1. Examine ‘Négritude’ as both an intellectual movement and literary phenomenon in the light of Sartre’s assessment of it. Négritude is both a literary phenomenon and an intellectual movement founded in Paris by three young, disenfranchised colonial subjects: Aimé Césaire, Léon Gontran Damas and Léopold Sédar Senghor from Martinique, Guiana and Senegal respectively. The two principal aims of Négritude were to demonstrate to the world the value of black culture through the promotion of black writing and to unite blacks of the diaspora in a collective movement against assimilation. Together they created a journal, L’Etudiant Noir, in which the term Négritude was first coined in 1935 by Césaire. It succeeded, along with other journals such as
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Firstly, the choice by writers of Négritude to write in French and to use the medium of poetry is revolutionary in itself. Sartre asserts that when the colonised use French they are not using a foreign language, as colonisation has forced the language upon them from a young age. Lise Guavin, like Sartre, discusses the use of the French language by colonials in L 'Ecrivain francophones à la Croisé des langues which she identifies as ‘surconscience linguistique.’ This concept claims that the francophone writer, through their linguistic choice, introduces the language as a major theme of their work and as an examination of identity. Thus, the linguistic self-reflection is a further stage of taking conscience as it explores the interaction between the French language and the experience of colonisation. This mirrors Sartre’s explanation that despite fluency in French, the colonized initially find that ‘les mots blancs’ of the oppressor can’t allow effective black self-expression. It is only through rejecting the restrictive prose form that the Négritude writer can revolt and turn French as a linguistic weapon against the oppressor: ‘l 'oppresseur est présent jusque dans la langue qu 'ils parlent, ils parleront cette langue pour la détruire.’ The black writer destroys the oppressive power of the white man by taking the language which has been used to set up and enforce colonization and making it his own. While it may seem counterintuitive to write in French rather than in the different languages used prior to colonization, the use of a single language unites Négritude writers linguistically and through its manipulation they rebel against the French colonial
Firstly, the choice by writers of Négritude to write in French and to use the medium of poetry is revolutionary in itself. Sartre asserts that when the colonised use French they are not using a foreign language, as colonisation has forced the language upon them from a young age. Lise Guavin, like Sartre, discusses the use of the French language by colonials in L 'Ecrivain francophones à la Croisé des langues which she identifies as ‘surconscience linguistique.’ This concept claims that the francophone writer, through their linguistic choice, introduces the language as a major theme of their work and as an examination of identity. Thus, the linguistic self-reflection is a further stage of taking conscience as it explores the interaction between the French language and the experience of colonisation. This mirrors Sartre’s explanation that despite fluency in French, the colonized initially find that ‘les mots blancs’ of the oppressor can’t allow effective black self-expression. It is only through rejecting the restrictive prose form that the Négritude writer can revolt and turn French as a linguistic weapon against the oppressor: ‘l 'oppresseur est présent jusque dans la langue qu 'ils parlent, ils parleront cette langue pour la détruire.’ The black writer destroys the oppressive power of the white man by taking the language which has been used to set up and enforce colonization and making it his own. While it may seem counterintuitive to write in French rather than in the different languages used prior to colonization, the use of a single language unites Négritude writers linguistically and through its manipulation they rebel against the French colonial