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Prayer to the Masks | Introduction

Over the course of his long career as a writer, philosopher, and statesman, the Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar Senghor has inspired countless young writers throughout the French-speaking world. Along with Aimé Cesaire and Léon Damas, he founded the négritude movement, which argued that the black people of colonial Africa and the Caribbean should take pride in their African roots and find in their native traditions an inspiration for a new literature and a new way of life. Senghor went on to put these ideas into practice in his wide field of activity. He wrote voluminously as a poet and as a philosopher of the new culture and politics of African independence from colonial rule. In the political arena, he was one of the major architects of independence for his own country, Senegal, and for French West Africa more generally. He served as president of Senegal for two decades.

"Prayer to the Masks" is typical of Senghor's writing throughout his long career, although it comes from his first collection, Songs of the Shadow, published in 1945. It exhibits clearly the features that would characterize his poetic writing: the use of African themes and settings, the highly rhythmic long lines reminiscent of the Bible and Walt Whitman, the evocations of music and song, and the contrast of the vitality of a mythic (and future) Africa with the present of both Europe and Africa under colonialism. It is the poem of a young man seeking to connect with a past he senses will give him inspiration to struggle past the damaged life of the present to forge a better future for himself and his people.

Prayer to the Masks Summary

Lines 1-4
The poem begins with an "apostrophe," an address to an object or spirit. Here, as the title indicates, this address is a prayer to the masks, which appear in the poem both as works of African art and as more general spirits of African culture, society, and history. The poet lists the colors of the masks as black, red, black-and-white, thus also suggesting the reference of the masks as symbols of race and skin color. In the third line, Senghor suggests that these masks are also spirits of nature, linked to the winds that blow from the four directions of north, south, east, and west. As spirits that blow, they also imply that the masks are related to the poet's breath and poetic inspiration. As the fourth line indicates, he greets them with silence, as if listening to what the mask-spirits will whisper to him on the wind.

Lines 5-7
The poet introduces his family's guardian animal, the lion, symbol of aristocratic virtue and courage. Traditionally these animals were thought to be the first ancestor and the protector of the family line. In mentioning his lion-headed ancestor, Senghor refers to the name of his father, Diogoye, which in his native Serer language means lion. In ceremonies where masks would be used, the family might be represented by a lion mask. In lines 6 and 7, Senghor further reinforces the implications of long tradition and patriarchal power. The lion guards the ground that is forbidden to women and to passing things, in favor of values, memories, and customs that stretch back into mythic antiquity.

Lines 8-10
These lines develop a complex relation between the faces of the ancestors, the poet's face, and the masks. Line 8 speaks of the masks as idealized... » Complete Prayer to the Masks Summary