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Introduction
In 1961, Wole Soyinka and his fellows set up Mbari Artists' and Writers' Club, whichstarted and enlightened the mass by means of holding literary and artistic activities withinNigeria after Nigeria won independence, and then its influences reached the neighboringcountries. Since then, the cultural movement named after Mbari clubs was launched. Thiscultural enlightenment started with the promotion of elite literature and arts, and endedwith the popularization of literature and arts. Due to the fact that this period is closelyrelated to Wole Soyinka's future composition, it became important to reconsider andrevisit the history of this movement in order to interpret his works. In addition, becauseNigerian study within the academic circle of China is a newly rising field, the insufficientunderstanding of the traditional Nigerian culture is unavoidable. Therefore, the research atthe beginning, evolution and development of the Movement of Mbari Clubs will bebeneficial to deepening our understanding of Nigerian and African countries as well aspromoting the implementation of our national African development strategies.Besides, In terms of the studies of this movement, there is no reported literaturewithin China. Even in western countries, it has been slightly mentioned in few works likeThe Early Writings of Wole Soyinka, African Literary NGODs: Power, Politics andParticipation, in which, however, there is no clear definition on the culture orientationsand historical positions of the movement of Mbari Clubs, consequently they seemnon-systematic. Hence, This topic should and must be discussed further.
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Literature Review
Wole Soyinka was one of the main leaders in the war against the Neo-Negritude andan important pioneer of the Post-colonial African Poetics in the World Literature.Considering his excellent achievements in these aspects, Soyinka has become one of thehot issues in the field World Literature Research. By the end of 2016, 134 monographstogether with over 131,000 relevant academic research papers on Wole Soyinka and hisworks had been published abroad, among which 3341 papers are published in South Asia.Thereby all these proved that “the Soyinkan study” have come into being. From theperspective of attitudes the critics adopted towards Wole Soyinka and his poetics, thisstudy could be summarized into three stages:After ten years, great breakthroughs were made on Soyinkan study. Gerald Mooretook the lead in the commentary analysis of Soyinka's literary works and dissected theYoruba cultural idiosyncrasy embodied in them. Oyin Ogunba carried out his analysis ofSoyinka's literary works within the specific contexts of the transitional period. Oyinapplied comparative methodology to analyze Soyinka's contributions to African literature.He regarded Soyinka as a “Byronic master” and an “African Shakespeare,” as well as amain pioneer of modern African literature ; some of Oyin's views were adopted by Moore.In 1978, Moore published a revised edition of his previous book, in which Soyinka's newworks were analyzed and a collection of Soyinka's new poems were included in theAppendix. Moore also defended Soyinka and carried out discussions about the criticismsof Soyinka in 1960s. Bernth Lindfors undertook sufficient studies on Soyinka's early lifeexperiences and early composition[3]; Gibbs interpreted Soyinka's philosophy of Negritudeand post-colonial aesthetics, and analyzed the relationship between Yoruba mythology andSoyinka's literary works[4]. Amuta studied the relationship between Nigerian realisticliterary traditions and European literature, and believed that Soyinka was a realistic writerunder the influence of both literary traditions. Meanwhile, Amuta criticized Soyinka'sartistic practice for straying away from the Marxism proletarian artistic philosophy[5]. Thisstage featured the focus on the Soyinka as a phenomenon and the rising quantity ofadvocators for Soyinka.
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Chapter 1: The Establishment of the Mbari Clubs
Wole had always considered himself as an independent thinker and despised enslavedintellectuals. Later, his play, The Dance of Forest, though being the winner in thepreliminary election, was performed without many focuses in Ibadan rather than in theNational Day Show in the capital city. This experience made him more interested in thetopic of artistic autonomy. Then in 1961, several young men, having a common goal,established the Mbari Artists' and Writers' Club under the support of Ulli Beier, a professorand scholar at Iboland University. Influenced by the Mbari Artists' and Writers' Club, theclubs also named after Mbari were set up in Osogbo and Enugo. Each of the three MbariClubs had its own task while cooperating with the other two, which lead to the birth of thefamous Movement of Mbari Clubs in Nigerian literature, or even Nigerian culturalhistory.
1.1 The Establishment of Mbari Clubs
The first Mbari Club was established after several meetings and discussions, whichwere held in Isukka, Enugu, Igboland, London and Paris[20]. After reaching a consensus,the primary founders, including Wole, Ulli Beier, Christopher Okigbo, J.P. Clark, and D.O.Fagunwa, established the club on December 1961. The first Mbari Club in Nigeria withthe stronghold was located on the second floor of a Lebanese restaurant near an IbadanMarket. However, the club was not given a proper name, which bothered Wole. In 1962Achebe, a good friend of Wole, took part in the annual Mbari Festival held in OwerriTown of Ibadan area. It occurred to him that the club might be named Mbari Club, and hissuggestion won the support from Wole and the others. Thus, the club was formally namedas the Mbari Artists' and Writers' Club. There is another saying of the history of the club:the founders of this club were Mphalele from South Africa and Tutuola and Achebe fromNigeria, with Mphalele elected as the first president of the club. Soyinka later joined thisclub, followed by Francis Ademola, Demas, Nwoko, Mabel Segun, and Uche Okeke. Butthere is no doubt that Soyinka was one of the core members, and played a very importantrole in the development of the club[21].
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1.2 The Development of Mbari Clubs
In early 1962, while Mbari Club was presided by Wole and Ullie, writers and artistsincluding Denis Williams were invited to open an “artistic workshop,” which aimed topromote the modernization and rejuvenation of Nigerian and African literature and artsthrough the training of young artists. This measure was good, but what was to bementioned was that the club lacked financial aids from government and all depended onthe passions of the young people of this group. The biggest problem they faced was howto raise funds and cover their expenses. There were similarities and differences betweenthe Mabri Artists' and Writers' Club and the 1960 Masks. Members of the 1960 Masksshared the same spirit of sacrificing for arts with members of the club, even with the mostlimited funds. However, the majority of the members of 1960 Masks had fixed incomes.Though not rich, they managed to eat on their own or contributed their own furniture as stage props when they were invited to perform. In addition, Soyinka had a Land Roverpick-up truck. Thus, even with limited fund, the 1960 Masks could still manage to getalong by virtue of everybody's sacrifice.But, most of the members and students of the Ibadan Mbari club were generallyfreelancers without fixed incomes. So the Mabri Artists' and Writers' Club needed funds tocover the training expenses of the members and students. Wole and other members were ata loss about how to raise funds. Muraina Oyelami recalled many years later, , Ibadancenter at that time (actually in 1962)had already held a series of activities, including thefirst" Experimental Art Workshop". There were many people participating in the club andthe training workshops held by the club. Dennis Williams was one of them. Within oneweek’s training, several talents were discovered. However, they felt depressed by this joband could not continue due to the lack of funds[26].Although the Mabri Artists' and Writers' Club (Ibadan) faced difficulties and had tostruggled for its operation, it was favored by a large group of young writers and artistsbecause it held many artistic activities to train young artists, and because its ideal wasdifferent from the mainstream ideology. Its fame thereby roared. Inspired by the the MabriArtists' and Writers' Club (Ibadan), Duro Ladipo decided to establish a similar club inOsogbo in 1962. He discussed his plan with founders such as Wole, Clark, Ullie andFagunwa and the like, he finally gained their support. Ulli Beier, a good friend of DuroLadipo, even provided him with close instructions. Duro renovated and decorated his ownnightclub, “Popular Bar”, changed its name into Mbari-Mbayo club. He gained a grantfrom the Congress for Cultural Freedom and transformed his own courtyard into a galleryand open-air theater. Then, in April 1962, Mbari-Mbayo club formally announced itsestablishment. Later, the Mbari-Mbayo club held several activities.#p#分页标题#e#
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Chapter Two The Main Activities of the Mbari Club ........ 9
2.1 Art Workshop ........ 9
2.2 Promoting folk art .... 10
2.3 Literary Publishing ........ 11
Chapter Three Soyinka in the Mbari Movement .... 15
3.1 Cultural Prodution and Transmission ........ 15
3.2 Constructing Modern Literature........ 16
3.3 The Promoting African Neo-consciousness.... 19
3.4 Popularization of Literature and Art........ 21
Chapter 3: Soyinka in the Movement
The literature of The Mbari circle had surpassed the single category of culturalproduction and transmission. From the perspective of influences it had exerted on Africanand world literature, even from the scope that it had on African social lives, it isreasonable to consider the culture of Mbari Clubs as a cultural movement, its mainobjective was to look for a right way to innovate African cultures under the background ofde-colonization.
3.1 Cultural Production and Transmission
At the beginning of Nigerian independence, Lagos and Ibadan became two basiccamps of de-colonization sentimentalism during the post-colonial period, considering theirsignificances in politics, society and economy. The cultural centers were the Mbari clubs,set up by a group of Nigerian writers, artists, musicians and designers, aimed to revitalizethe traditions[42]. The main role and activities Soyinka participated in have been mentionedabove in this paper. However, his great importance to this movement also needs to beexamined. This paper holds that if his contribution is to be discussed fully, he must be putin the formation of African literature and arts.With the independence of African countries, there were full sentiments of nationalismshowing a strong de-colonization tendency in Africa in the early 1960s. These sentimentswere understandable, since African people suffered from colonial domination for over onehundred years. But at that time, this sentiment seemed to go too far. Even though it claimsto hold high the great banner of Marxism, it became sort of deformed. Especially in theliterary and artistic circles, this abnormal sentiment caused the fight against the Europeanliterature tendency, literary works and writers who supported European culture, and thefight evolved into the death-to-live one. At this time, the African culture was in the processof formation, and the advocacy of modernity of African culture both contradicted with andrelied on Africa's historical requirements of decolonization. On one hand, Africanliterature needed to show resistance to western culture; on the other hand, it needed to goglobal. Therefore, two types of “African Culture” came into being on the Africancontinent:
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Conclusion
Previously, the academic community focused on Ladipo, Beier and Mphalele, whilethe contributions made by Soyinka were not mentioned. In addition, there is no qualitativeanalysis of this history. Therefore, such studies remained defective. As long as studiescould be done by considering the scope, people involved and the influence of Mbariculture, it's not difficult to find that it was not the only part of the urban culture at that time,but was also far beyond this category. From a higher level, it can be said that it hasbecome one inevitable phenomenon during the transitional period of Nigerian or evenAfrican culture, but it was just presented by the club culture. Thus, the “club” constituted asymbolic field of the cultural movement, as it not only carried the helpless choices of agroup of writers, artists and scholars with international mindsets when they confronted thepowerful state machine, but also represented the passions they showed in the initiativeparticipation in constructing their national cultures.In this process, they encountered many difficulties in terms of funding, personnel andmaterial resources, but this did not wear down their willpower. Despite the strongresistance from the Leftcracy, they didn't retreat, but actively participated in the culturaldebates during which the truth became clearer and clearer.From the perspective of the recognition of African literature and literary arts in theworld, there is no doubt that the cultural orientation advocated by Mbari clubs is correct,in that it provoked African people to re-examine their own cultural existence, and guidedthe African literature and arts to go global. Since the 1980s, there have been a group ofwriters and artists who were recognized by the world and received world prize in relevantfields, with five writers winning the Nobel Prize in literature, which were obviously theimportant achievement of this movement.Also, we realized that Soyinka played the role of Pioneer and Torchbearer. He madeuse of seminars and literary magazines as the main battlefield to fight against populists,and explained the main difficulties and primary tasks of the literary circle in Africa interms of African creations, African writers and African consciousness. Also he activelyadvocated dialogues between Africa and western countries, which protected theachievements of Mbari cultural movement to a large extent. Soyinka himself may not haverealized that his poetics happened to be in line with the ideas of Anti- Neo-Negritude. Thiswas even more precious considering that Anti-Neo-Negritude was regarded as the thirdroad with little supporters in Africa. As poetic theory should be and the "anti-new black" demands, at the time was the third road, especially in Africa.Due to the outbreak of the civil war in Nigeria in 1966, Soyinka was put into prison,leading this movement to come to an end, but its influence went beyond Nigeria andspread to East and Middle Africa. This cultural movement led by Soyinka and hisco-members was one great event in the history of world culture, attracting the interests ofmany researchers. Although People hold different attitudes to Soyinka, although hereceived more praise in recent years, it is believed that the discussions about Soyinka'srights and wrongs will continue, only because he is a special symbol of African cultureand also a symbol of world culture.
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References (abbreviated)
