FACULTY OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERARY STUDIES

COURSE OUTLINE AND LECTURE NOTES (2ND SEMESTER 2020/2021 SESSION)

COURSE CODE: ELS 252

COURSE TITLE: AFRICAN ORAL LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course pays attentions to the different sub-genres of oral literature and the methods of classification and analysis; it also studies the evolution, transmission and sources, as well as, the performance and context of performance of oral poetry, and written literature of different African cultures and how different writers have, exploited the resources of African Oral Literature in their works.

African Oral or Folk Poetry

Oral Epics; D. T. Nianes Sundiata the Epic of Mali

i; J. P. Clark, Ozidi Saga, and Maneniaga, Elima Ngado Epic.

Lyrice and songs: by Mike Ejiagha, Osita Osadebe, the Une music of Amodu Awkunanaw in Enugu State, Okonkwo Asaa of Anambra State.

Others are lyrics and songs with the traditional Ubo (harp) rattle, ekwe (gong), Ogene (gong).

Religious Poetry, Songs, or Hymns.

Occult or esoteric masquerade song

Funeral Dirge and Elegiac Poetry

Children’s Plays, Games, and Songs

Folk Drama, Dancing, Drumming, and Masquerading.

African Oral Literature in Translation

These include translations into English, French, Germany, and other languages by African writers: Amons Tutuola, Fagunwa Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Romanus Egudu, Etc. Aspects of Oral Literature are available in all African novels, dramas and poems.

Texts to be reviewed/studied

Amos Tutuola, The Palm Wine Drink

D. O. Fagunwa, The Forest of a Thousand Demons (Translation by Soyinka)

Cyprian Ekwensi, Burning Grass

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart 

Arrow of God

Elechi Amadi, The Concubine

The Slave

The great Ponds

Romanus N. Egudu, The Calabash of Wisdom and Other Igbo Stories.

Romanus Egudu and Donatus Ibe Nwogo, Igbo Peotic Heritage

Ngugi wa Thiong’a, Devil on the Cross

Nwabueze Chukwurah, Mystery Under the Sun

F. B. O. Akporobaro, Introduction to African Oral Literature. Lagos: Priceton Publishing Company, 2012

Isidone Okpewho (edu) The Oral Performance in Africa. Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 1990.

Melville and Frances Herkovits, Dahomean Narratives 1958

Note

The literary works listed in Section 7 above, should be acquired in advance by students for critical study and indepth analysis. The course Lecturer has them for references only.

ELS 223 AFRICAN ORAL LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION LECTURE NOTE

African Oral or Folk Poetry

The Epic is a long narrative poem which celebrates the deeds of a traditional, national or historical hero who has achieved a lot for his nation or for mankind in general. An epic hero is usually a man gifted with superhuman or supernatural qualities which he uses selflessly in the interest of the society and for which never forgets him.

Earliest epics are: Homer’s The lliad and The Odyssey; John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, etc. All epics have very serious themes and are full of dramtic conflicts, with supernatural forces, sometimes playing major roles for or against the hero, who, of course emerges victorious in the end.

SUMMARIES

D.T Niane; The Epic of Sundiate known also as The Epic of Mali. Mali is in West Africa. Sundiate (or Sunjata), the son of the king Nare Maghan is born lame by his mother Sogolon Kedju after eight years of pregnancy. His birth is heralded by natural forces:dark clouds covering the bright sky; winds bending and pulling down trees; rain falling in torrants never seen before during the dry season; lightining and thunder shaking houses and even the ground. All of a sudden, Sundiata is born and his father King Nare Maghan announces; ‘’let us welcome my son, the lion of Manding’__ his father named him ‘’ Maghan Djata’’;  His mother names him ‘’Sogolon (or Sundiate) Djata’’, 

Surprisingly, Sundiate is an ugly child with a head too large for his body; large eyes; legs too weak to support his body. He eats a lot but keeps crawling even at the age of seven. His father assigns to him a griot Bella Fasake to teach Sundiata the history of his people to be a good king and inherit the kingdom of his ancestors.

A crisis soon occurs. The king dies. His jealous second wife Sasuma Berete who hates Sundiata and his mother Sogolon Kedju (the Buffalo Woman) succeeds in making her own son Dankarantuma, the king of Manding. She use to taunt Sologon: ‘’I ‘ am glad that I have an ordinary son who can walk instead of your lion cub who crawls.’’ As far as the people are concerned ‘’ who has ever heard of a crippled king?’’ Consequently the cruel Queen (so to say) Sasuma Berete orders Sogolon and her son, Sundiata out of the palace to a small garden outside the village to live there.

The humiliations and insults from her co-wife become unbearable for Sogolon and Sundiata who tries to console his mother:

“Mother, I do not want you to cry any more over boab leaves and my weak legs. I will stand before  the sun sleeps! And, if you wish, I will bring you the whole boab tree as soon as the sun begin its journey…. But first you must ask our blacksmith to forge a very strong metal staff for me.’’

The first and second metal staffs could not sustain Sundiata weight and strength; they break. The third ‘’ staff of gold’’ twists like a bow--- a wondrous bow—with which he gets up standing and his life changes- to the admiration of the people of Niani.

Sundiata uproots and replants the boab tree behind his mother’s hut saying 

‘’Now, Mother, the people of Naini will have to come to you for their boab leaves’’.     But his travails are not yet over. Hostility from his wicked half-brother Dankaratuma drives him and his mother out of Mali. They go into exile where he serves as a warrior in foreign land and becomes a general. From there he enlists a fighting force that enables him to come back home; defeats the forces of Dankaratuma and takes over his father’s kingdom to the joy of his people.

Note that all Epic Heroes are men of extraordinary birth, character and strength. They are often endowed with magical or superhuman qualities with which they conquer their enemies before they achieve their destinies.

J.P. Clark Bekederemo; Ozidi: Zaga

The Ozidi Saga, just like Sundiata is an oral epic. The epic is of the Izon people of the Niger Delta State of Nigeria. Ozidi, an epic hero is naturally a very strong warlord who has fought many wars in defence and in honour of his people and their kings for time to time. Eventually, Ozidi’s brother is crowned king, but unlike earlier who ruled and died, Temugedege is not accorded rights due to him.

Ozidi, Temugedege’ brother openly demands from the people the rights and privileges due to Temugedege. He vents his anger on the people. He abuses them openly.

“Look, this state of Orua, this territory of Tarakiru, so you have made a slave of me; I who have gone and killed men for you to grace your kings; so you, now that my brother is king, I being the man of the small ward, you have indeed refused to come by my house up till this day, may your heads all be laid down and chopped in piecemeal.

May you perish to a man.

Let not one of you be left standing.

Indeed, are you men?

Consequently, the town people meet and decide to kill Ozidi. They succed, in spite of his wife Orea’s plea that Ozidi must not go meet the people: Agbogidi and his group; Ogueren and his gang; Ofe and his followers; Azezabife and his fighters; indeed everybody is there.

On arrival they all descend on Ozidi with blows, sticks, and pummel him down. Ozidi could have killed all of them but he drops his sword without striking anyone. They kill him but could not cut Ozidi’s head even with machetes, until they cover his face with cocoyam leaves.

His son Ozidi Junior, in a mission of revenge, involving heroic deeds, battles blood bath, power and magic decimates the mutinous forlks.

(The above story is told over 7 nights).

(C) Thomas Mopoku’Mofolo chaka The Zulu

Chaka (or Shaka) The Zulu, is a epical tragedy that describes the rise and subsequent fall of a hero whose pact with exile forces brings about one of strength of the novel lies primarily in its characterization of the hero, Chaka, portrayed as a man with possibilities that have gone tragically wrong.

The text as translated my Mofolo, is a CLASSIC which presents Chaka the Zulu King, as a hero and as a fully realized tragic character.

(Because of issues the work raises, we have read the text as a pilot project in the lecture room.)

General Notes:

Other literature texts listed above happen to be texts we have read but would be fully reviewed to x-ray aspects of oral literature translated in them to illuminate the various themes of the texts.

Course Lecturer: Prof. M. A. Ezugu

C : MAE 2020

This course teaches the students different techniques involved in research methodology.