Introduction to African

Literature
Mrs. Joyce
English II
 Important Facts about the African continent

 Second to Asia in size

– 12 million square miles
 Humans originated in
Africa
 1,000 languages are
spoken by hundreds
of ethnic groups
 5,000 years ago,
earliest civilization
developed in Egypt
 Religious Beliefs
 Hundreds of different
religious systems.
Polytheistic with a supreme
god and lesser gods.
 Belief in ancestral spirits;
souls of ancestral spirits
spoke on their behalf
 Personal god (chi) controls
a person’s destiny
 Christianity came to
Ethiopia in 350
 Islam came to northern
Africa in 640-710
 African Music
 Polyrhythmic- complex, interlocking
rhythms by beating drums, striking bells,
clapping hands, and stamping feet
 Call and response- chorus repeats a lead
singer’s words in response
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsDKK
Y6vmjE
 Masked Dances
 Events in agricultural
year
 Ceremonies marking
rites of passage
 Rites of secret
societies
 Curing the sick
 Oral Literature
 The griot is a learned
storyteller, poet,
entertainer, historian
 They have been handing
down their oral culture
for over 4,000 years
 Griots accompany their
stories with music
 It takes them years to
learn the vast repertoire
of traditional songs,
melodies and rhythms
 Transmission of the Stories
 Use of mnemonic devices
 Refrains- repeated lines
 Repeat and vary- lines or phrases are
repeated with slight variations
 Tonal assonance- tones in which syllables
are spoken determine the meaning of
words
 Call and response
Different Themes of Oral Tradition
 Histories of ethnic and kingship devices
 Legends of cultural heroes
 Trickster stories
 Animal fables
 Proverbs and riddles
 Songs of praise for chiefs and kings
 Chinua Achebe
 Born Albert Chinualumogu  One of the founders of
Achebe on Nov 16,1930 in Nigerian literary
a large village in Nigeria movement that drew
 Child of a Protestant upon indigenous culture
missionary
 Received early education
in English
 Went to college and
studied history and
theology
 In college, he dropped
Christian name for native
name
 Things Fall Apart
 Written in 1950’s but proverbs and folktales
set in the 1890’s (just
before colonization)
 A backlash to Joseph
Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness which
represents African
culture as primitive
 Uses simple
sentences, imagery,
and African