Literatures of Africa, Arabia, and Australia PDF

Literatures of Africa, Arabia, and Australia Archie John Blas AFRICA – 2nd largest continent next to Asia. It covers more than ONE – FIFTH of all the earth's surface. It comprises 46 countries and territories. Islam- Dominant religion. The literary tradition of Africa became richer than...

Literatures of Africa, Arabia, and Australia Archie John Blas AFRICA – 2nd largest continent next to Asia. It covers more than ONE – FIFTH of all the earth's surface. It comprises 46 countries and territories. Islam- Dominant religion. The literary tradition of Africa became richer than ever as it gained artistic and sophisticated expression in different languages. Traditional languages became vehicles of cultural thoughts.  LITERARY BACKGROUND Universal racial political Experiences civil wars discrimination conflicts of man: gender feminism human rights sensitivity THE RISE OF AFRICA’S GREAT CIVILIZATION NEGRITUDE The literary movement of the 1930s-1950s that began among French- speaking African and Caribbean writers living in Paris as a protest against French colonial rule and the policy of assimilation.  A sudden grasp of racial identity and of cultural values and an awareness of the wide discrepancies which existed between the promise of the French system of assimilation and the reality.  Three Fathers of Negritude 1. Aime Cesaire 2.Leon Gontran Damas 3.Leopold Sedar Senghor  ORAL LITERATURE Oral literature, also called as “orature,” have flourished in Africa for many centuries and take a variety of forms including folk tales, myths, epics, funeral dirges, praise poems, and proverbs.  Myths usually explain the interrelationships of all things that exist, and provide for the group and its members a necessary sense of their place in relation to their environment and the forces that order events on earth. Epics are elaborate literary forms, usually performed only by experts on special occasions. They often recount the heroic exploits of ancestors.  FUNERAL DIRGES Dirges, chanted during funeral ceremonies, lament the departed, praise his/her memory, and ask for his/her protection.  Praise Poems Praise poems are epithets called out in reference to an object (a person, a town, an animal, a disease, and so on) in celebration of its outstanding qualities and achievements.  Praise poems have a variety of applications and functions. Professional groups often create poems exclusive to them. Prominent chiefs might appoint a professional performer to compile their praise poems and perform them on special occasions. Professional performers of praise poems might also travel from place to place and perform for families or individuals for alms or a small fee. PROVERBS Proverbs are short, witty or ironic statements, metaphorical in its formulation which aim to communicate a response to a particular situation, to offer advice, or to be persuasive.  WRITTEN LITERATURE includes novels, plays, poems, hymns, and tales.  A discussion of written African literatures raises a number of complicated and complex problems and questions that only can be briefly sketched out here. The first problem concerns the small readership for African literatures in Africa. Over 50% of Africa's population is illiterate, and hence many Africans cannot access written literatures.  The scarcity of books available, the cost of those books, and the scarcity of publishing houses in Africa exacerbate this already critical situation. Despite this, publishing houses do exist in Africa, and in countries such as Ghana and Zimbabwe, African publishers have produced and sold many impressive works by African authors, many of which are written in African languages.  Scholars have identified three waves of literacy in Africa The first occurred in Ethiopia where written works have been discovered that appeared before the earliest literatures in the Celtic and Germanic languages of Western Europe.  The second wave of literacy moved across Africa with the spread of Islam. Soon after the emergence of Islam in the seventh century, its believers established themselves in North Africa through a series of jihads, or holy wars. In the 11th and 12th centuries, Islam was carried into the kingdom of Ghana. The religion continued to move eastward through the 19th century.  The encounter with Europe through trade relationships, missionary activities, and colonialism propelled the third wave of literacy in Africa. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, literary activity in the British colonies was conducted almost entirely in vernacular languages.  Missionaries found it more useful to translate the Bible into local languages than to teach English to large numbers of Africans. This resulted in the production of hymns, morality tales, and other literatures in African languages concerned with propagating Christian values and morals. The first of these "Christian- inspired African writings" emerged in South Africa  The written literatures, novels, plays, and poems in the 1950s and 60s have been described as literatures of testimony. The African authors who produced literatures in European languages have been described as literatures of revolt.  These texts move away from the project of recuperating and reconstructing an African past and focus on responding to, and revolting against, colonialism and corruption. These literatures are more concerned with the present realities of African life, and often represent the past negatively.  FAMOUS LITERARY WORKS POEMS Paris in the Snow swings between assimilation of French, European culture or negritude; intensified by the poet’s catholic piety. Totem by Leopold Senghor shows the eternal linkage of the living with the dead. Letters to Martha by Dennis Brutus is the poet’s most famous collection that speaks of the humiliation, the despondency, the indignity of prison life. Train Journey by Dennis Brutus reflects the poet’s social commitment as he reacts to poverty around him amidst material progress especially and acutely felt by the victims, the children. Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka is the poet’s most anthologized poem that reflects Negritude. The dialogue reveals the landlady’s deep-rooted prejudice the colored people as the caller plays up on it. Africa by David Diop is a poem that achieves its impact by a series of climactic sentences and rhetorical questions. Song of Lawino by Okot P’Bitek is a sequence of poem about the clash between African and Western values and regarded as the first important poem in “English to from Eastern Africa.” Lawino’s song is a pleas for the Ugandans to look back to traditional village life and African values. NOVELS  The Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono points out the dillusionmentt of Toundi, a boy who leaves his parents maltreatment to enlist his services as an acolyte to a missionary. After the priest’s death, he becomes a helper a white plantation owner, discovers the liaison of his master’s wife, and gets murdered later in the woods as catch up with him. Toundi symbolizes the and the coming of age, and utters despondency of the Camerooninans over the corruption and immortality of whites. The novel is developed in the form of a recit, the French style of a diary-like confessional work.  Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe depicts a vivid picture of Africa before the colonization by the British. The novel laments over the disintegration of Nigerian represented in the story by Ok-wonko, once a respected chieftain who loses his leadership and falls from grace the coming of the whites. Cultural values are woven the plot to mark its authenticity: polygamy since the is Muslim; tribal law is held supreme by the gwugwu, respected elders in the community; a man’s social status is determined by the people’s esteem and by possession of fields of yams and physical prowess; community life is in drinking sprees, funeral wakes, and sports festivals.  No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe is a sequel to Things Fall Apart. A returning hero fails to cope disgrace and social pressure. Okwonko’s son has to up to the expectations of the Umuofians, after a scholarship in London, where he reads literature, law as expected of him, he has to dress up, he must have a car, he has to maintain his social standing, he should not marry an Ozu, an outcast. In the end, tragic hero succumbs to temptation, he, too bribes, and therefore is “no longer at ease  The River Between by James Ngugi shows the clash of traditional values and contemporary ethics and mores. The Honia River is symbolically taken as metaphor of tribal and Christian unity – the Makuyu tribe conducts Christian rites while the Kamenos hold circumcision rituals. Muthoni, the heroine, although a new-born Christian, desires the pagan ritual. She dies in the end but Waiyaki, the teacher, does teach vengeance against Joshua, the leader of the but unity with them. Ngugi poses co-existence of religion people’s lifestyle at the same time stressing the influence of education to enlighten people about their socio-political responsibilities. Heirs to the Past by Driss Chraili is an allegorical, parable like novel. After 16 years of absence, the anti- hero Driss returnd to Morocco for his father’s funeral. The Signeur his legacy via a tape recorder in which he tells the family members his last will and testament. Each chapter in the reveals his relationship with them, and at the same time bare the psychology of these people. His older brother, was ‘born once and had died several times’ because of his childishness and irresponsibility.  The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka is about a group of young intellectuals who function as artists in their with one another as they try to place themselves in context of the world about them. MAJOR WRITERS  Wole Soyinka 1st black African – Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. A Dance of the Forests, The Interpreters, Mandela’s Earth  Okot P’ Bitek Interests: African and Western Cultures Song of Lawino, Song of Ocol, African Religions and Western Scholarship, Religion pf the Central Luo, Horn of My Love Chinua Achebe Emergent Africa at its moment of crisis Things Fall Apart Arrow of God A Man of the People  Nadine Gordimer Received Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. The Soft Voice of the Serpent, Burger ’s Daughter July’s People  Ousmane Sembene Intense commitment to political and social change. O My Country My Beautiful People God’s Bits of Wood The Storm  Bessie Head Suffered rejection and alienation. When Rain Clouds Gather A Question of Power The Collector of Treasure4s  Barbara Kimenye 12 books on children’s stories known as Moses series. Kalasandra Revisited The Smugglers The Money Game