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Introduction To African Literature

This document provides an overview of African literature and culture, including: - Africa is the second largest continent and is home to over 1,000 languages and hundreds of ethnic groups. - African religions are typically polytheistic and involve belief in ancestral spirits and a personal god controlling one's destiny. Christianity and Islam later spread to parts of Africa. - African music features complex, interlocking rhythms and call-and-response patterns between chorus and lead singer. - Oral tradition plays a central role in African culture, with griots passing down stories, songs, and histories over thousands of years through techniques like repetition and tonal assonance. Famous authors like Chinua Achebe have drawn from these

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Gennelyn Grace Penaredondo
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48 views11 pages

Introduction To African Literature

This document provides an overview of African literature and culture, including: - Africa is the second largest continent and is home to over 1,000 languages and hundreds of ethnic groups. - African religions are typically polytheistic and involve belief in ancestral spirits and a personal god controlling one's destiny. Christianity and Islam later spread to parts of Africa. - African music features complex, interlocking rhythms and call-and-response patterns between chorus and lead singer. - Oral tradition plays a central role in African culture, with griots passing down stories, songs, and histories over thousands of years through techniques like repetition and tonal assonance. Famous authors like Chinua Achebe have drawn from these

Uploaded by

Gennelyn Grace Penaredondo
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Introduction to African

Literature
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  One of the founders of
Chinualumogu Achebe on Nigerian literary
Nov 16,1930 in a large movement that drew
village in Nigeria upon indigenous culture
 Child of a Protestant
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
Introduction to African
Literature

Source:
Introduction to African Literature
joyce-english-greenhope.weebly.com

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