Abstract

In this article I argue that the sacred in John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo’s Remains of a Tide (Ibadan: Mosuro, 2018) and Harry Garuba’s Animist Chants and Memorials (Ibadan: Kraft Books, 2017) evokes a contestation of meanings involving “claimed” and “unclaimed” spaces of the sacred. In the analysis of these poetry collections, I apply Paul Ricoeur’s narrative theory of memory, and concepts of mythology and mysticism. The unclaimed space in the two collections remains impenetrable, deified, and fetishised, but the claimed space is accessible, liberal, and imaginable. In interaction with the unclaimed space, the claimed space breaks the barriers insulating the unclaimed space to interrogate the real and unreal. The claimed space also accommodates the depiction of symbolic objects of interest by the two poets. For both Clark-Bekederemo and Garuba, landscapes, introspection, and recollection are symptomatic responses to experiences of rupture between the claimed and the unclaimed spaces. This article also illustrates that during a rupture, the unclaimed space can take on new meanings and stereotypical symbols can be reshaped. The sacred in literature is complicated by a structure that blends elements of the familiar and the strange in unusual configurations. The sacred in the two poetry collections is delineated along imagined and reimagined spaces.

摘要

在这篇文章中，我认为 John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo 的Remains of a Tide (Ibadan: Mosuro, 2018) 和 Harry Garuba 的Animist Chants and Memorials中的神圣(Ibadan: Kraft Books, 2017) 引发了一场涉及“已认领”和“未认领”神圣空间的意义争论。在对这些诗集的分析中，我运用了保罗利科的记忆叙事理论，以及神话和神秘主义的概念。两个系列中无人认领的空间仍然难以理解、神化和迷恋，但已认领的空间是可接近的、自由的和可想象的。在与无人认领空间的互动中，认领空间打破隔离无人认领空间的障碍，审问真实与非真实。声称的空间还容纳了两位诗人感兴趣的象征性物体的描绘。对于 Clark-Bekederemo 和 Garuba 而言，景观、内省和回忆是对已声明空间和未声明空间之间破裂经历的症状反应。这篇文章还说明，在破裂期间，无人认领的空间可以具有新的含义，陈规定型的符号可以重塑。文学中的神圣被一种结构复杂化了，这种结构以不寻常的配置混合了熟悉和陌生的元素。两本诗集中的神圣是沿着想象和重新想象的空间描绘的。