African Oral Literature

Release on 1992 | by Isidore Okpewho

" --Dan Ben-Amos "This is an outstanding book by a scholar whose work has already influenced how African literature should be conceived. . . . Professor Okpewho is a scholar with a special talent to nurture scholarship in others.

Author: Isidore Okpewho
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025320710X
Category: Literary Criticism
Page: 392
View: 778

African Oral Literature

". . . its pages come alive with wonderful illustrative material coupled with sensitve and insightful commentary." --Reviews in Anthropology " . . . the scope, breadth, and lucidity of this excellent study confirm that Okpewho is undoubtedly the most important authority writing on African oral literature right now . . . " --Research in African Literatures "Truly a tour de force of individual scholarship . . . " --World Literature Today " . . . excellent . . . " --African Affairs " . . . a thorough synthesis of the main issues of oral literature criticism, as well as a grounding in experienced fieldwork, a wide-ranging theoretical base, and a clarity of argument rare among academics." --Multicultural Review "This is a breathtakingly ambitious project . . . " --Harold Scheub " . . . a definitive accounting of the evidence of living oral traditions in Africa today. Professor Okpewho's authority as an expert in this important new field is unrivaled." --Gregory Nagy "Isidore Okpewho's African Oral Literature is a marvelous piece of scholarship and wide-ranging research. It presents the most comprehensive survey of the field of oral literature in Africa." --Emmanuel Obiechina " . . . a tour de force of scholarship in which Okpewho casts his net across the African continent, searching for its verbal forms through voluminous recent writings and presents African oral literature in a new voice, proclaiming the literariness of African folklore." --Dan Ben-Amos "This is an outstanding book by a scholar whose work has already influenced how African literature should be conceived. . . . Professor Okpewho is a scholar with a special talent to nurture scholarship in others. After this work, African literature will never be the same." --Mazisi Kunene Isidore Okpewho, for many years Professor of English at the University of Ibadan, is one of the handful of African scholars who has facilitated the growth of African oral literature to its status today as a literary enterprise concerned with the artistic foundations of human culture. This comprehensive critical work firmly establishes oral literature as a landmark of high artistic achievement and situates it within the broader framework of contemporary African culture.

Language: en
Pages: 392

African Oral Literature

Authors: Isidore Okpewho, Professor of Africana Studies English and Comparative Literature Isidore Okpewho

Categories: Literary Criticism

Type: BOOK - Published: 1992 - Publisher: Indiana University Press

Language: en
Pages: 614

Oral Literature in Africa

Authors: Ruth Finnegan

Categories: Social Science

Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-09 - Publisher: Open Book Publishers

Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa was first published in 1970, and since then has been widely praised as one of the most important books in its field. Based on years of fieldwork, the study traces the history of storytelling across the continent of Africa. This revised edition makes Finnegan's

Language: en
Pages: 285

African Oral Literature

Authors: Russell Kaschula

Categories: Folk literature, African

Type: BOOK - Published: 2001 - Publisher: New Africa Books

Throughout Africa, oral literature is flourishing, though it is perceived by some as anachronistic to the modern world. This work refutes this idea in its entirety by presenting 22 chapters, which firmly place the study of oral literature within contemporary African existence. The study analyzes how oral literature relates to

Language: en
Pages: 256

Introduction to African Oral Literature and Performance

Authors: Bayo Ogunjimi, Abdul Rasheed Naʼallah

Categories: Literary Criticism

Type: BOOK - Published: 2005 - Publisher: Africa World Press

This book brings together in one volume two earlier books by the authors, now revised to meet the callenges of 21st century scholarship in African performance and cultural studies. Topics covered range from sources of oral traditions, the relevance of cosmology to oral performance, myths and legends, occupational and heroic