colonialism, Negritude, and Ex-
periences of Suffering.” JAISA: The Journal of the
Association for the Interdisciplinary Study of the
Arts 5, no. 1 (Fall 1999).
Jack, Belinda E., and Sada Niang.“Literature and the
Arts—Negritude and Literary Criticism: The
History and Theory of ‘Negro-African’ Literature
in French.” African Studies Review 41, no. 2
(1998).
Jeyifo, Biodun. “Greatness and Cruelty: ‘Wonders of
the African World’ and the Reconfiguration of
Senghorian Negritude.” The Black Scholar 30, no. 1
(Spring 2000).
Neruda, Pablo (Neftali Ricardo Reyes
Basoalto)
(1904–1973) poet
Pablo Neruda was born in Parral, Chile. His father,
Jose del Carmen Reyes, was a railroad engineer. His
mother, Rosa Basoalto, died of tuberculosis a few
days after Neruda was born. In 1920, at age 16,
Neruda moved to Santiago to study French litera-
ture at the Instituto Pedagogico; however, after
three years of study he left school without gradu-
ating. It was at this time that Neruda adopted his
pseudonym, taking the last name of Czech short-
story writer Jan Neruda (1834–91).
In 1924, Neruda published Twenty Love Poems
and a Song of Despair, which remains one of the
most popular poetry collections in the Spanish-
speaking world. Neruda’s approach to love poetry is
visceral and original; his emotions are vibrant and
his sorrows poignant but without the least senti-
mentality. Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair
combines rich and musical diction, striking images,
318 Neruda, Pablo
and a strong sense of connection with the natural
in human love.
As Neruda’s literary reputation grew, he also
began a political career. He was appointed as the
Chilean consul in Rangoon, the capital of Burma,
in 1927. He pursued his political career quite seri-
ously throughout his life, serving as a senator and
even running for president of Chile. He was a com-
munist and worked to forward his ideals through
both government service and poetry.
The collection Residence on Earth (1931, 1935,
1947) marked a significant change in style from his
earlier books. It is written in the style for which
Neruda is best known and that, during his life, was
called Nerudaism—it is filled with irrational leaps
of thought, eccentric uses of language, and power-
ful images presented without explanation. How-
ever, unlike the absurdist poetry of such French
Surrealists as André BRETON, Residence on Earth is
extremely emotional and expressive. Neruda’s style
of surrealism is not intended to shock or to make
his reader laugh; rather, he uses the absurd to rep-
resent the complexity of the human mind and
modern life.
Canto General (1950) represented another rad-
ical change in Neruda’s poetry. Abandoning the
obscurity of his earlier work, he attempted to cre-
ate an epic poem about the grandeur of South
America. Canto General is a free-verse poem writ-
ten in a biblical cadence. It is a poetic catalogue of
both the human and natural aspects of South
American reality. In the poem, Neruda was trying
to do for the Latin-American world what Walt
Whitman had done for the United States in Leaves
of Grass: to create an epic of democracy, not cen-
tered on a single elite hero but celebrating the
majesty of every citizen.
In 1971, Neruda won the Nobel Prize in litera-
ture. Along with Jorge Luis
BORGES, Neruda was
one of the first Latin-American writers to become
a major presence in international literary circles.
Radically transforming his literary style again and
again throughout his life, and working tirelessly for
his political beliefs, his achievement is truly as-
tounding. Neruda, who fought against oppression
his entire life, died in Santiago, 12 days after a coup
d’état deposed the liberal government of President
Allende and brought fascism to Chile.
Other Works by Pablo Neruda
Elementary Odes of Pablo Neruda. Translated by Car-
los Lozano. New York: G. Massa, 1961.
Late and Posthumous Poems, 1968–1974. Edited and
translated by Ben Belitt. New York: Grove Press,
1988.
Memoirs. Translated from the Spanish by Hardie St.
Martin. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977.
Works about Pablo Neruda
De Costa, Rene. The Poetry of Pablo Neruda. Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Nolan, James. Poet-Chief: The Native American Poet-
ics of Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda. Albu-
querque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994.
Nerval, Gérard de (Gérard Labrunie)
(1808–1855) poet
Considered to be among the early French roman-
tic poets, as well as an early Bohemian, Gérard de
Nerval was born in Paris. The death of his mother
when he was only two years old greatly affected the
tone of his works, which are characterized by a fas-
cination with dreams, visions, and fantasies, par-
ticularly those related to death, as well as the
madness that these can produce. Throughout his
life, he suffered from manic depression and an
artistic vision that was destined to destroy him.
Nerval was greatly influenced by the German
Romantic poets. He translated the works of
GOETHE and also was interested in the occult and
the poetry of the French Renaissance. The mystic
world fascinated him, particularly esoteric, gnos-
tic, and oriental philosophy.
Living in a heightened state of reverie, he began
to suffer periods of madness. After an extreme
manic episode in 1841, Nerval was hospitalized.
During this time, he wrote Christ on the Mount of
Olives (1841), which forms part of his final collec-
tion, and assumed the name Nerval, taken from
Nerval, Gérard de 319
an imaginary genealogy that he had created to re-
place his own family history. He fantasized that he
was descended from Nerva, a Roman emperor, by
way of Napoleon. It is this voice, a collected wis-
dom of the ages, through which he speaks in his
poems.
His final poetic work, a collection of sonnets
called, collectively, The Chimeras (1854), empha-
sizes themes of death and despair. The work is
comprised of three parts. In the first section, six
poems deal with the concept of a lost love who ap-
pears as bride, priestess, sorceress, queen, muse,
and ultimately death. This latter vision ties directly
to the death of Nerval’s mother. The second sec-
tion, “Christ on the Mount of Olives,” details
Christ’s betrayal by both humankind and God. The
final part, “The Golden Verses,” reaffirms life after
a deep depression.
Written while Nerval was undergoing a period
of deep depression, The Chimeras was published
only one year before the poet committed suicide.
His last great work, the short-story collection
Les filles du feu (The Daughters of Fire, 1854), cele-
brates lost love and mythical aspects of women.
The manuscript of Aurélia, an autobiographical
and almost surrealistic story of breakdown and vi-
sion, was found in his pocket when he hanged
himself at dawn on January 26.
Another Work by Gérard de Nerval
Selected Writings. Translated by Richard Sieburth.
Hardmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1999.
A Work about Gérard de Nerval
Lokke, Kari. Gérard de Nerval: The Poet as Social Vi-
sionary. Lexington: French Forum, 1987.
Neto, António Agostinho (1922–1979)
poet
António Agostinho Neto was born in Kaxikane, a
Kimbundu village in the Icolo e Bengo region of
Angola. His political awareness began at an early
age: He became involved in cultural and political
activities following his high-school graduation in
1944 when he was working in the Health Service
in Luanda. In Lisbon, where Neto was attending
university, he became very involved in the proin-
dependence political activities of the overseas
African students. He was arrested and imprisoned
twice, in 1951 and 1955. By the time of his sec-
ond imprisonment, he had become such a well-
known figure that French intellectuals such as
Jean-Paul
SARTRE and Simone de BEAUVOIR pres-
sured the Portuguese government to release him.
After his release, Neto returned to Angola in 1959
and became the leader of the Popular Movement
for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). He spent
most of his political career in and out of exile and
prison until November 1975, when he declared
Angola’s independence. He was sworn in as An-
gola’s first president, a position that he held until
his death.
Neto’s poetry clearly resonates with themes that
most concern him, such as the nationalist struggle,
his African roots, and assimilation. His writings
also reveal his attempt to reconcile ideas of indi-
vidual freedom and colonial domination. In “Nau-
sea” (1974), for example, he examines the anguish
of the colonized character Joaão, whose anger inter-
mixed with helplessness results in a physical state
of unease. Neto’s rejection of assimilation is best
expressed in his poems “Marketwoman” (1974)
and “Friend Mussunda” (1974), in which the char-
acters, common people, celebrate the collective
idea of “Africanness” and renounce colonial at-
tempts to assimilate them.
Neto remains one of the most influential,
founding poets of Angolan literature, and his po-
etry bespeaks the common African themes inher-
ent in the relationship between the colonized and
the colonizer.
Other Works by António Agostinho Neto
Ainda o Meu Sonho. Luanda: Uniao dos Escritores
Angolanos, 1980.
Cikectabea de Poemas. Lisbon: Casa dos Estudantes
do Imperio, 1961.
Sacred Hope. Dar es Salamm: Tanzania Publishing
House, 1974.
320 Neto, António Agostinho
Works about António Agostinho Neto
Burness, Donald. Fire: Six Writers from Angola,
Mozambique and Cape Verde. Washington, D.C.:
Three Continents, 1977.
Enekwe, Ossie O.“The Legacy of António Agostinho
Neto.” Okike, 18 (June 1981).
Martinho, Fernando. “The Poetry of Agostinho
Neto.” World Literature Today, 53 (Winter
1979).
New Novel
The New Novel, or Nouveau Roman, emerged in
France in the 1950s. Representative authors in-
clude Claude SIMON, Nathalie SARRAUTE, Alain
ROBBE-GRILLET, Marguerite DURAS, and Michel
Butor. The term was introduced by critic Roland
Barthes and theorized by Robbe-Grillet in his For a
New Novel (1963). The main concept of the move-
ment was to create fiction that opposed the con-
straints of conventional fiction and broke the rules
that defined what a novel was.
To break realistic molds of storytelling, the new
novelists abandoned the idea of continuity and
standard chronological order, such as in Sarraute’s
1951 work Portrait of a Man Unknown. They bor-
rowed freely from poetry and the visual arts to
produce works that were linguistic collages, as in
Simon’s The Wind (1959). The importance of
memory and free association of ideas were often
stressed as well.
The new novelists represented a vast and diver-
gent array of stylistic and ideological perspectives.
They had different aims and goals with regard to
their works and, for the most part, were often op-
posed to being grouped together even in theoreti-
cal terms. The movement, in essence, suggested a
move away from tradition and realized an attempt
to experiment with new literary forms.
See also OBJECTIVISMO.
A Work about the New Novel
Babcock, Arthur E. The New Novel in France: Theory
and Practice of the Nouveau Roman. Boston:
Twayne, 1997.
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (James Ngugi)
(1938– ) novelist, essayist, playwright
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o was born in Kamiriithu in the
Kiambu district of central Kenya, a district in
which a large number of white people lived. Liv-
ing where the two worlds of the black African and
the white Christian met clearly had its impact on
Ngugi’s works. Although his parents were Gikuyu,
the largest ethnic group in Kenya, they did not
practice traditional religion, nor were they Chris-
tians. In 1948, Ngugi was exposed to the Gikuyu
religion and values when he began school, which
taught him about European subjects, traditional
Gikuyu values, and Gikuyu history. Ngugi became
especially interested in Gikuyu traditions after un-
dergoing the Gikuyu rite of passage ceremony. He
also developed a strong interest in reading Euro-
pean classics, especially adventure stories.
Ngugi’s eloquent prose resonates with the emo-
tions and conflicts of his personal life and the life
of his country. It is not surprising, therefore, that
his themes include alienation, love, loss, and strug-
gle. His first novel, Weep Not, Child (1964), was the
first English language novel to be published by an
East African. The main protagonist, Njoroge, lost
his opportunity to further his studies after having
to face the dilemma of choosing between his ide-
alistic dreams and opposing the harsh reality of
colonial domination.
The colonial government’s mission to destroy
the independent guerrilla army of the Mau Mau
peasant rebellions in the 1950s greatly affected
Ngugi and his family. Ngugi’s brother joined the
Mau Mau, his stepbrother was shot, and his
mother was arrested, interrogated, and tortured.
Ngugi faced the dilemma of advancing his educa-
tion (something very few black Africans had ac-
complished and which the colonial government
made possible) and dealing with the government’s
persecution of his family. He depicts this conflict
within himself and his community in, and uses the
rebellions as a backdrop for, his novel The River
Between (1965), which is about an unhappy love
affair in a rural community whose Christian con-
verts and non-Christian natives are at odds.
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o 321
In 1977, Ngugi’s active involvement in his vil-
lage’s communal theater led to his arrest and im-
prisonment. He was accused of promoting his
strong political views via his play I Will Marry
When I Want (1977). In addition, his novel Petals of
Blood (1978), strongly depicts the exploitation and
corruption of the colonial government in Kenya at
that time. Ngugi was released from prison a few
years later, and though he was a devout Christian,
he rejected Christianity and changed his name to
Wa Thiong’o in honor of his Gikuyu heritage. He
also began to write his novels in Gikuyu, publish-
ing the first modern novel written in that language,
Devil on the Cross (1980). Ngugi argued that
African literature written in a colonial language
was not African literature.
Ngugi left Kenya in 1982 to live in self-imposed
exile in London. He continues to write about
Gikuyu culture. In his later and strongly influential
work, Matigari (1987), for example, Ngugi nar-
rates a satirical tale of a guerrilla fighter who seeks
to find true liberation through the use of arms.
The story is based on a famous Gikuyu folktale.
Ngugi also encourages fellow African writers to
continue to write in their native languages. He now
teaches at the University of California, Irvine,
where he has taught since 2002.
Other Works by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in
African Literature. Westport, Conn.: Heinemann,
1986.
Petals of Blood. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1991.
A Work about Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Cantalupo, Charles, ed. Ngugi wa Thiong’o: Texts and
Contexts. Lawrence, N.J.: Africa World Press,
1995.
Nguyen Du (1765–1820) poet
Nguyen Du was born in Thing Long, Ha Tinh
province, central Vietnam. The first 35 years of
Nguyen Du’s life were spent trying to survive the
chaos of the Tay Son rebellion that began in 1771.
Nguyen Du, a member of the northern scholar
classes, was a loyal supporter of the then defunct
Le dynasty and was extremely critical of the Tay
Son rebellion, denouncing the rampant corrup-
tion and immoral behavior of the Tay Sons in his
poetry. The Tay Son rebellion ended in 1802 with
the ascension of the Nguyen emperor, Gia Long,
to the Vietnamese throne in Hue. This southern-
based dynasty (Ly), however, did not win Nguyen
Du’s support, despite his serving the dynasty for
20 years. Nguyen Du saw the Ly dynasty as an il-
legitimate successor to the Le dynasty, and his un-
willingness to serve can be observed in his
writings. He uses metaphors such as the bitter-
ness of remarrying to illustrate his reluctance to
serve a new master while he still felt loyal to the
old. Nguyen Du served as an envoy in the 1813
mission to China, and he was to depart on an-
other mission to China in 1820 when he died un-
expectedly.
Nguyen Du’s poetry deals with timeless issues
that characterized Confucian Vietnamese society,
such as personal morality and political obligations.
His poems, such as the epic Truyen Kieu (The Tale
of Kieu) bespeak his constant concern with moral-
ity and his respect for individual fortitude. The
publication date of the poem is unknown. The
poem relates the life of Kieu, whose determination
in the face of misfortune and suffering earn her
happiness in the end. Nguyen Du’s poetry cele-
brates the high ideal of morality above love and
selfish desire. Poems such as The Tale of Kieu and
The Guitar Player of Long Thanh reflect his Bud-
dhist ideology that places sacrifice, sorrow, and
suffering as necessary obstacles to overcome before
happiness can be obtained. Nguyen Du’s poetry
remains today a valuable repository of information
and insight into late 18th- and early 19th-century
perceptions of morality.
Other Works by Nguyen Du
“Calling the Wandering Souls.” In Jacqui Chagnon
and Don Luce, eds., Quiet Courage: Poems from
322 Nguyen Du
Viet Nam. Washington, D.C.: Indochina Mobil
Education Project, 1974.
The Tale of Kieu: A Bilingual Edition. Translated by
Huynh Sanh Thong. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1987.
A Work about Nguyen Du
Woodside, Alexander. Introduction to The Tale of
Kieu: A Bilingual Edition. Translated by Huynh
Sanh Thong. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1987.
Nichol, b[arrie] p[hilip] (1944–1988) poet
bpNichol, as he styles his name, was born in
Vancouver, British Columbia, and grew up in three
locations—Vancouver, British Columbia; Win-
nipeg, Manitoba; and Port Arthur, Ontario. While
working toward a certificate from the University of
British Columbia in elementary education (which
he received in 1963), Nichol audited creative-writ-
ing courses. After teaching elementary school in
British Columbia, he moved to Toronto in 1967.
Nichol’s first published poem, “Translating
Apollinaire,” appeared in 1964. He soon gained no-
toriety for his concrete poetry. (Concrete poetry is
written so that the words form a definite shape.
George Herbert’s “Easter Wings,” in which the lines
of poetry are arranged to form angel’s wings, is a
famous example. Another predecessor is Guil-
laume
APOLLINAIRE with his Calligrammes). One of
Nichol’s concrete poems is “Blues,” in which the
word love is set six times, vertically, horizontally,
and backwards, with a diagonal row of e’s across
the center suggesting a cry of pain or perhaps as-
tonishment. (The poem may be seen online at
http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/bpnichol/ky-
ebp01.htm.)
Nichol did not gain wide recognition, how-
ever, until the publication of The Martyrology
(1972), a long narrative poem in five volumes
that abandoned the concrete form of Nichol’s
previous work. (Subsequent books of The Marty-
rology were published in 1976, 1982, 1987, and
1992.) Nichol also published prose works, visual
books, and miscellanies, usually through small
presses. He liked to revisit themes and to work in
series, as he did in the three volumes, Love: A
Book of Remembrances (1972), Zygal: A Book of
Mysteries and Translations (1985), and Truth: A
Book of Fictions (1990). Truth, like the last volume
of The Martyrology, was published posthumously;
Nichol had just finished assembling the manu-
script when he died.
In all of his work, Nichol explores the possibili-
ties for meaning to be created by the structural and
textual characteristics of words on the page—that
is, their formal arrangement and layout. Concrete
poetry marks an extreme form of this possibility,
as can be seen in Nichol’s poems.
In 1970, Nichol won the Governor General’s
Award for poetry. In addition to his many volumes
of poetry, he also wrote 10 episodes of the chil-
dren’s program Fraggle Rock. His concrete poetry is
the subject of a 1969 documentary film by Michael
ONDAATJE, Sons of Captain Poetry.
Other Works by bpNichol
An H in the Heart: A Reader. Edited by George Bow-
ering and Michael Ondaatje. Toronto: McClelland
& Stewart, 1994.
bpnicholcomics. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2002.
A Work about bpNichol
Barbour, Douglas. b.p. Nichol and His Work. Toronto:
ECW Press, 1992.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900)
philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Rocken, Ger-
many, to Karl Ludwig Nietzsche, a Protestant pas-
tor, and Franziska Nietzsche. Karl Ludwig died
when his son was only five. The family moved to
Naumburg, where Nietzsche attended Domgym-
nasium, a private preparatory school connected
with a cathedral. At Domgymnasium, Nietzsche
demonstrated great potential as a scholar and was
Nietzsche, Friedrich 323
consequently offered a scholarship to Schulpforta,
the most famous high school in all of Germany.
Nietzsche attended Schulpforta for six years; he
was considered to be one of the best students in
his class. Although he apparently failed a mathe-
matics class in his final year of studies and jeop-
ardized his graduation, in Robert Holub’s 1995
biography, a teacher is quoted in defense of Niet-
zsche: “Do you wish perhaps that we allow the
most gifted student that the school had since I
have been here to fail?”
After graduating from Schulpforta in 1864, Ni-
etzsche studied classical philology at the University
of Bonn and the University of Leipzig. While
studying at both universities, Nietzsche was influ-
enced by the German philosopher Arthur Scho-
penhauer. The philosophical works that Nietzsche
wrote later in his life were in many ways a response
to Schopenhauer’s philosophical ideas. In 1867,
Nietzsche interrupted his studies for compulsory
military service, but was declared unfit for duty in
1868 after falling off a horse. While recovering
from the injury, he was befriended by the famous
composer Richard Wagner and his wife, who be-
came his mentors.
In 1869, at age 24, Nietzsche was appointed as a
professor of classical philology at the University of
Basel, Switzerland, where he remained for the next
10 years. The appointment was quite unusual
because he never completed his dissertation. To
accept this position, he had to renounce his Pruss-
ian citizenship and, because he never became a cit-
izen of Switzerland, he remained a person without
a country for the rest of his life. In 1870, at the out-
break of the Franco-Prussian War, he enlisted in
the Germany army as a medical orderly, but he
contracted diphtheria and had to resign the post.
Critical Analysis
During the 1870s, Nietzsche became progressively
dissatisfied with his work as a philologist.
Although he remained at the University of
Basel until 1879, he contributed very little to
classical philology. In 1872, he published A Birth
of Tragedy, which Robert Holub calls “an odd
mixture of classical philology, half-baked enthu-
siasm for Schopenhauer, and Wagner veneration.”
Using little philological evidence, Nietzsche
attempted to connect the rise of tragedy with a
coupling of Dionysian and Apollonian principles,
to hinge the downfall of tragedy to rational
thinking, and to present Richard Wagner as the
renovator of German tragic art. His colleagues
greeted The Birth of Tragedy with disparagement
and perplexity, finding little relevance to philol-
ogy in the work.
Nietzsche, suffering from numerous health
problems and, utterly disappointed with his career
as a philologist, retired from the university in 1879.
With much more success, he turned his energy to
cultural criticism, particularly focusing on the role
of Christianity in the formation of Western ideas
about psychology and social behavior. Human, All
Too Human (1878–80) is the first published work
in which he defends his famed perspectivism, the
view that truths and all interpretations are formu-
lated from particular perspectives. He claimed
that, contrary to the claims of moralist theory,
morality is not inherent in or determined by real-
ity; it is, in fact, the invention of human beings.
Moreover, Nietzsche sets morality against histori-
cal background, describing how the view of moral-
ity changed over time. The work explicitly
contrasts Christian and Greek moral thought, typ-
ically claiming that Greek thought had been vastly
superior.
Nietzsche further elaborates his critique of
Christian morality in Daybreak (1881). In this
work, he claims that Christianity somehow re-
shapes our notion of morality by implicating psy-
chological guilt and constantly seeking spiritual
reassurances—both acts that are destructive to the
psychological and social health of society. In his fa-
mous work The Gay Science (1882), Nietzsche
makes his perhaps most famous statement, pro-
claiming the death of God. Nietzsche once again
renounces the Christian doctrine of afterlife and
proposes an alternative system in which an indi-
vidual should appreciate this life in its aesthetic
terms. He suggests that ideal is the full experience
324 Nietzsche, Friedrich
of one’s life, with all the turns of fate and flaws.
Furthermore, he proposes the doctrine of eternal
recurrence in this work: a concept that describes
time as circular rather than linear, in which cyclical
events recur over and over again.
Needless to say, Nietzsche’s profound atheism
was viewed as disturbing by his contemporaries.
Yet, Nietzsche secured a small following, especially
among the young members of the intelligentsia,
with the publication of his major work Thus Spake
Zarathustra (1883–94). The work, a combination
of poetry, prose, and epigrams, describes the jour-
ney of Zarathustra who comes down from a
mountain after years of meditation to offer his
thoughts to the world. The work, structured as a
parody of the Bible, praises all things denounced
by Christian teachings, such as vanity, war, cruelty,
and pure aestheticism. The work, often described
as a culmination of Nietzsche’s philosophical ca-
reer but which breaks with conventional philo-
sophical discourse, is his most widely read and
appreciated work. Although Thus Spake Zarathus-
tra was not widely appreciated during Nietzsche’s
lifetime, it influenced generations of philosophers
and artists after his death.
Late in his life, Nietzsche remained a prolific
writer. He lived in seclusion in Italy and Switzer-
land, maintaining very few contacts. In 1889, he
suffered a complete nervous breakdown after wit-
nessing a brutal beating of a horse on a street in
Turin. He was transferred from clinic to clinic for
the next 10 years, but, unable to work or recover
his health, he finally died just as his popularity
began to spread all over the world.
Today, Nietzsche is remembered as one of
the most influential philosophers and writers of the
19th century. His works were translated into
virtually every major language around the world.
Nietzsche questioned the accepted notions of
morality and values in the context of Christianity
to emphasize the importance of the material, aes-
thetic world. It is not surprising that many artists
found his message attractive and powerful. Many of
his works are still read, discussed, and debated in
universities all over the world.
Other Works by Friedrich Nietzsche
The Anti-Christ. Translated by H. L. Mencken. Lon-
don: Sharp Press, 1999.
Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a
Hammer. Translated by Duncan Large. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998.
The Will to Power. Translated by Walter Kaufmann.
New York: Random House, 1987.
Works about Friedrich Nietzsche
Holub, Robert. Friedrich Nietzsche. Boston: Twayne,
1995.
Kauffman, Walter. Basic Writings of Nietzsche. New
York: Random House, 1968.
Safransky, Rudiger. Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biogra-
phy. New York: Norton, 2001.
Nkosi, Lewis (1936– ) novelist, literary
critic
Lewis Nkosi was born in Durban, South Africa.
Before he turned eight, his parents died. He lived
with his maternal grandmother, who worked as a
washerwoman to support Nkosi’s early educa-
tion. During this time, Nkosi developed a love for
literature, especially the works of 19th-century
French novelists. Between 1952 and 1954, he was
enrolled in a boarding school run by missionar-
ies, and his Zulu language teacher gave him a
thorough background in Zulu culture and his-
tory. After graduating, he worked briefly at a Zulu
newspaper before being invited, in 1956, to join
The Drum, an influential newspaper actively in-
volved in the antiapartheid movement. Nkosi’s
acceptance of a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard
University led to his exile from his homeland in
1961.
At Harvard, Nkosi wrote a play, The Rhythm of
Violence (1964), as an entry for a drama competi-
tion. The play relates the violence and racism
surrounding and following the first bombing in
Johannesburg by African National Congress and
Pan-Africanist Congress members. After Harvard,
Nkosi worked as a literary editor of The New
African in London from 1965 to 1968. Between 1970
Nkosi, Lewis 325
and 1974, he took a four-year course in English
literature at the University of London, spent several
years in Europe and accepted a professorship in
English at the University of Wyoming.
White supremacy and racial tension are recur-
ring themes in Nkosi’s writings. In his most ac-
claimed work, Mating Birds (1986), he satirizes the
hypocrisy of the white court that condemned
Sibiya, the main protagonist, to death mainly be-
cause he was black. In the novel, Sibiya narrates the
series of events leading to his conviction of the
rape of a white woman and his impending execu-
tion. By appropriating the plight of Sibiya, Nkosi
contests the legitimacy of white justice and values
in South Africa, which he portrays as being driven
by self-interest. Another novel, The Underground
People, about the personal and the political in the
lives of antiapartheid activists, followed in 1993.
In 1965, Nkosi published a collection of essays,
Home and Exile, which won a prize at the Dakar
World Festival of Negro Arts in 1966. The essays
in this collection deal with a variety of issues and
themes, ranging from Nkosi’s experience in exile to
his views on African theater, black American po-
etry, and other African writers’ works. He contin-
ues to publish criticism regularly.
Nkosi’s main contributions lie in his ability to
communicate the complexity and subtle aspects
of racial politics and relationships in South Africa
to a general reading public.
Other Works by Lewis Nkosi
The Black Psychiatrist. Lusaka: Lusaka Theatre
Playhouse, 1983. Available online at http://
weberstudies.weber.edu/archive/Vol.%2011.2/
11.2Nkoski.htm.
Malcolm. London: ICA and Bush Theatres, 1972.
Tasks and Masks: Themes and Styles of African Litera-
ture. Harlow, U.K.: Longman, 1981.
The Transplanted Heart: Essays on South Africa. Benin
City, Nigeria: Ethiope Publishing, 1975.
Works about Lewis Nkosi
Jacobs, Johan. “Lewis Nkosi: Mating Birds.” Critical
Arts, 5:2 (1990).
Masuwa, Kristina Rungano. “South African Writing:
Lewis Nkosi.” Wasafiri, 19 (1994).
Watts, Jane. Black Writers from South Africa: Towards
a Discourse of Liberation. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1989.
Nobre, António (1867–1900) poet
Born in Oporto, Portugal, to middle-class parents,
Nobre suffered from ill health and died of tuber-
culosis at an early age. His illness changed his life
and poetry. As a youngster, he spent many sum-
mers in northern Portugal. In 1898, he studied law
in Coimbra, Portugal, but failed his courses and
went on to Paris to attend the Sorbonne, where he
received his degree in political science in 1895.
Nobre traveled widely, always seeking better
health. His finest poems were written while he was
living in Paris’s Latin Quarter.
Only one volume of poetry was published dur-
ing Nobre’s lifetime: Só (1892). It consists mainly
of verse written in Portugal and Paris between
1884 and 1892. These poems express the loneliness
and poverty the poet experiences on the death of
his father. Two more volumes, containing a mix-
ture of narcissism, folklore, realism, whimsy, and
pessimism, appeared after the poet’s death.
Another Work by António Nobre
Primeiros Versos e Cartas Inéditas. Lisboa: Editorial
Notícias, 1983.
Noonuccal, Oodgeroo (Kath Walker)
(1920–1993) poet, writer, political activist
Oodgeroo Noonuccal was born in the land of Min-
jerribah on the coast of Brisbane, in Australia, to
the Aboriginal couple Edward and Lucy Ruska.
Kath Walker was her English name, but she re-
turned later in her life to her traditional name
Oodgeroo Noonuccal to identify with the Aborigi-
nal people of Noonuccal, with whom she grew up.
(Oodgeroo is the Aboriginal name for the paper-
bark tree.) Noonuccal attended the Dunwich State
School on North Stradbroke Island. Her formal ed-
326 Nobre, António
ucation ended when she turned 13, and she became
a domestic servant as did most Aboriginal girls. In
1939, Noonuccal joined the Australian Women’s
Army Service (AWAS) and became a corporal.
The struggles of the Aboriginal people in-
spired Noonuccal to write when she was very
young. Judith WRIGHT, an Australian poet, read
Noonuccal’s poems and introduced her to the
Jacaranda Press in Brisbane. Noonuccal’s first
volume of poems, We Are Going (1964), was the
first published work by an Aborigine. She writes
of the oppression of the Aboriginal people and
their sense of pride, using a free-verse style iden-
tified as “protest verse.” In the poem “We Are
Going,” for example, the members of an Aborigi-
nal tribe are given voice:“We are as strangers here
now, We belong here.” Noonuccal’s second book,
The Dawn Is at Hand (1966), is filled with rich
imagery describing the tortures of the Aboriginal
people.
Noonuccal’s themes include the wrongs com-
mitted against the Aborigines, world peace, and a
new life for her people. Noonuccal was one of Aus-
tralia’s best-known poets and was also known in-
ternationally as a political activist. She was a
member of the realist writers’ group (see REALISM)
and wrote against social injustice. Noonuccal also
wrote folk tales for children on the life and beliefs
of the Aboriginal people. Father Sky and Mother
Earth (1981) describes the bond of the Aboriginal
people with nature. Fellow Australian poet Judith
Wright wrote of Noonuccal’s poems, “They were
memorable, they were memorized and they will
be remembered” (1994).
A Work about Oodgeroo Noonuccal
Collins, John, ed. Noonuccal and Her People: Perspec-
tives on Her Life’s Work. St. Lucia: University of
Queensland Press, 1996.
Nortje, Arthur (1942–1970) poet
Arthur Nortje was born in the town of Oudt-
shoorn, Cape Province, South Africa. His mother
was unmarried, and Nortje never knew who his
father was. He attended school on scholarship and
showed an early interest and propensity for writ-
ing poetry. In 1961, he moved to Cape Town,
where he attended the University College of the
Western Cape. The sharp class and racial distinc-
tions that existed in the university led Nortje to re-
sent the arbitrary nature of social segregation. He
belonged to the “colored” group, the offspring of
parents with mixed racial backgrounds, and his
distaste for the opulent upper class is clear in his
poetry, such as in “Thumbing a Lift” (1962),
which won a Mbari Poetry Prize from Ibadan
University.
Nortje briefly taught high school in Port Eliza-
beth before going to Oxford University in 1965,
again on scholarship, one sponsored by the politi-
cally radical National Union of South African Stu-
dents. After earning his B.A., he moved to British
Columbia in Canada in 1967 to teach and then re-
turned to London in 1970 to embark on his post-
graduate study. He died on December 8.
Loneliness is perhaps the most acute emotion
that surfaces in all Nortje’s poems, which also
speak of desolation and loss. His sense of es-
trangement from his homeland, following his
self-imposed exile from South Africa, and his un-
fortunate encounter with love resonate through
his characters and their experiences. Nortje’s un-
fulfilled love for a young woman who separated
from him to migrate to Canada, left him in de-
spair. Discrimination intensified his anguish,
loneliness, and alienation, which he depicts in
political poems that condemn apartheid and its
inherent hypocrisy. For example, in Dead Roots
(1973), Nortje’s first collection, a number of
poems, such as “Continuation,” relate his deteri-
oration into depression and his dependency on
drugs. In another poem, “The Long Silence,”
Nortje poignantly contrasts the forlorn resigna-
tion of the oppressed Africans with the “success”
of the apartheid government. Though Nortje’s
literary career was brief, he successfully brought
to the world a voice and a vision that, while
pained and pessimistic, were very realistic.
Nortje, Arthur 327