Literary Portraits of Chaka: Thomas Mofolo and Mazisi Kunene

Abstract

It appears that most texts described as great works of art today are focused on the literary portraits of men whose actions were remarkable enough to canonize them in art. We may recall for this purpose, Sophocles' sustained aesthetic use of the Greek mythic figure, King Oedipus, in the play of that name. Shakespeare's most persuasive plays are those that explored the tragedy of certain historical personalities. Modern African literature records a fairly long history of an art type in which the activities of historical or legendary figures are immortalized. The texts on Chaka form the seminal works by the modern African writers to retain memories of Africans of significance. However, if often happens that the personality in question may be so controversial that he attracts both positive and negative interpretations as the subject of literature. Such is the contradiction among the images of Chaka. Thus, this paper examines two texts on Chaka, one by Thomas Mofolo and the other by Mazisi Kunene, and establishes the antipodal perceptions of Chaka's image, nothing in particular, the way in which genre choice (romance and epic) becomes part of the interpretation.