Adeola James and the problem of subjectivity: Eustace ‘Palmer’s Plea for Objectivity’

Abstract

In this essay, I use James’ paper on the role of the critic and Palmer’s response to shed light on the problematics of developing an aesthetics of criticism of the African novel. I begin with a broad survey of the critical responses to the controversy and then explore specific aspects of James’ argument. In my analysis of James’ review, I use Berger’s construct of the ‘subjective’ in juxtaposition with Palmer’s conception of the ‘objective’ as structural frames to explore my argument of the problematics of adopting a subjective approach to criticism. I contend that James’ perspective of the African novel attempts to isolate it from its literary history and its connections with other forms of literature. I note that it further simplifies the complexities of its sociological contexts, and the multiplicity of cultural norms and values that characterize it as “African.” Hence, the problematics of adopting a subjective approach to its analysis. I conclude that if we view the novel as a work of art, then Palmer’s objection is valid: literature must be appreciated independently of its historical, sociological, or cultural contexts and that there is veracity in his contention that if African literature is to be accepted as serious literature, it must be judged by the same standards and criteria as Western and other forms of literature and not treated as ethnographic data or historical and cultural documents.

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Ernest Cole

Ernest Cole, PhD is Professor and Chair of English at Hope College, Holland, Michigan, where he teaches Postcolonial literatures of Sub-Saharan Anglophone Africa, India, and the Caribbean. Previously he taught African literature at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, The Gambia College, Brikama; and the University of The Gambia. He has published two monographs – Theorizing the Disfigured Body (2014) and Space and Trauma in the Writing of Aminatta Forna (2017) and two collected volumes – Emerging Perspectives on Syl Cheney Coker, with Eustace Palmer, and Ousmane Sembene, Writer, Filmmaker, & Revolutionary Artist, with Oumar Cherif Diop.