Brimidge 5
Zackeshia Brimidge
Dr. Robert Pfeiffer
Survey of Modern World Literature
05 November 2018
Leopold Sedar Senghor
Poems
“Night in Sine”
“Black Women”
“Prayer to the Masks”
The passionate artist in educating about Africa and Europe culture/ religion beliefs is the one and only Leopold Senghor. The legendary Leopold Senghor poetry exploded the severe circumstances of the encounter on both the personal and social levels in African and Europe. The collection of Senghor’s poems such as, “The Night in Sine, Black Women, and Prayer to the Masks” provided the background of Senghor explorer of the historical and morals of the African and black experience. Each poem had its own uniqueness but still had the same cultural and intellectual aspect of Africa and Europe civilization. How did Senghor’s combine each poem to have the same similar meaning but different topics? Let’s explore each poem and its meaning to Africa and Europe culture.
“The Night in Sine”
The “Night in Sine” expressed Senghor affectionate side. This particular poem articulated love and the love of a woman. The entire poem was voiced to a woman and its experience of love in Africa itself. Reading this poem gives readers a vision of how powerful and embracing an African woman was in Senghor times. The women’s emotions and morals in life doing these harsh times articulated the strength of African women. “ Let me breathe the odor of our dead, let me gather and speak with the living voices, let me gather and speak with their living voices, let me learn to live before plunging deeper than the diver into the great depths of sleep” Senghor explains the woman’s pain but not to never lose oneself ” (lines 25-20, pg.1444).
“Black Women”
Senghor’s passion for is homeland and his environment he lived in, showed how he never forgot where he came from. The “Black Women” poem shared an illustrious of beauty and love from a black woman. Senghor’s idealized the black woman’s love, mothering, and their symbolism to the “Mother Land” called, Africa. “Naked woman, black women dressed in your color that life, in your form that is beauty” (lines 1-3, pg. 1444). Leopold Senghor spoken highly about is culture and moral views of the people and especially women in Africa and Europe. This specific poem revealed how a black woman was treated as...
