Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - First, There Was A Country; Then There Wasn’t: Reflections On Achebe’s New Book (2)

APOLOGIES FOR REPOSTING.

CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS  IN LINE 8 AND PARAGRAPHS 15,  18 AND FINAL PARAGRAPH 

Ahhhhh.... my fans have been motivated into action. 

I am compiling what I describe as examples of the poetry of invective from Nigerian centred listserves. 

This piece from Franklyne Ogbunwezeh is an impressive addition.

Imagine the learnedness in this coinage:

 "a genocidare in the most proximate potency."

Does that word 'genocidare' exist?

Google shows he meant "Genocidaire"

But thats allright. Its a striking English word which I am pleased to come across for the first time.

See his other lines:

"All you need to do is to give him the platform and he will ventilate the repressed angst that has been propelling his genocidal intentions."

...

...the mindset that really informs some of the cryptic murderers that hide in cyberspace to peddle their trade hoping that some nutjob will gain inspiration for mayhem from their unvarnished nonsense."

Beautiful-

'cryptic murderers'- how can murderers be cryptic? Not simply hidden or concealed but cryptic?

Wow.

Cryptic...crypt- physical space- [en]crypt-method of shaping virtual, digital space through presenting information in a concealed  manner- creating the virtual analogue to the subterranean  space of the crypt, where perhaps rites that blaspheme humanity  are performed  in an evil church, as evoked in Soyinka's A Shuttle in the Crypt or where the holy space of the church, evoking the womb of human being, Dennis Brutus's  "lambent flame of man's inherent divinity", becomes the space of scriptic- significators-in virtual space-  activity that seeks to raise an altar to the inhuman, to adapt Dennis Wheatley's novels on magic and Algernon Blackwood's "Strange Worship".

See the almost incantatory rhythm at play here:

"cryptic murderers that hide in cyberspace to peddle their trade hoping that some nutjob will gain inspiration for mayhem from their unvarnished nonsense."

Hmmmm.....peddle...fine word, simple but learned in its metaphoric use here, such use not common perhaps in the  register of general users of the language..peddler, a street hawker, evoking here, not just the sense of determined  labour- an ironically  unholy labour- but  of ignominy....the line comes to rest in the final dismissive  blast in the compound  denunciation  " unvarnished nonsense".

With the movement from 'inspiration for mayhem', culminating in the sheer dismissal of the offerings of the peddler, " unvarnished nonsense", linking back to "cryptic murderers that hide in cyberspace to peddle their trade", the whole sequence evokes an almost Shakespearean sense of gravitas and outraged humanity.

That was fun. 

 

Salutations to Professor Ogo Ofuani for his lectures in stylistics to our third year class at the University of Benin, where he seemed to perform wonders of literary analysis but demonstrated how this wonder was performed, to Niyi Osundare for the fantastic analyses of "Words of Iron, Sentences of Thunder : Soyinka's Prose Style", to George Steiner's love of language as in After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation, to David Crystal and Michael Halliday on stylistics. 

 

thanks

toyin 

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 9:19 PM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tvade3@gmail.com> wrote:

Ahhhhh.... my fans have been motivated into action. 

I am compiling what I describe as examples of the poetry of invective from Nigerian centred listserves. 

This piece from Franklyne Ogbunwezeh is an impressive addition.

Imagine the learnedness in this coinage:

 "a genocidare in the most proximate potency."

Does that word 'genocidare' exist?

Google shows he meant "Genocidaire"

But thats allright. Its a striking English which I am pleased to come across for the first time.

See his other lines:

"All you need to do is to give him the platform and he will ventilate the repressed angst that has been propelling his genocidal intentions."

...

...the mindset that really informs some of the cryptic murderers that hide in cyberspace to peddle their trade hoping that some nutjob will gain inspiration for mayhem from their unvarnished nonsense."

Beautiful-

'cryptic murderers'- how can murderers be cryptic? Not simply hidden or concealed but cryptic?

Wow.

Cryptic...crypt- physical space- [en]crypt-method of shaping virtual, digital space through presenting information in a concealed  manner- creating the virtual analogue to the subterranean  space of the crypt, where perhaps rites that blaspheme humanity  are performed  in an evil church as evoked in Soyinka's A Shuttle in the Crypt or where the holy space of the church, evoking the womb of human being, Dennis Brutus's  "lambent flame of man's inherent humanity", becomes the space of scriptic- significators-in virtual space-  activity that seeks to raise an altar to the inhuman, to adapt Dennis Wheatley's novels on magic and Algernon Blackwood's "Strange Worship".

See the almost incantatory rhythm at play here:

"cryptic murderers that hide in cyberspace to peddle their trade hoping that some nutjob will gain inspiration for mayhem from their unvarnished nonsense."

Hmmmm.....peddle...fine word...peddler, a street hawker, evoking here, not just the sense of determined  labour but  of ignominy....the line comes to rest in the final noun phrase " unvarnished nonsense".

With the movement from 'inspiration for mayhem', culminating in the sheer dismissal of the offerings of the peddler, " unvarnished nonsense", linking back to "cryptic murderers that hide in cyberspace to peddle their trade", the whole sequence evokes an almost Shakespearean sense of gravitas and outraged humanity.

That was fun.

toyin 

--
Compcros

Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

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