Week 2 EL 114 African Literature PDF

 African Literature Characterize African Literature. Discuss the prevailing ethos, ideas, and philosophies behind the chosen literary text.  History -The origins of Afric...

 African Literature Characterize African Literature. Discuss the prevailing ethos, ideas, and philosophies behind the chosen literary text.  History -The origins of African Literature can be dated back thousands of years to Ancient Egypt through hieroglyphs, or pictorial representations of words. - 17th Century & 19th Century Arabic Poetry -Greco–Roman and other European culture & literature- unique literary form - Colonization - Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy -between 16th & 19th Century Slavery (African Diaspora)- Atlantic slave trade History - African Diaspora is the term commonly used to describe the mass dispersion of peoples from Africa during the Transatlantic Slave Trades, from the 1500s to the 1800s - 19th Century -Sub - Saharan Africa developed a written literature - visiting Christian missionaries - Mid- 2oth Century marked the explosion of African Literature - Negritude Language Before colonialism, Africans would tell their stories orally and through performance, sometimes using music as well. After colonialism, the African writers started to write in European languages such as English, Portuguese, and French. Historical Influences focus on themes of freedom and independence, questions of identity and liberation between 1881 and 1914 ‘Scramble for Africa’, numerous European powers took control of most of Africa slave trade - lasted approximately four hundred years African Writers and Poets slave narratives protests against colonization calls for independence African pride hope for the future dissent Types of African literature Oral African literature Performance, tone, riddles, and proverbs Types of African literature Pre-colonial African literature Pre-colonial African literature is the literature written between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries and includes the Atlantic slave trade. Anansi Sungura Types of African literature Colonial African literature Between the end of World War I and African independence (the date of which depends on the different countries, such as Ghana's 1957 independence from British control and Algeria's independence in 1962 from France). It contained themes of independence, liberation and négritude. Types of African literature Post-colonial African literature  Relationship between modernity and tradition, the relationship between Africa’s past and Africa’s present, individuality and collectivism, the notion of foreignness and indigenous, capitalism and socialism, and what it means to be African.  Famous African literature includes: 1. Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe 2. Purple hibiscus by  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 3. Half of a yellow sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 4. Beloved by Toni Morrison Themes of African literature 1. colonialism 2. tradition 3. displacement 4. liberation 5. nationalism