Edward, Edward” (Child 13)...236 - 244
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ISSN : REVUE INTER-TEXTUAL Revue semestrielle en ligne des Lettres et Sciences Humaines du Département d’Anglais adossée au Groupe de recherches en Littérature et Linguistique anglaise (GRELLA) Université Alassane Ouattara République de Côte d’Ivoire Directeur de Publication: M. Pierre KRAMOKO, Maitre de Conférences Adresse postale: 01 BP V 18 Bouaké 01 Téléphone: (225) 01782284/(225) 01018143 Courriel: [email protected] Numéro ISSN: Lien de la Revue: http://inter-textual.univ-ao.edu.ci ADMINISTRATION DE LA REVUE DIRECTEUR DE PUBLICATION M. Pierre KRAMOKO, Maître de Conférences COMITÉ DE RÉDACTION - Professeur Guézé Habraham Aimé DAHIGO, Professeur Titulaire - Dr Vamara KONÉ, Maître de Conférences - Dr Kouamé ADOU, Maître de Conférences - Dr Kouamé SAYNI, Maître de Conférences - Dr Koffi Eugène N’GUESSAN, Maître de Conférences - Dr Gossouhon SÉKONGO, Maître de Conférences - Dr Philippe Zorobi TOH, Maître de Conférences - Dr Jérome Koffi KRA, Maître de Conférences COMITÉ SCIENTIFIQUE Prof. Azoumana Ouattara, Université Alassane Ouattara, Côte d’Ivoire Prof. Coulibaly Daouda, PhD,Université Alassane Ouattara, Côte d’Ivoire Prof. Djako Arsène, Université Alassane Ouattara, Côte d’Ivoire Prof. Francis Akindès, Université Alassane Ouattara, Côte d’Ivoire Prof. Lawrence P. Jackson, Johns Hopkins University, USA Prof. Léa N’Goran-Poamé, Université Alassane Ouattara, Côte d’Ivoire Prof. Mamadou Kandji, Université Ckeick Anta Diop, Sénégal Prof. Margaret Wright-Cleveland, Florida State University, USA Prof. Kenneth Cohen, St Mary’s College of Maryland, USA Prof. Nubukpo Komlan Messan, Université de Lomé, Togo Prof. Séry Bailly, Université Félix Houphouët Boigny, Abidjan Prof. Zigui Koléa Paulin, Université Alassane Ouattara, Côte d’Ivoire TABLE OF CONTENTS/ TABLE DES MATIÈRES 1. Kouadio Germain N’GUESSAN, GENDER HIERARCHY AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF FEMININITY: THE IMPOSED MASK.…………1 - 19 2. Goh Théodore TRA BI, HISTORIOGRAPHY OF NARRATIVE THEORIES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.…………………………………………20 - 37 3. Ezoulé Miézan Isaac KANGAH, BRITISH POLITICAL SCENE IN JONATHAN COE’S THE CLOSED CIRCLE.……………………………38 - 56 4. Gabrielle KEITA, UNCOMPLETED ASPECT MARKING FROM STANDARD ENGLISH TO NIGERIAN PIDGIN: A COMPARATIVE STUDY.…………………………………………………………………………57 - 68 5. Constant Ané KONÉ, REMEMBERING SLAVERY MEMORY IN GAYL JONES’ CORREGIDORA.…………………………………………………….69 - 88 6. Germain ASSAMOI, MODALITY IN SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE, BETWEEN RADICAL AND EPISTEMIC.………………………………89 - 105 7. Koffi Eugène N’GUESSAN, BRIDGING THE VALLEY OF NIHILISM IN AUGUST WILSON’S FENCES.…………………………………………106 - 121 8. Souleymane TUO, SLAVE REBELLION IN ANDRE PHILIPPUS BRINK’S AN INSTANT IN THE WIND.……………………………………………122 - 139 9. Dolourou SORO, A MARXIST READING OF ERNEST GAINES’ A LESSON BEFORE DYING.……………………………………………………………140 - 156 10. Tié Emmanuel TOH BI, POÉTIQUE TRAGIQUE ET TRAGÉDIE, POUR L’ESQUISSE D’UNE POÉTIQUE DU TRAGIQUE DANS LA POÉSIE NÉGRO-AFRICAINE; UNE ILLUSTRATION DU MICROCOSME IVOIRIEN DANS LA MÈRE ROUGE DE CEDRIC MARSHALL KISSY.…………157 - 178 11. Paul KOUABENAN, THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF ART: A STUDY OF CHINUA ACHEBE’S NO LONGER AT EASE, A MAN OF THE PEOPLE AND ANTHILLS OF THE SAVANNAH.………………………………………178 - 192 12. Renais Ulrich KACOU, COLONIALISM AND RACISM IN TSITSI DANGAREMBGA’S THE BOOK OF NOT.………………………………193 - 203 13. Adiele Kilanko ZANNOU, THE AMERICAN DREAM IN LANGSTON HUGHES’ SELECTED POEMS.…………………………………………204 - 226 14. Jean Jacques Gnahoua SABLÉ, LA LITTERATURE COMME UN EXAMEN DE MEMOIRE, D’OUBLI ET DE RECONCILIATION.……………….227 - 235 15. Aliou Badara KANDJI, VIOLENCE, INCEST AND DELAYED DECODING IN THE SCOTTISH BALLAD, “EDWARD, EDWARD” (CHILD 13)...236 - 244 16. Pierre KRAMOKO, THE HOMELESS HOUSEHOLD: A REFLECTION ON THE FAMILY IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA AND SONG OF SOLOMON.…………………………………………………………………245 - 259 17. Désiré Yssa KOFFI, THE VOICE IN THE PERIPHERY: BLACK CULTURE IN TONI MORRISON’S TAR BABY.………………………260 - 272 18. Minata KONÉ, THE NGURARIO OR MARRIAGE IN FICTION AND REAL LIFE.……………………………………………………………….273 - 285 19. Daouda COULIBALY, THE DRAMATIZATION OF THE FEMALE BODY: DISCOURSES OF RESISTANCE AND POWER IN OF EVE ENSLER’S THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES.……………………………………………286 - 298 VIOLENCE, INCEST AND DELAYED DECODING IN THE SCOTTISH BALLAD, “EDWARD, EDWARD” (CHILD 13) Alioune Badara KANDJI Maître de conférences de littératures anglaises Aliou DIOUF Laboratoire d’Études et de Recherches Anglophones (LERA) Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines Université Cheikh Anta Diop Dakar, Sénégal INTRODUCTION In traditional societies, the sense of honour and its guiding principles were sometimes impediments to the freedom of the individual. Codes and values codified by the community controlled the lives of its members. Acceptance and sympathy of the group strongly depended upon the delicacy with which the individual regarded moral codes in vigour. No breaking of the rules established by ancestors or the former lineage was tolerated. Those who broke or trod upon these codes often went in disgrace, albeit eliminated. Through many tales of oral literature, instances of repudiation or elimination of people who commit repulsive acts are mentioned. Ballad composers, like the other folk storytellers, were willing to dramatize those social occurrences. But the tone and the details they used responded to a very special way of narration which subdued the emotional core. This art of delaying information is termed hermeneutic code (Barthes 1970; Diagne 2005). Indeed, when it comes to taboos, ancient societies found a well controlled technique of distorting and disjointing the linear phases of any discussion related to the drama of their lives1. Even if the incident is referred to, it is rendered in a cryptic and enigmatic way which alleviates the crudity of the facts. The hermeneutic code is often referred to as a method to procrastinate discourse information. Its use in balladry rests upon a high sense of encoding and decoding domestic messages. In the ballad “Edward, Edward” (Child 13), the clue to the dialogue between mother and son is procrastinated until the ultimate term of revelation: the last line. The delaying code used in this ballad highlights a sense of artistic communication which hides the truth of the murder of the younger brother by the elder till the end of the dialogue. From query to query, and from question to question, the mother inquires about the blood-tattered garments 236 of her elder son. The latter, not without a cautious sinuosity, delays, as long as possible, the truth of having murdered his younger brother, John. The depth of the emotions the reader feels when reading a tragic ballad such as “Edward, Edward” may overcome the unjustified negative perception he may have of ballad narratives as violent archaic fixed period pieces. None the less, analyzing the intricacies of love affairs in primitive societies should widen our understanding of human passion. These old fragments of sibling incest offer a symbolic occasion to rewrite the drama of the past and get insight into their techniques of dramatising taboos and prohibitions. “Edward, Edward” echoes other ballads about symbolic violence such as: “Lizie Wan” (Child 51), “The Cruel Mother” (Child 20), Lord Randal (Child 12), etc. In these “Domestic Tragedy ballads”, a concept we borrowed from James Twitchell in The Incest Theme and the Authenticity of the Percy Version of “Edward” (1975: 32). When reading “Edward, Edward” in its three versions collected in Percy’s Reliques (1765) and Motherwell’s Minstrelsy (1827), the reader perceives better the pedagogical and how incest is developed in balladry and for which reasons ballad composers had recourse to a delayed decoding when narrating such incidents. This hermeneutic perspective of analysis may foster a considerable interest in revisiting the traditional tales, as a case in point, Edward, Edward. English and Scottish border ballads are undoubtedly unfathomable documents that hint at the most delicate questions related to human nature. Analyzing them by knitting close correspondences with the vision and technique of folktales from the Senegambia can forcibly foster a new decoding approach to oral texts. This study will first lay emphasis on the brutal and tragic atmosphere which prevails in revenge and incest ballads, then it will interpret the delayed decoding in the dialogue between mother and son in “Edward, Edward” and it will ultimately analyse all the speech acts which contribute to the encoding-decoding technique. I. Violence and Revenge in Sibling Incest Ballads English, Scottish balladry like African folktale narrative overlaps many themes. The readers of these oral texts experience an exciting journey in the depths of a past epoch where they encounter a multitude of places, characters and situations. The impulse one feels when reading ballads is very striking. Dealing “almost entirely with the circle of the life of the body, with birth, instinctive action, death, and the decay of the body” (Speirs 1935: 45), ballads are 237 reenactments of the main questions that affect folk lives. Their composition is an attempt to respond to situations which upset the serenity of their existence. The terror, horror and the uncanny, which prevailed at that period, forced those people to imagine violent tales in order to deliver warning messages. War, rapt, rape and revenge coalesced in both the tone and the discourse of the ballads. Ballad composers and their audience ultimately dramatize murder and revenge in order to sensitize people about the follies and