THE OVERVIEW AND EFFECT OF ORAL LITERATURE AND AFRICAN CULTURE IN BENIN KINGDOM AS PORTRAYED BY DIFFERENT AUTHORS IN SOME SELECTED BOOK (ENGLISH AND LINGUISTIC PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Oral literature or folk literature correspond in the sphere of the spoken (oral/word to literature as literature operates in the domain of the written word. It thus forms a generally more fundamental component of culture, but in many ways as one might expect literature to do. The Uganda scholar Piozirima introduced the term oratory in an attempt to avoid an oxymoron, but oral literature remains more common both in academic and popular writing. Africans, Benin in particular, before the advent of literacy had their own forms of culture and societal norms, but there were no forms of formal knowledge of reading and writing that could be used in documenting and transmitting this rich cultural and historical background of the people rather than the use of oral in transmitting and preserving the custom and cultural beliefs of the people from one generation to another. Oral literature is a creative text delivered by the word of mouth. It refers to the heritage of imaginative verbal creations. Stories, folk-beliefs and songs of preliterate societies which have evolved and passed on through the spoken word from one generation to another. It also comprises riddles, pins, tongue-twisters, proverbs, recitation, chants, songs and stories, in short, it represents the verbal aspect of folklore. Often the Benin Oral Poet composes and performs his art vocally, and comes face-to-face with his audience.
Lore is seen in societies with vigorous oral convergence practices to be general term inclusive of both literature and any written literature and any written literature including sophisticated writings, as well potentially, as visual and performance art which many interact with these forms, extend their expression, or offer additional expressive media. Thus even where no phrase in local languages which exactly translates ‘oral literature’ is used, what constitutes oral literature as understood today is already understood to be part of all of the lore media with which a society conducts profound and common cultural affairs among its members orally. Oral literature as a concept after CE 19th century antecedents, was more widely circulated by Hector Munto Chadwick and Nora Kershaw, Chadwick in their comparative work on the growth of literature (1932-40), in 1960, Albert B. Lord Published the singer of fluidity in both ancient and later text and oral formulaic principles Benin used during composition in performance, particularly by contemporary narratives.
