Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction: postcolonial literature in a changing historical frame
- 2 Postcolonial fictions of slavery
- 3 Postcolonialism and travel writing
- 4 Missionary writing and postcolonialism
- 5 Postcolonial auto/biography
- 6 Orality and the genres of African postcolonial writing
- 7 Canadian literatures and the postcolonial
- 8 Postcolonialism and Caribbean literature
- 9 Postcolonialism and Arab literature
- 10 Postcolonialism and postcolonial writing in Latin America
- 11 Postcolonial writing in South Africa
- 12 Postcolonial literature in Southeast Asia
- 13 Postcolonial South Asian poetry
- 14 Postcolonial writing in India
- 15 Postcolonial writing in Australia and New Zealand
- 16 Indigenous writing in Canada, Australia and New Zealand
- 17 Postcolonial writing in Ireland
- 18 Postcolonial writing in Britain
- 19 Postcolonial writing in France
- 20 Postcolonial writing in Germany
- References
6 - Orality and the genres of African postcolonial writing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 January 2012
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction: postcolonial literature in a changing historical frame
- 2 Postcolonial fictions of slavery
- 3 Postcolonialism and travel writing
- 4 Missionary writing and postcolonialism
- 5 Postcolonial auto/biography
- 6 Orality and the genres of African postcolonial writing
- 7 Canadian literatures and the postcolonial
- 8 Postcolonialism and Caribbean literature
- 9 Postcolonialism and Arab literature
- 10 Postcolonialism and postcolonial writing in Latin America
- 11 Postcolonial writing in South Africa
- 12 Postcolonial literature in Southeast Asia
- 13 Postcolonial South Asian poetry
- 14 Postcolonial writing in India
- 15 Postcolonial writing in Australia and New Zealand
- 16 Indigenous writing in Canada, Australia and New Zealand
- 17 Postcolonial writing in Ireland
- 18 Postcolonial writing in Britain
- 19 Postcolonial writing in France
- 20 Postcolonial writing in Germany
- References
Summary
Let us begin by reminding ourselves of where the efficacy of genre analysis of literaryworks of art lies. It lies, Northrop Frye writes in Anatomy of Criticism, inits capacity for illuminating the ‘traditions and affinities’ that literary conventions invoke. For our purposes one of the interesting things to note about Frye’s argument is that he deduces it, in part, from a consideration of literary works that inscribe the spoken word. Thus, he points out that in using a narrator Joseph Conrad assimilates writing to speech; and that in using the epic invocation in Paradise Lost John Milton suggests that the most intimate affinities of the genre also lie with speech. So Frye’s argument locates the efficacy of genre analysis in its facility for contextualizing the relationship between a specific text and others, both literary and oral, within a tradition. Although his examples consist of literary works that use the oral, it does not, thereby, prohibit a consideration of oral texts that invoke the literary. Thus Frye’s argument opens up to us the space required to pose and address several questions concerning orality and the genres of African postcolonial writing. What generic affinities exist between orality and literacy in African postcolonial writing? How do African postcolonial oral and literary works inscribe the conventions of orality and literacy? What, specifically, is postcolonial about these generic conventions?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature , pp. 137 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012
References
- 1
- Cited by