People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research University of 08 Mai 1945 Faculty of Letters and Languages Department of Letters and English Language Presented by: Supervised by: Djelailia Mayssa Miss. Gasmi. F Benrdjem Khawla Benhamouda Hanane Bouamine Dalel Oumedour Sorour Kharfi Fahima Derghal Meriem 2017/2018 Overview of Contemporary Anglophone African Literature; Case study: Toni Morison’s The Bluest Eye
22
Embed
Overview of Contemporary Anglophone African Literature;€¦ · Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African(1789).
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
University of 08 Mai 1945
Faculty of Letters and Languages
Department of Letters and English Language
Presented by: Supervised by:
Djelailia Mayssa Miss. Gasmi. F
Benrdjem Khawla
Benhamouda Hanane
Bouamine Dalel
Oumedour Sorour
Kharfi Fahima
Derghal Meriem
2017/2018
Overview of Contemporary Anglophone African Literature;
Case study: Toni Morison’s The Bluest Eye
2
An Overview of Contemporary Anglophone African Literature
1. Definition of Anglophone African Literature
African literature refers to the literature of the African peoples. The African concept
includes oral literature. We define “Anglophone literature” as literatures in English produced
by writers from nations that are former colonies of Britain, excluding the United States. The
term “Anglophone" highlights the linguistic commonality of these writings.
So, from the above definitions we understand that Anglophone African literarture
refers to lit that is conceived and executed in English by writers of african background.
2. The evolution of the African novel from‘oracy’ to contemporary
novel
Contrary to a misconception which still prevails, the Africans were familiar with
literature and art for many years before their contact with the Western world
2.1 Beginning of the Novel in Africa 1: Orality
It is clear that Africa has a rich oral tradition. African oral tradition carries the African
storytelling tradition with it. It embodies African beliefs and general attitudes to life. The
myth and legends carry the historical realities in the life of the primordial Africans. They
transmit and store the values of their experiences by telling the tales to the younger
generations as guide.
While the novel is a Western form, African writers have helped to shape the genre.
However, African authors embrace an aesthetic that differs from that of Western novelists.
Specifically, African writers use the novel to preserve oral-traditional literature, to inform
3
readers about political and cultural events, and to challenge Western stereotypes and histories
about Africa. Western readers of African novels must be aware of these conventions in order
to appreciate and understand novels written by Africans.
African fiction started as an oral form it has a various influences on the emerging of
the African novel .There was a smooth transition from orature to literature.
2.2 Beginning of the Novel in Africa 2: Pamphleteering
when people started to read and write they did not hesitate at experessing themselves
in pamphlets( pamphlets then were popular and they were used in election compaigns).
People started to write whatever comes in their mind because pamphleteering had no
standard form or guiding rules covering the subject matters. they started to write inorder to
bring African orality into the print.
Also the authors have the joy of being read by others and being classified among the
circleof writers. The pages are usually very few and written in very simple and transliterated
English forms. )
Many Africans who were able to attend foreign universities under scholarship began to
write different forms of literature. This is one way they hoped to record their experiences, and
affect their societies. Formal novels in Africa began by expressing African worldviews and
projecting African culture. The problem of identity and independence were major
preoccupations.
2.3 The Rise of the Anglophone African Novel
In the colonial period, Africans exposed to Western languages began to write in those
tongues. In 1911, Joseph Ephraim Casely-Hayford(also known as Ekra-Agiman) of the Gold
Coast(now Ghana) published what is probably the first African novel written in English,
Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation. Its publication and positive reviews in the
4
Western press mark a watershed moment in African literature. Interestingly, led to the
emergence of African American literature
3. The issue of language
When african writers started to write in english they were attacked by some critics of
arican literature the believed that English Language is an imperial language representing
colonialism .They advocated that African writers should use their native languages in writing
literatures . They believed that African novels are for the consumption of African people
alone. Many writers like Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, Okot P’Bitek, Wole Soyinka
amongst others practised writing in their native dialects but these never yielded wider
acclaim. The advocates of this theory believe that African fiction will truly be identified as
African if written in African languages expressing African ideas and philosophies.The
educated ones were worried about the way Africa and Africans are being portrayed. They
believed that writing in English or other colonial languages would enable them reach a wider
audience.
4. African-American Literature
Another controversial aspect of identification of African fiction is the inclusion of
literary works by African slaves in America. The African works best known in the West from
the period of colonization and the slave trade are primarily slavenarratives, such as Olaudah
Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano, or
Gustavus Vassa, the African(1789). There is also Alex Harley’s Roots which also gave
accurate account of the slave trade experiences of the Africans in fictional mode.
The issue of race and tensions of color pushed African Americans to use writing to
establish a place for themselves in that community.The English contributed to the issue of
segregation. They had developed the ideas of inferiority and distinction through drawing on
5
preconceptions rooted in images of blackness and physical differences between the two
peoples. African American literature embodies novels, poems and plays showing the status of
race as a whole. The writers’ works reflect their identities.
African American literature presents a wide range of writings from the colonial period
to the present.It is related to different literary periods: The colonial
period (1746-1800), antebellum period (1800-1865), the reconstruction period (1865-1900),
the protest movement (1960-1969) and Contemporary period (1970-present).
Refferences
Derouiche, Aicha. , Nabila, Miraoui. The Development of African American Literature. 2016.
University of Tlemcen Faculty of Letters and Foreign Languages Departement of English,
Master Thesis.
Oha, Anthony C, et al. The African Novel. www.nou.edu.ng
5. Contemporary African-American Women Writers
The emergence of feminist views in the 1970s highlighted the essence of African-
American women’s literature which was not regarded as noteworthy before. African-
American women’s literary tradition is marked by common themes such as racial and gender
inequality, fate and condition of a black female and female writer, the peculiarities of the
formation of black woman’s identity, her search for selfhood, her position and roles in a
multicultural society, and black woman’s consciousness. In the 1970s women began to openly
express their experience as both suppressed women and members of minority groups.
The black women writers of the period – Glorya Naylor, Toni Cade Bambara, Shirley
Anne Williams, and Gayl Jones – explored the issues of their problematic position and
struggle for liberation in a racial and mainstream culture. Their work marked a significant
shift in African-American literature. As Catharine R Stimpson states, black women writers