SOURCE: Dixon, Melvin. Introduction to The Collected Poetry, by Léopold Sédar Senghor, pp. xxi-xli. Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1991.

In the following introduction to Senghor's collected poetry, Dixon summarizes Senghor's life and work, focusing variously on his writings and political career.

The election of Léopold Sédar Gnilane Senghor to the French Academy in 1983 marked yet another milestone in the fifty-year career of the poet and former president of the Republic of Senegal. He became the first African and the only black intellectual among the forty life members of the 349-year-old Academy. Widely respected in France as an association of the most distinguished intellectuals, the Academy monitors the growth of the French language by compiling a dictionary of acceptable new words and usage. Senghor's admission to this august body of writers and scholars represents more than the personal triumph of a single poet. It...