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Explain the relationship between oral literature and Kenyan written literature with reference to any one Kenyan writer.

      

Explain the relationship between oral literature and Kenyan written literature with reference to any one Kenyan writer.

  

Answers


Faith
In discussing oral literature, we are talking of a large corpus of material which can have its total integrity impact and realization only within the scope of performance, transmission and occasion.
The performer of oral literature gives form of material, formulates and realizes it within regulated and specified occasions.
The occasions may be a wedding ceremony, a funeral etc.
Oral literature covers three broad types of literature: drama, prose narrative and poetry. Drama deals with what goes on in festivals and ceremonies. Prose deals with folk tales and epics while poetry deals with songs and poems. How have Kenyan authors in co operated the oral literature to writing? The Kenyan writers? debt to the oral tradition is in their creation of a new English Style that follows and derives from their own African language idiom, rhythm and tenor. Ngugi wa Thiongo's for example in all his works exhibits a remarkable grasp of proverb like Chinua Achebe says that is the palm oil with which words are eaten. The proverbs are intricately woven into the fabric of Ngugi's style and constitute a significant feature of his style. In I will marry when I want; he uses the proverb, „the antelope hates less the one who sees it than the one who shouts its presence?. Ngugi also employs songs in the play. In his novels, in addition to proverbs, he employs folk tales and myths?. The River Between has a myth about the origin of the Agikuyu Community. In Petals of Blood, there is the folk tale of the descendant of the Agikuyu Ndemi who was afarmer.
The novel or short story comes to us in the form of telling. There is the narrative technique and the writer can have the story told through the mediation of a personified narrator. The language in a novel is like a spoken tale by a personified narrator. This narration has its origin in the narrative which is a genre of oral literature.

Orality and modern written Kenyan literature has a theoretical orientation by the Nigeria Scholar Isidore Okpewho. He argues that the relationship between traditional orature and modernity depends on the amount of Creative Freedom the writer is willing to assume in handling the material from the creative literature of his people. For example Ngugi uses past to discuss the present. The conflict in Kameno and Makuyu was brought about by the foreigners who preached a religion that alienates the people of the two ridges. Ngugi reminds the people of their heroes and the victories the tribe had won in the past through their unity.
In Weep not Child, Ngugi?s character Ngotho has last wish for his son Njoroge to take care of his two wives. This is what culture calls for. Ngugi's main influence from Oral Literature is the narrative structure. The dominant narratives in his works are the stories of Mugo wa Kibiru the Agikuyu seer and the stories of Gikuyu and Mumbi the ancestors of the tribe.
Titany answered the question on November 11, 2021 at 09:27


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