ABSTRACT
Seemingly overlooked in the US until recently are the works of Leopold Senghor of Senegal and Aimee Cesaire of Martinique. In the vernacular people might say Negritude means 'Black is Beautiful'. But, more elaborately, it is an invitation to have a romance with black people. In these words, however one doesn't find what in the American vernacular is termed 'soul-searching' on the part of the black, or in terms of the black personality. It is essentially what Lloyd Addison has complained about as lacking in the works of too much modern writing. French-speaking writers, however, though of a socialist orientation, are sorting bits and pieces of ideologies emphasizing individualism and collectivism for a new synthesis. But for him there is a personal estrangement in such writings that do not place the individual in the context of the ethnic soul. As for the English-speaking black African writers with which Lloyd Addison is familiar, he finds no particular philosophy.
