Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Senghor, Léopold Sédar - Newsweek （review date 27 July 1964）

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Newsweek （review date 27 July 1964）

SOURCE: “In Praise of Negritude,” in Newsweek, July 27, 1964, p. 80.

[In the following review, the critic offers praise for Senghor's Selected Poems.]

When a head of state so much as writes his own speeches, it is news; but when he writes a distinguished volume of poems, it is epochal. How often has it happened since King David?

Léopold Sédar Senghor is the President of the infant African Republic of Senegal, and a prominent theoretician who has contributed to black nationalism the world over one of its key terms and central concepts—négritude. Add to all this the fact that he is Africa's principal poet, and an important contemporary poet by any measure, and it is clear that the 58-year-old Senghor is perhaps the closest figure today to the Platonic ideal of the philosopher-king, the political leader who is also a thinker and artist. He is a figure unique in our time:...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Newsweek （review date 27 July 1964）
   2. Gwendolyn Brooks （review date 13 September 1964）
   3. Robert W. July （review date 25 October 1964）
   4. O. R. Dathorne （essay date 1974）
   5. Lilyan Kesteloot （essay date 1974）
   6. Frederick Ivor Case （essay date 1975）
   7. Janis L. Pallister （essay date April 1980）
   8. Dorothy S. Blair （essay date 1984）
   9. Janet G. Vaillant （essay date 1990）
   10. Roger Shattuck and Samba Ka （review date 20 December 1990）
   11. K. Anthony Appiah （review date 5 July 1992）
   12. Isaac I. Elimimian （essay date 1994）
   13. Koffi Anyinefa （essay date Summer 1996）
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. African Literature