Tennyson - "The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson"

Matthew L. Davis - "Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Volume 2."

William Shakespeare - "Die Irrungen (The Comedy of Errors)"

Various - "Georgian Poetry 1918 19"

Editorial
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Forty Two Poems

J >> James Elroy Flecker >> Forty Two Poems




Then Aflatun and Aristu
Addressed the silver Lord anew,
Speaking their language of Yoonistan
Like countrymen to a countryman.

And "Whence," they cried, "O Sons of Pride,
Sail you the dark eternal tide?
Lie your halls to the South or North,
And who is the King that sent you forth?"

"We live," replied that Lord with a smile,
"A mile beyond the millionth mile.
We know not South and we know not North,
And SULTAN ISKANDER sent us forth."

Said Aristu to Aflatun -
"Surely our King, despondent soon,
Has sent this second ship to find
Unconquered tracts of humankind."

But Aflatun turned round on him
Laughing a bitter laugh and grim.
"Alas," he said, "O Aristu,
A white weak thin old fool are you.

"And does yon silver Ship appear
As she had journeyed twenty year?
And has that silver Captain's face
A mortal or Immortal grace?

"Theirs is the land (as well I know)
Where live the Shapes of Things Below:
Theirs is the country where they keep
The Images men see in Sleep.

"Theirs is the Land beyond the Door,
And theirs the old ideal shore.
They steer our ship: behold our crew
Ideal, and our Captain too.

"And lo! beside that mainmast tree
Two tall and shining forms I see,
And they are what we ought to be,
Yet we are they, and they are we."

He spake, and some young Zephyr stirred
The two ships touched: no sound was heard;
The Black Ship crumbled into air;
Only the Phantom Ship was there.

And a great cry rang round the sky
Of glorious singers sweeping by,
And calm and fair on waves that shone
The Silver Ship sailed on and on.

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