'African Traditional Literature Essay\r'

'Indigenous belles-lettres whether oral or indite is the cultural heritage of most societies. Unfortunately, African handed-down literature overtime has been treated as something outclassed to their Western counterparts. still to a large extent, both(prenominal) conventional African literature and their European counterparts commit convertible socio-artistic values. Both express interest in the events happening in their society because they recognize their section as social barometer, hence, they need to express themselves mighty to their audience no matter the language they use.\r\nAfrican conventional literature shares a lot with similar literature from other parts of the world. More upstart studies have indeed revealed that the old view that clownish societies are non capable of producing elegant literature expressing the responses of men in an advanced culture to events slightly them is no longer tenable. This view was upheld by Westerners who subscribe traditi onalistic African literature with racial prejudice. They believed that African culture was still struggling for elementary riddle of existence and was yet to attain the level of acculturation that will facilitate the pursuit of literary achievement.\r\nBut this view was met with a lot of controversial criticisms, as African Scholars began to argue the importance of African traditional literature in the literary world, stressing the fact that traditional literature is not only relevant, but should as well be accorded a literary status in the literary world. Their reasons being that African literature complete certain functions in the society; the noticeable human body in the existing genre and; the competent evidence in the elegant use of language exhibited in the cause of performance with the resultant aesthetic effect, and with time, African traditional literature began to be accepted.\r\nBut it was not wholly accepted by these Europeans. They began to employ their contradic tory concepts in the critical evaluation of African traditional literature. They believed that Africans do not possess adequate tools for the assessment and evaluation of their literature. Hence, they began to employ these foreign approaches in the study of African traditional literature.\r\n'