Of Marx and Missionaries: Sopnka and The Survival of Universausm in Post-Colonial Literary Theory

One of the most enduring projects in the criticism of African literature has been the attempt to define the exact relationship between the local product and the so-called 'universal' tradition. The early criticism was dominated by the Eurocentric tendency to assume a simple continuity between Western forms and artistic aims and those of African writing, a tendency echoed by many of the writers themselves. Christopher Okigbo, for example, claimed the right to 'belong, integrally'^ to European societies as well as his own. He argued that 'the time has come to question some of our prejudices, to ask ourselves ... whether there is such a thing as African literature'.^ This tendency exercised not only European but also African critics - for example, in the search for quasi-historical parallels such as those drawn by Emmanuel Obiechina between Africa and the mediaeval situation in which European vernacular literatures developed from the presumed universal originating Latin source.^ Chinua Achebe's early and decisive intervention in this dispute was crucial, and no one has stated the case against universals in post-colonial criticism with more forcefulness and accuracy since: