THE INFLUENCE OF AFRICAN FOLKTALE IN WOLE SOYONKA’S FOREST OF A THOUSAND DAEMONS AND AMOS TUTUOLA’S THE PALM WINE DRINKARD

Chinyere Ojiakor, Nkechi Ezenwadu

Abstract


In recent, times it has been noted that many Africans relegated their traditional folklore to the background with no hope of revival. However, some African writers have borrowed from their traditional oral literature in creating works of literature. This article corrects the initiative that folklores are unimportant and fetish practices that should be kept under the carpet. What is expected is to preserve these folklores as Wole Soyinka and Amos Tutuola have rightly done. In this article, there is a comparative analysis of the influence of African folklore in Wole Soyinka’s Forest of a Thousand Daemons and Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard as a means of heralding the true emotions and charm of African folklore. By adopting different forms that make up African folklore, these authors illuminate the spirit and beauty of African art and create within every reader a sense of Africanness.

Keywords


Africans, Traditional Oral Literature, Folklores and Palm-wine Drinkard

Full Text:

PDF

References


Achebe, Chinua. There was a Country. London: Penguin Group. 2012. Print

Barnet Sylvan et al. A Dictionary of Literary, Dramatic and Cinematic Terms. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1971. Print

Chinweizu et al. Towards the Decolonization of African Literature. Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publication Co. Ltd. 1980. Print

Egudu, Romanus. Igbo Traditional Verse. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1973. Print

Fagunwa, D.O. Forest of a Thousand Daemons. Trans Wole Soyinka. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1968. Print

Finnegan Ruth. Oral Literature in Africa. Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1970. Print

Jane, Nandwa and Austin Bukenya. African Oral Literature for Schools. Kenya: Longman, 1983. Print

Liyong, Taban Lo "Tutuola, son of Zinjanthropus" in Critical Perspectives on Amos Tutuola. BemthLindfors (ed). Washington, D.C: Three Continents Press, 1975. 77-83. Print

Ojaide, Tanure. Poetic Imagination in Black Africa Essays on African Poetry. Abiola Irele (ed). Indiana: University Press, 1998. Print

Okpewho, Isidore."Oral Literature and Modern African Literature” in African Literature: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory. USA: Blackwell Publishing. 2008 83-91. Print

Oscar, R Dathorne. "Amos Tutuola: The Nightmare of a Tribe" In Introduction to Nigerian Literature. Bruce King (ed). New York: Africana Publishing Corporation, 1972. 64-76. Print

Taiwo, Oladele. An Introduction to West African Literature. London: Trinity Press, 1967. Print

Tutuola, Amos. The Palm-Wine Drinkard. London: Faber and Faber, 1952. Print

Wole Soyinka. "From a common Blackcloth: A Reassessment of the African Literary Image" in The American Scholar (Summer 1963. Vol 32. No 3. Washington DC: Phi Beta Kappa, 1963. 387-396. Print


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


 

 

 

 

   

 

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.