Léopold Sédar Senghor :: essays research papers

Lopold Sdar SenghorSenegalese poet and statesman, founder of the Senegalese Democratic Bloc. Senghor was elected president of Senegal in the 1960s. He retired from office in 1980. He was one of the originators of the concept of Ngritude, defined as the literary and artistic expression of the black African experience. In historical scene the term has been seen as a reaction against French colonialism and a refutation of African culture. It has deeply influnced the strengthening of African identity in the French-speaking black world. "Lmotion est ngre, la raision est hllne." (emotion is Negro, reason is Greek) "Negritude is the congeries of the cultural values of the Black world." Lopold Sdar Senghor was born in Joal-la-Portugaise, a small fishing vilage about seventy miles south of Dakar. His forefather was of noble descent and wealthy merchant. His mother was a Peul, one of a pastoral and nomadic people. Later Senghor wrote "I grew up in the heartland of Afri ca, at the crossroads / Of castes and races and roads" The first seven years of his life Senghor spent in Djilor with his mother and maternal uncles and aunts. At the age of twelve, he attend the Catholic mission school of Ngazobil. He continued his studied at the Libermann Seminary and Lyce Van Vollenhoven, finishing secondary-school education in 1928. After gentle a state scholarship, Senghor then moved to Paris and graduated from the Lyce Louis-le-grand in 1931. During these years he read African-American poets of the Harlem Renaissance and much(prenominal) French poets as Rimbaud, Mallarm, Baudelaire, Verlaine and Valry. Among Senghors s friends were Aim Cesaire, with whom he would develope the idea of Negritude, and Georges Pompidou, who posterior elected President of France. In 1932 Senghor was granted French citizenship. He served in a regiment of colonial infantry and in 1935 he obtained the agrgation grad in grammar. From 1935 he worked as a teacher, notably at Ly ce Descartes in Tours, then in Paris at Lyce Marcelin Berthelot. At the outbreak of World War II, he joined the French army, notwithstanding was captured by the Germans and spent eighteen months in a camp as a prisoner of war. During this period he learned German and wrote poems, which were produce in HOSTIES NOIRES (1948). In 1944 he was appointed professor of African languages at the cole Nationale de la France dOutre-Mer. Senghors first collection of poems, CHANTS DOMBRE (1945), was inspired by the philosopher Henri Bergson, and dealt with the themes of dismiss and nostalgia.