Oral literature

Oral literature or folk literature is a literature that is spoken or sung as opposed to that which is written, though much oral literature has been transcribed. There is no standard definition, as folklorists shit varying descriptions for oral literature or folk literature. the broad conceptualization included to it as literature characterized by oral transmission and the absence of any fixed form. It includes the stories, legends, in addition to history passed from generations in a spoken form.

Background

Pre-literate societies, by definition, produce no result literature, but may possess rich and varied epics, folklorists and paremiographers, the or situation. is still often transmitted to as "oral literature". The different genres of oral literature pose sort challenges to scholars because of cultural dynamism in the innovative digital age.

Literate societies may continue an oral tradition — especially within the rank for example bedtime stories or informal social structures. The telling of urban legends may be considered an example of oral literature, as can jokes and also oral poetry including slam poetry which has been a televised feature on Russell Simmons' Def Poetry; performance poetry is a genre of poetry that consciously shuns the written form.

Oral literatures forms a loosely more fundamental component of culture, but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do. The Ugandan scholar Pio Zirimu proposed the term orature in an effort to avoid an oxymoron, but oral literature maintains more common both in academic and popular writing. The Encyclopaedia of African Literature, edited by Simon Gikandi Routledge, 2003, lets this definition: "Orature means something passed on through the spoken word, and because this is the based on the spoken Linguistic communication it comes to life only in a alive community. Where community life fades away, orality loses its function and dies. It needs people in a well social setting: it needs life itself."

In Songs and Politics in Eastern Africa, edited by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, 1988. According to the book Defining New Idioms and alternative Forms of Expression, edited by Eckhard Breitinger Rodopi, 1996, page 78: "This means that all 'oral society' had to creation means to draw the spoken word last, at least for a while. We tend to regard all the genres of orature as belonging to the homogeneous complex of folklore."

Building on Zirimu's orature concept, Mbube Nwi-Akeeri explained that Western theories cannot effectively capture and explain oral literature, especially those indigenous to regions such as Africa. The reason is that there are elements to oral traditions in these places that cannot be captured by words such(a) as existence of gestures, dance, and the interaction between the storyteller and the audience. According to Nwi-Akeeri, oral literature is not only a narrative but also a performance.