Unveiling Melodies: Navigating Issues in African Oral Literature through Nkem Okoh's Preface to Oral Literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36312/jolls.v4i1.1705Keywords:
oral literature, colonialism, performance, audienceAbstract
The oral literature in Africa has not been taken seriously. The implication is that assertion is a fear of its death as many scholars in Africa have given it less attention. To address the gap and deepen the conversation, this study explored Nkem Okoh's Preface to Oral Literature shedding light on its perspective on the ongoing discussions about oral literature in Africa. The goal is to offer a detailed understanding and assessment of African oral literature, using this text as a case study. The analysis relies on postcolonial criticism and a qualitative research approach. Two key questions guide the research: How does Preface to Oral Literature contribute to debates on the form and nature of oral literature in Africa, especially concerning identity reclamation and anticolonialism? How does it criticize Euro-western scholars and their distorted views of Africa as a dark continent, contributing to the wider discourse on oral literature in Africa? The findings highlight challenges in the study of African oral literature, including issues related to naming, etymology, nomenclature, the fundamental nature of oral literature, discussions on aligning it with folklore, ownership and royalty dynamics, and the debate between evolutionist and relativist perspectives. The impact of Western biases on the analysis of African oral literature and challenges linked to understanding the consequences of the changing global literary landscape on the status of oral literature in Africa are also emphasized. The study recommends for further research, the need for a comparative analysis and assessment of the contemporary impact of oral literature in African societies.
Downloads
References
Achebe, C. (1978). An Image of Africa. Research in African Literatures, 9(1), 1–15.
Adesanmi, P. (2008). Africa, India, and the Postcolonial: Notes Towards a Praxis of Inflection. In A. Raji-Oyelade & O. Okunoye (Eds.), The Postcolonial Lamp: Essays in Honour of Dan Izevbaye (pp. 35–72). Ibadan: Bookcraft.
Adichie, C. N. (2009). The Danger of a Single Story. Retrieved October 12, 2023, from https://pulitzercenter.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/The_Danger_of_a_Single_Story-teacher-12.pdf
Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (1989). The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literature. Routledge.
Barry, P. (2002). Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (4th ed.). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Boehmer, E. (2010). Postcolonial writing and terror. In Terror and the Postcolonial (pp. 141-150).
Bunce, M. (2015). International News and the Image of Africa: New Storytellers, New Narratives? In J. Gallagher (Ed.), The Image of Africa: Creation, Negotiation and Subversion (pp. 42–62). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Chukwuma, H. (1994). Igbo Oral Literature: Theory and Tradition. Abak: Belpot (Nig.) Co.
Curtin, P. D. (1964). The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dokotum, O. O. (2020). Hollywood and Africa, Recycling the ‘Dark Continent’ Myth, 1908–2020. Makhanda: NISC (Pty).
Finnegan, R. (2012). Oral Literature in Africa. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.
Gikandi, S. (2011). Foreword: On Afropolitanism. In J. Wawrzinek & J. K. S. Makokha (Eds.), Negotiating Afropolitanism: Essays on Borders and Spaces in Contemporary African Literature and Folklore (pp. 9–11). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Gunner, Elizabeth. "A dying tradition? African oral literature in a contemporary context." Social Dynamics 12.2 (1986): 31-38.
Hall, S. (2003). The Spectacle of the Other. In S. Hall (Ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (pp. 223–290). London: Sage.
Iheka, C. (2021). African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.
Irele, F. A. (2001). African Imagination, Literature in Africa and the Black Diaspora. Oxford University Press.
Jeyifo, B. (2007). In the Wake of Colonialism and Modernity. In Tejumola and Ato Quayson (Eds.), African Literature: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory (pp. 608-613). Blackwell Publishing.
Hountondji, P. J. (2009). Knowledge of Africa, knowledge by Africans: Two perspectives on African studies. RCCS Annual Review, 1, a selection from the Portuguese journal Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais.
Masolo, D. A. (1994). African Philosophy in Search of Identity. Edinburgh University Press.
Mbembe, A. (2001). On the Postcolony. University of California Press.
Mogaji, E. (2021). Africa is not a country: Rebranding and repositioning Africa as a continent. In Marketing Brands in Africa: Perspectives on the Evolution of Branding in an Emerging Market (pp. 237-259). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Mudimbe, V. Y. (1988). The Invention of Africa, Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Indiana University Press.
Nothias, T. (2012). Definition and Scope of Afro-Pessimism: Mapping the Concept and its Usefulness for Analysing News Media Coverage of Africa. Leeds African Studies Bulletin, 74, 54–62.
Ogude, J. (1999). Ngugi's Novels and African History: Narrating the Nation. Pluto Press.
Okoh, N. (2007). Fear of dying: Culture, continuity and discontinuity in Enuani proverbs. In O. Udumukwu (Ed.), Nigerian Literature in English: Emerging Critical Perspectives (pp. 358-377). Grand Orbit Communications Ltd.
Okoh, N. (2010). Preface to Oral Literature. Port Harcourt: Pearl Publishers.
Rene, W., & Austin, W. (1949). Theory of Literature. Homan Ltd.
Self, R. T. (2020). Foreword. In O. O. Dokotum, Hollywood and Africa: Recycling the ‘Dark Continent’ Myth, 1908–2020 (pp. xii–xv). Makhanda: NISC.
Selasi, T. (2013). African literature doesn’t exist—the Savannah review, (2).
Sone, E. M. (2009). What Kind of Literature for Ethical Education in Africa? LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 6, 157–165.
Sone, E. M. (2018). African Oral Literature and the Humanities: Challenges and Prospects. Humanities, 7(2), 30.
Udumukwu, O. (2021). Literary Theory and Criticism: An Introduction. Port Harcourt: Maesa Publishing.
wa Thiong'o, N. (1997). Writers in Politics: A Re-engagement with the Issues of Literature & Society. London: Heinemann.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Okwudiri Anasiudu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with JOLLS agree to the following terms:
- For all articles published in JOLLS, copyright is retained by the authors. Authors permit the publisher to announce the work with conditions. When the manuscript is accepted for publication, the authors agree to implement a non-exclusive transfer of publishing rights to the journals.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
