Department of English

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https://ir.oauife.edu.ng/handle/123456789/193
Department of English

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Browsing Department of English by Subject "African literature"

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    Commitment to Criticism
    (1998-03-21) Richard, Taylor
    The nature of literary criticism and role of the critic is largely dependent on an acceptable definition of literature itself. One view which has been fairly widely held is that literature is the expression of intense and personal experience in a unique and original form which collectively reflects the values and aspirations of a given people in a particular time and place. An individual work externalizes and eternalizes the writer's perceptions of both the self and the world outside. The critic's role is to interpret works of literature to the public at large; not merely to describe or explain them, but rather to comment on and evaluate the quality of both the author's literary composition and his vision of, or insight into, human experience. In his or her quest for excellence and truth the critic should function as an educator, not as a popularizer or purveyor of culture. Serious criticism is evaluative, not descriptive, and the responsibility of the critic is to engage the artist in a public debate for the mutual benefit of all concerned. One of the more important arguments in this dialogue concerns the question of taste, the reader's apprehension and acceptance of style and structure as they change and evolve.
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    Introduction: African Politics and Letters after Soyinka's Nobel Prize
    (2006) Adeoti, Gbemisola; Evwierhoma, Mabel
    As it has been well acknowledged across the globe, Wole Soyinka is a leading figure when it comes to assessing Africa's contribution to world literature in contemporary times. He is, no doubt, a committed writer whose literary oeuvre blends in laudable measure, political engagement with artistic virtuosity. Here is a writer who is also a political activist, social crusader, cultural philosopher, literary theorist, mythopoet, dramatist, director, actor, film producer, essayist, critic and translator among other designations. Soyinka's works well exemplify the interventionist role of the African writer in politics, not only because the literature itself is born in the labour room of politics, but also because of the historical role of midwife constantly placed on the shoulders of statesmen, philosophers and intellectuals (among whom writers are) in the birth of a liberated and truly developing continent. Hence, his arts and politics leap beyond the text into the bewildering realm of everyday reality confronting absurdities on the streets as well as in the State House. Soyinka's adroit exploration of the indigenous African and Western artistic resources, written and oral, in this regard, has been well accounted for in literature. This much was not lost on the judges of the Nobel Prize when he was awarded that of Literature in 1986.
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    Literary Studies in Contemporary Nigerian Universities: the Challenges of Nationalism and Globalization
    (UNESCO, 2006) Adeoti, Gbemisola Aderemi
    There is something inherently universal in literature which constitutes the raw material of literary studies. Consequently, we must approach literary studies from its cultural specificity to its trans-national, cross-cultural and even interdisciplinary dimension; hence the attention given to national and global dimensions of contemporary literary studies. Of primary interest in this article are the literary products of various cultures, made available in the English language and considered of import to the curriculum of Nigeria's tertiary institutions.