ABSTRACT
This study deploys Historicism as a literary discourse to the
analysis of the selected writings of Isidore Okpewho, Elechi Amadi and
Biyi Bandele. The study argues that Historicism emerged in the 19th Century
as a method of investigating how texts of all kinds come to terms with
their putative contexts. In spite of this, the application of
Historicism to the analysis of texts on the internecine Nigerian Civil
War and the reconstruction of the roles of Nigerians in the prosecution
of the Second World War has been sparing. This thesis, therefore,
demonstrates the applicability of the discourse of historicism to
Isidore Okpewho‘s The Last Duty, Elechi Amadi‘s Sunset In Biafra, and Biyi Bandele‘s Burma Boy.
It argues that, writing as historicists, these writers appropriate
historical events, vicarious and personal experiences, and recorded or
documented activities, all of which had hitherto passed into history as
past. Having been refined and reconstituted, these variegated materials
appear aesthetically resplendent as novels, as new experiences,
conformable to the patterns of literary discourse. This study thus
argues that, the novels that emerge from this social process are never
complete without relating them to the minutest discourse that shapes
them and to which the texts invariably respond. The thesis is divided
into four chapters for proper articulation of the discourse. Chapter One
is an introduction, which deals with (Conceptual Background, Statement
of the Problem, Objectives of the Study, Justification, Scope,
Methodology, Historicism and Literature, Assessment Criteria of poetics
of historicism, and Literature Review. Chapter Two examines the
Reconstruction of
Nigerian Civil War in Isidore Okpewho‘s The Last Duty and Elechi Amadi‘s Sunset In Biafra. Chapter Three deals with the Discourse of Second World War As a
Historical Event in Biyi Bandele‘s Burma Boy. And Chapter Four is the concluding chapter.
CHAPTER ONE:
INTRODUCTION
1.0 CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND
As Chidi Amuta (1988) puts it, the Nigerian civil war literatures represent a
―significant step towards the politicization of the Nigerian literary imagination‖.
Similarly the Second World War has also continued to attract
intellectual discourse especially by African Scholars on the role played
by Africans in its prosecution. Such treatises have often questioned
the rationale behind the participation of Africans in a war that was not
theirs. However, analysts of the international political system such as
Louis J. Halle (1984) and K.J. Holsti (1972), have dubbed the Second
World War as
‗the war to end all wars‘ on accounts of its gruesome devastation.
The depiction of the horrors of Second World War has further fuelled the
resentment of African intellectuals such as Frantz Fanon, Aime Cessaire
against the involvement of Africans.
The two war situations provide the setting for writers to
accentuate and articulate the devastation suffered by individuals and
societies. As evidenced by historical records and literatures, the two
wars occasioned physical suffering and psychological dislocation.
However, despite these gruesome effects, the two wars serve as platforms
for Africans and Nigerians respectively to reassess their conditions
and the means by which they contribute to nation-building, world peace
and progress.