Myth and History in the Poetry of Osundare

In his article Myth and History in the Poetry of Osundare Christopher Anyokwu examines the interrelation of myth and history from an African perspective. Anyokwu analyzes the poetry of one of Africa\u27s most prolific and decorated contemporary poets, Niyi Osundare. Osundare is a third-generation Nigerian poet whose work is based on Yoruba oral tradition and informed by Marxist ideology. Osundare\u27s poetry demonstrates the so-called return-to-roots neo-traditionalist ethos in modern African writing. Osundare\u27s attitude to myth, ritual, and other African animist categories is intriguingly complex, ambivalent, and giving rise to charges of ideological irresolution and culturo-epistemic bifurcation. As a champion of poetry of social statement and revolutionary change, Osundare places history on a high pedestal in the overall message of his art. Anyokwu analyses the different points of interaction and divergence between myth and history in Osundare\u27s poetry arguing its conjunctural significance in the growing world of African letters