Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Armah, Ayi Kwei (Vol. 136) - Kofi Owusu （essay date Spring 1988）

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Kofi Owusu （essay date Spring 1988）

SOURCE: “Armah's F-R-A-G-M-E-N-T-S: Madness as Artistic Paradigm,” in Callaloo, Vol. 11, No. 2, Spring, 1988, pp. 361-70.

[In the following essay, Owusu analyzes the relationship between madness and artistic creativity as evident in Armah's Fragments.]

… I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. …

—Shakespeare, Hamlet

The nature of literary genius has always attracted speculation, and it was, as early as the Greeks, conceived of as related to ‘madness’. … Another early and persistent conception is that of the poet's ‘gift’ as compensatory: the Muse took away the sight of Demodocos's eyes but ‘gave him the lovely gift of song’ …, as the blinded Tiresias is given prophetic vision.

—Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature

The epigraphs from Shakespeare and Wellek and Warren are intended to...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. S. Nyamfukudza （review date 7 March 1980）
   2. Kofi Owusu （essay date Spring 1988）
   3. Ahmed Saber （essay date 1989）
   4. Taban lo Liyong （essay date 1991）
   5. Derek Wright （essay date 1991）
   6. Edward Sackey （essay date Autumn 1991）
   7. Adewale Maja-Pearce （essay date 1993）
   8. Ode S. Ogede （essay date April 1993）
   9. B. M. Ibitokun （essay date Spring/Fall 1993）
   10. Leif Lorentzon （essay date 1994）
   11. K. Damodar Rao （essay date July 1994）
   12. Chinyere Nwahunanya （essay date 1995）
   13. Paul R. Petrie （essay date Summer 1997）
   14. Samuel A. Dseagu （essay date 1998）
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. African Literature