A Paradigm of Lamentation in Three African Poems
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v2i1.53Keywords:
Literature, Paradigm, Lamentation, Myth, Ritual and Neo-colonialism.Abstract
The search, what constitutes the pure identity of African Literature, continues among historians and literary scholars. In this paper, we try to unmask a silent literary weapon which is at the disposal of many conscious African writers perhaps unconsciously anyway. The purpose is to make understanding of literature especially African literature easier. Our emphasis is on the common themes expressed in the selected poems. The new historicism, which upholds that writing history is a matter of interpretations, not entirely facts, is the theoretical approach on which this paper is premised. The paper ends with a conclusion that lamentation is a literary weapon through which many African writers create or enact the required consciousness on their readers because the device is a constant decimal in African literary creations across generations: from its inception (pre-colonial period) through the colonial and the post-colonial era (till date).Downloads
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).