AVENTURE INTERIEUR : MOTIF DU VOYAGE DANS « AU BOUT DE L’ITINERAIRE » D’ADIYI MARTINS BESTMAN

Abstract

If it is true that a poet has the magical powers to traverse the entire universe in his quest to make known the unknown and, to bring to bear the invisible as postulated by Neftali, it is equally true that he advertently or inadvertently travels across the universe to unveil hidden mysteries as well as search for answers that will satisfy his curiosity. It is possible that this adventure may not always be physical considering his limitations as human but, also spiritual given that, the spiritual controls the physical as it is popularly believed. A critical inquest into one of Bestman’s finest poems “Au bout de l’itinéraire ‘’ shows clearly that the persona took a cruise into various continents of the world within a short period of time and within his fictional universe. This is further explained by the appearance of the word “Journey – l’itinéraire” which makes its first appearance in the title of the poem. Consequently, we have chosen to assert that he embarked on a “voyage “to various parts of the universe and even beyond as stated in the poem. He took off from France to America, to London, to his creature “au ciel” and finally back to Africa. The questions begging for answers now are; what kind of voyage? Could he have been able to journey through these continents physically within a short period of time? Even if it were to be possible with the physical world, what do we have to say about the spiritual where he met with his creator to seek for refuge? A deep reflection on these questions formed the basis of our research. The research unveiled the means through which the persona travelled across various continents in two different “world” within the period of his inquest. The research established the fact that the poet’s journey is imaginary, not physical. This journey is divided into different ideological spaces as represented by the places he visited. We further made an inquest into the subject of the poet’s objective.