South African Journal of African Languages, 2020

James Stuart, who collected and transcribed 258 isiZulu praise poems, demonstrated the significance of reducing isiZulu oral art such as praise poems to writing. Daniel Malcolm who translated them into English made their accessibility to the rest of the world possible. Later, Trevor Cope selected 26 from the 258 poems with their isiZulu versions, which he edited, annotated and published. The purpose of the present study is to explore the reflection of Trevor Cope’s ideology in his selection, which he entitled Izibongo – Zulu praise-poems, by using mainly paratextual elements. The exploration of extratexts is an attempt to link selected items to Cope’s ideology, which reveal conformity to the dominant ideology of the time.

1999

International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, 2018

IsiXhosa literary critics have not yet interrogated literature that was produced during and after the tenure of Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki as deputy president and president of the Republic of South Africa in order to study the impact of his African Renaissance doctrine. This article analyses poetry that was produced from 2005 to 2011. The content of the isiXhosa written poetry is profoundly influenced by the context of former President Mbeki's African Renaissance philosophy, its implementation structures and philosophy of self-confidence and self-reliance. The selected poems analysed and interpreted in this article suggest that Mbeki's legacy of the African Renaissance empowered poets to develop a narrative that advances the building of a regenerated South African nation and the African continent. Selected poetry of the period is contextualised, and the findings reveal that the poets have a dialectical relationship with historical developments of the time, and that they demonstrate acquiescence to the African Renaissance ideology, and support the operational structures created; namely African Union, Pan-African Parliament and the Vuk'uzenzele programme.

South African Journal of African Languages, 2019

The central argument in this article, drawn from an interdisciplinary study, is that the isiXhosa written poetry produced between 1912 and 1934 is the terrain of a struggle between contending ideologies of Segregation and Africanism. Texts (aspects of culture) produced by prominent writers of the time, namely Mqhayi, Mgqwetho and Solilo, are analysed and interpreted in this article. The findings reveal that the contents of the selected texts promote the ideology of Africanism. The study argues that the Union of South Africa resisted the spread of the Africanist ideology through setting up an ideological and repressive state apparatus that worked for the control of the quality and quantity of literary production, and through asserting the hegemony of the segregation ideology. The findings of the research also reveal that the state apparatus had limited success as the poets continued to disseminate the ideology of Africanism through their poetry. Marxist theory informed by Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural construction has been employed to analyse and interpret textual significations of isiXhosa written poetry. Gramsci postulates that ideology and culture play a significant role in asserting hegemony.

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2020

The ideophone is a distinct linguistic and literary feature that is prevalent in many African languages. It not only plays a significant role in language acquisition, but is also prized by many native speakers as the highest form of imaginative literary expression. The value and utility of oral traditions, however, have not been adequately explored within the existing western-oriented literary framework. The authentication of African literature was the subject of an intense debate at the inaugural gathering of African writers and critics at Makerere in 1962, which examined the question of what constitutes African literature. This study is a continuation of that debate. I propose that African oral forms should be centred as a critical platform for an authentic literary theory that takes indigenous African languages and literatures seriously. Three sample texts, all set in northern Malawi, two composed in chiTumbuka and one in English, are examined in order to illustrate the need to develop a more participatory aesthetics based on African experiences and sensibilities.

Journal of Translation, 2017

Translation needs to be accessible and acceptable to the receptor community. In the case of the Zulu people, the medium of communication most accessible to the majority is oral performance. Thus biblical text needs to be translated in a way that is prepared for the ear and not the eye. To be acceptable, the translation should sound like “my language,” using indigenous forms and contemporary vocabulary. When translating biblical psalms into isiZulu, they should sound like Zulu songs or poems, with all the richness of performance texture that is part of the long history of Zulu oral art. With this goal in mind, and given the tradition of Zulu praise poetry and the passion Zulu youth today have for poetry, a study was conducted in which young Zulu people, taking cognizance of their Zulu traditions in poetry and music, applied these to the translation and performance of some biblical praise psalms. The results show the value of focusing on orality, indigenous poetics, anzulud performance in communicating effectively the message of some praise psalms.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2022

This study documents and analyzes oral poetry of traditional Igbo society in the aim of discovering how language is manipulated to create the poems, and what the patterns, forms, and variants of the language convey, and reveal about the nature of the traditional society which produced them. The main thrust of this study is to explore into the role of language in elucidating the meaning of poems in the context of the socio-historical realities of the traditional society which created them. It is argued here that understanding the linguistic resources of poems is instrumental to appreciating them as works of arts. Though Eme and Nwankwere, (2020) carried out a stylistic analysis of Igbo folktales in musical rendition, little has been done to analyze Igbo oral poetry stylistically. A total of eight poems were recorded from the writer"s introspection and used for this study. Formalism and sociological theories are the theoretical frameworks guiding the work, while Simpson"s 2004 framework is adopted for the analysis. The analysis reveals that such devices as repetitions, neologisms, figures of speech, unique word choices and parallelism are used to create stylistic effects in the poems. The study, therefore, concludes that the beauty of poetry is in understanding the meanings communicated by the nuances of its language.

Trends Journal of Sciences Research

This study is a critical analysis of the language and themes used by the under listed five African poets: The Cathedral by Kofi Awoonor, Troubadour by Dennis Brutus, Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka, I Will Pronounce Your Name by Leopard Seder Senghor, and If You Should Know Me by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali. Its main thrust is, therefore, the isolation and discussion of the elements of language and the themes that make up the artistic framework upon which their individual poems are based. The writers employ Critical Race Theory as the framework for this work. It looks at how individually and collectively they tackle the theme of racism as well as their choices of language in expressing their contempt to this social canker. The study narrows down to a discussion of the artistic positions of the authors within these two basic narrative variables. An examination of the various artistic strategies employed to create a multi¬plicity of poetic fronts and their attendant scenes as well as backgrounds are what these divisions of the study target. It is this primacy of the artistic theme that this study dwells upon. The study intends to condemn this social injustice that brings separation rather than cohesion to human race. It is recommended that the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service should organise essay competition on these African Poets' books to bring social cohesion among students in Ghana and Africa as a whole.

Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2014

Available Online January 2014 This paper grapples with a frequently asked question: Is there a case for poetry in Africa? Though not necessarily a polemical rooting for recognition of African oral poetry, the paper stands in contention with assertions that have tended to dismiss the said artworks as nonpoetry, while at the same time attempting to confer superiority of the written poetry over the oral. In particular, the paper contests the arguments by some pioneer researchers into African literature that posited that what was usually touted as poetry in Africa did not qualify as true poetry, but rather, simply songs and chants. In an attempt to address the nitty-gritty of this subject the paper tackles the crucial question of what constitutes poetry and whether there is a significant difference between a song and a poem. The paper employs the theory of ethno-poetics which takes interest in the aesthetic components and poetic structuring of oral poems. Ethnopoetics gives guidelines on how to organize an oral text in lines to render its fullest charge of texture: rhythm, nuance, phrasing and other components that allow full poetic meaning. It is intended that the poetic restructuring will particularly help realize the poetic qualities in African poetic works. Besides, the paper also tries to underscore "narrato-centric" approach, an application I used elsewhere in my discussion of theory in the study of oral literature. The approach encourages the study of oral literature material that puts emphasis on performance and the dynamics dictating the performer and his role in the performance.

2015

This research investigated the portrayal of the African politician in Kiswahili poetry. Basically, this research intended to shed light on how different poets have portrayed African politicians creatively with a purpose of revealing how these leaders have changed since colonial times to the multi-party period. The research assumed that political leaders played a great role in the development of their individual countries and Africa as a whole. The attainment of various developmental goals such as Kenya’s Vision 2030 and strengthening of the East African Community is to a large extent pegged on political decisions. The objectives of this research were to investigate the role of Kiswahili poetry in preserving the history of the African politician and to examine the traits of the pre-colonial and post-colonial African politician according to Kiswahili poets. The researcher assumed that the poet speaks for the citizen who gets adversely affected by decisions and actions taken by politic...