Yoruba literature
Encyclopedia
Yoruba literature is the spoken and written literature
of the Yoruba people
, the largest ethno-linguistic group in Nigeria
, and in Africa
. The Yorùbá language
is spoken in Nigeria, Benin
, and Togo
, as well as in dispersed Yoruba communities throughout the world.
-educated Anglican priests.
The first Yoruba grammar was published in 1843 by Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther
. He himself was of Yoruba origin.
The written form of the Yoruba language comes from a Conference on Orthography from the Church Missionary Society in Lagos, in 1875.
The first history of the Yoruba people was compiled by Reverend Samuel Johnson
in 1897 who was also of Yoruba origin. Thus, it must be noted that the formation of written Yoruba was facilitated by Yoruba people themselves despite the use of the Roman alphabet.
is the word for the sum of Yoruba religion, poetry, song, and history. Yoruba divinities are called Orisha
s, and make up one of the most complex pantheons in oral history.
Ifá
, a complex system of divination, involves recital of Yoruba poetry containing stories and proverbs bearing on the divination. A divination recital can take a whole night. The body of this poetry is vast, and passed on between Ifa oracles.
(The Forest of A Thousand Demons), written in 1938 by Chief Daniel O. Fagunwa
(1903–1963). It contains the picaresque tales of a Yoruba hunter encountering folklore elements, such as magic, monsters, spirits, and gods. It was one of the first novels to be written in any African language. Fagunwa wrote other works based on similar themes, and remains the most widely-read Yorùbá-language author.
Amos Tutuola
(1920–1997) was greatly inspired by Fagunwa, but wrote in an intentionally rambling, broken English, reflecting the oral tradition. Tutuola gained fame for The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1946, pub 1952), and other works based on Yoruba folklore.
Senator Afolabi Olabimtan
(1932–1992) was a writer, along with professor, and politician. He wrote Yoruba language novels about modern Nigerian life and love, such as Kekere Ekun (1967; [Lad Nicknamed] Leopard Cub), and Ayanmo (1973; Predestination).
theatre
, Joel Adedeji traced its origins to the masquerade
of the Egungun
(the "cult of the ancestor"). The traditional rite
is controlled exclusively by men and culminates in a masquerade in which ancestors return to the world of the living to visit their descendants. In addition to its origin in ritual, Yoruba theatre can be "traced to the 'theatrogenic' nature of a number of the deities in the Yoruba pantheon, such as Obatala
the god of creation, Ogun
the god of creativeness and Sango
the god of lightning", whose worship is imbricated "with drama and theatre and their symbolic and psychological uses."
The Aláàrìnjó
theatrical tradition sprang from the Egungun masquerade. The Aláàrìnjó were a troupe of traveling performers who were masked (as were the participants in the Egungun rite). They created short, satirical
scenes that drew on a number of established stereotypical characters. Their performances used mime
, music and acrobatics
. The Aláàrìnjó tradition influenced the Yoruba traveling theatre, which was the most prevalent and highly developed form of theatre in Nigeria
from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the 1990s, the Yoruba traveling theatre moved into television and film and now gives live performances only rarely.
"Total theatre" also developed in Nigeria in the 1950s. It used non-Naturalistic techniques, surrealistic
physical imagery, and exercised a flexibile use of language. Playwrights writing in the mid 1970s made use of some of these techniques, but articulated them with "a radical appreciation of the problems of society."
Traditional performance modes have strongly influenced the major figures in contemporary Nigerian theatre. The work of Hubert Ogunde
(sometimes referred to as the "father of contemporary Yoruban theatre") was informed by the Aláàrìnjó tradition and Egungun masquerades. He founded the first professional Nigerian theatre company in 1945 and served in many roles, including playwright, in both English and Yoruba.
Wole Soyinka
is "generally recognized as Africa’s greatest living playwright" and was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature. He writes in English, sometimes a Nigerian pidgin English, and his subjects (in both plays and novels) include a mixture of Western, traditional, and modern African elements. He gives the god Ogun a complex metaphysical
significance in his work. In his essay "The Fourth Stage" (1973), Soyinka argues that "no matter how strongly African authors call for an indigenous tragic art form
, they smuggle into their dramas, through the back door of formalistic and ideological predilections, typically conventional Western notions and practices of rendering historical events into tragedy." He contrasts Yoruban drama with classical Athenian drama
, relating both to the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
's analysis of the latter in The Birth of Tragedy
(1879). Ogun, he argues, is "a totality of the Dionysian, Apollonian
and Promethean
virtues." He develops an aesthetic of Yoruban tragedy based, in part, on the Yoruban religious pantheon (including Ogun and Obatala).
Akinwunmi Isola
is a popular novelist (beginning with O Le Ku, Heart-Rending Incidents, in 1974), playwright, screenwriter, film producer, and professor of Yoruba language. His works include historical dramas and analyses of modern Yoruba novels.
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
of the Yoruba people
Yoruba people
The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...
, the largest ethno-linguistic group in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, and in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. The Yorùbá language
Yoruba language
Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...
is spoken in Nigeria, Benin
Benin
Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...
, and Togo
Togo
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...
, as well as in dispersed Yoruba communities throughout the world.
Writing
Yoruba did not have a common written form before the nineteenth century. Many of the early contributions to Yoruba writing and formal study were made by EnglishEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
-educated Anglican priests.
The first Yoruba grammar was published in 1843 by Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther
Samuel Ajayi Crowther
Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther was a linguist and the first African Anglican bishop in Nigeria. Born in Osogun , Rev. Dr...
. He himself was of Yoruba origin.
The written form of the Yoruba language comes from a Conference on Orthography from the Church Missionary Society in Lagos, in 1875.
The first history of the Yoruba people was compiled by Reverend Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (Nigeria)
Samuel Johnson was an Anglican priest and historian of the Yoruba. Born a recaptive 'Creole' in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Johnson was an Omoba of the Oyo clan as a descendant of the Alaafin Abiodun of Oyo...
in 1897 who was also of Yoruba origin. Thus, it must be noted that the formation of written Yoruba was facilitated by Yoruba people themselves despite the use of the Roman alphabet.
Mythology
Yoruba religion is intertwined with history, with Yoruba claiming to descend from divinities, and some kings becoming deified after their deaths. ItanItan
For iTAN , see Transaction authentication number----Itan is the Yorùbá term for the sum total of all Yorùbá: Stories, historical accounts, songs, myths, and other cultural components....
is the word for the sum of Yoruba religion, poetry, song, and history. Yoruba divinities are called Orisha
Orisha
An Orisha is a spirit or deity that reflects one of the manifestations of Olodumare in the Yoruba spiritual or religious system....
s, and make up one of the most complex pantheons in oral history.
Ifá
Ifá
Ifá refers to the system of divination and the verses of the literary corpus known as the Odú Ifá. Yoruba religion identifies Orunmila as the Grand Priest; as that which revealed Oracle divinity to the world...
, a complex system of divination, involves recital of Yoruba poetry containing stories and proverbs bearing on the divination. A divination recital can take a whole night. The body of this poetry is vast, and passed on between Ifa oracles.
Fiction
The first novel in the Yorùbá language was Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo IrunmaleOgboju Ode ninu Igbo Irunmale
Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo Irunmale is a 1938 novel by D.O. Fagunwa. It was the first full-length novel in Yoruba, and was one of the first novels to be written in any African language. It contains the picaresque tales of a Yoruba hunter encountering folklore elements, such as magic, monsters, spirits,...
(The Forest of A Thousand Demons), written in 1938 by Chief Daniel O. Fagunwa
Daniel O. Fagunwa
Daniel Olorunfẹmi Fagunwa MBE , popularly known as D.O. Fagunwa, was a Nigerian author who pioneered the Yoruba language novel. He was born in Oke-Igbo, Ondo State. An Oloye of the Yoruba people, Fagunwa studied at St. Luke's School, Oke-Igbo and St...
(1903–1963). It contains the picaresque tales of a Yoruba hunter encountering folklore elements, such as magic, monsters, spirits, and gods. It was one of the first novels to be written in any African language. Fagunwa wrote other works based on similar themes, and remains the most widely-read Yorùbá-language author.
Amos Tutuola
Amos Tutuola
Amos Tutuola was a Nigerian writer famous for his books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales.- Early history :Tutuola was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1920, where his parents Charles and Esther were Yoruba Christian cocoa farmers. When about 7 years old, he became a servant for F.O...
(1920–1997) was greatly inspired by Fagunwa, but wrote in an intentionally rambling, broken English, reflecting the oral tradition. Tutuola gained fame for The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1946, pub 1952), and other works based on Yoruba folklore.
Senator Afolabi Olabimtan
Afolabi Olabimtan
Afolabi Olabimtan was a Nigerian politician, writer, and academic. He was born in Ogun State and was later the senator for Ogun West from 1999 to 2003. He died in a motor accident in August 2003....
(1932–1992) was a writer, along with professor, and politician. He wrote Yoruba language novels about modern Nigerian life and love, such as Kekere Ekun (1967; [Lad Nicknamed] Leopard Cub), and Ayanmo (1973; Predestination).
Theatre
In his pioneering study of YorubaYoruba people
The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...
theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
, Joel Adedeji traced its origins to the masquerade
Masquerade ceremony
A masquerade ceremony is a cultural or religious event involving the wearing of masks.Examples include the West African and African Diaspora masquerades, such as Egungun Masquerades, Northern Edo Masquerades, Caribbean Carnival and Jonkonnu.-External links:* - slideshow by Life magazine*...
of the Egungun
Egungun
Egungun is a part of the Yoruba pantheon of divinities. In the indeginous religious system of the West African tribe of that name, the spirit is of central importance...
(the "cult of the ancestor"). The traditional rite
Rite
A rite is an established, ceremonious, usually religious act. Rites in this sense fall into three major categories:* rites of passage, generally changing an individual's social status, such as marriage, baptism, or graduation....
is controlled exclusively by men and culminates in a masquerade in which ancestors return to the world of the living to visit their descendants. In addition to its origin in ritual, Yoruba theatre can be "traced to the 'theatrogenic' nature of a number of the deities in the Yoruba pantheon, such as Obatala
Obatala
In the religion of the Yoruba people, Obàtálá is the creator of human bodies, which were supposedly brought to life by Olorun's breath.Obàtálá is also the owner of all ori or heads. Any orisha may lay claim to an individual, but until that individual is initiated into the priesthood of that orisha,...
the god of creation, Ogun
Ogoun
In the Yoruba and Haitian traditional belief system, Ogun is a orisha and loa who presides over iron, hunting, politics and war. He is the patron of smiths, and is usually displayed with a number of attributes: a machete or sabre, rum and tobacco...
the god of creativeness and Sango
Shango
In the Yorùbá religion, Sàngó is perhaps one of the most popular Orisha; also known as the god of fire, lightning and thunder...
the god of lightning", whose worship is imbricated "with drama and theatre and their symbolic and psychological uses."
The Aláàrìnjó
Aláàrìnjó
Aláàrìnjó is a traditional dance-theatre troupe among the Yoruba.According to music historian Roger Blench, Aláàrìnjó dates back to the sixteenth century and probably developed from the Egúngún masquerade. However, it soon became professional and split into competing groups. Improved roads allowed...
theatrical tradition sprang from the Egungun masquerade. The Aláàrìnjó were a troupe of traveling performers who were masked (as were the participants in the Egungun rite). They created short, satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
scenes that drew on a number of established stereotypical characters. Their performances used mime
Mime
The word mime is used to refer to a mime artist who uses a theatrical medium or performance art involving the acting out of a story through body motions without use of speech.Mime may also refer to:* Mime, an alternative word for lip sync...
, music and acrobatics
Acrobatics
Acrobatics is the performance of extraordinary feats of balance, agility and motor coordination. It can be found in many of the performing arts, as well as many sports...
. The Aláàrìnjó tradition influenced the Yoruba traveling theatre, which was the most prevalent and highly developed form of theatre in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the 1990s, the Yoruba traveling theatre moved into television and film and now gives live performances only rarely.
"Total theatre" also developed in Nigeria in the 1950s. It used non-Naturalistic techniques, surrealistic
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
physical imagery, and exercised a flexibile use of language. Playwrights writing in the mid 1970s made use of some of these techniques, but articulated them with "a radical appreciation of the problems of society."
Traditional performance modes have strongly influenced the major figures in contemporary Nigerian theatre. The work of Hubert Ogunde
Hubert Ogunde
Oloye Hubert Adedeji Ogunde was a Nigerian actor, playwright, theatre manager, and musician who founded the Ogunde Concert Party in , the first professional theatrical company in Nigeria.Ogunde starred in Mister Johnson, the 1990 motion picture which also featured Pierce Brosnan...
(sometimes referred to as the "father of contemporary Yoruban theatre") was informed by the Aláàrìnjó tradition and Egungun masquerades. He founded the first professional Nigerian theatre company in 1945 and served in many roles, including playwright, in both English and Yoruba.
Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and...
is "generally recognized as Africa’s greatest living playwright" and was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature. He writes in English, sometimes a Nigerian pidgin English, and his subjects (in both plays and novels) include a mixture of Western, traditional, and modern African elements. He gives the god Ogun a complex metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
significance in his work. In his essay "The Fourth Stage" (1973), Soyinka argues that "no matter how strongly African authors call for an indigenous tragic art form
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
, they smuggle into their dramas, through the back door of formalistic and ideological predilections, typically conventional Western notions and practices of rendering historical events into tragedy." He contrasts Yoruban drama with classical Athenian drama
Theatre of Ancient Greece
The theatre of Ancient Greece, or ancient Greek drama, is a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece between c. 550 and c. 220 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political and military power during this period, was its centre, where it was...
, relating both to the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
's analysis of the latter in The Birth of Tragedy
The Birth of Tragedy
The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music is a 19th-century work of dramatic theory by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It was reissued in 1886 as The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism ...
(1879). Ogun, he argues, is "a totality of the Dionysian, Apollonian
Apollonian and Dionysian
The Apollonian and Dionysian is a philosophical and literary concept, or dichotomy, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology. Several Western philosophical and literary figures have invoked this dichotomy in critical and creative works....
and Promethean
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...
virtues." He develops an aesthetic of Yoruban tragedy based, in part, on the Yoruban religious pantheon (including Ogun and Obatala).
Akinwunmi Isola
Akinwunmi Isola
Professor Akinwunmi Isola is a Nigerian playwright, actor, dramatist, culture activist and scholar. He is known for his writing in, and his work in promoting, the Yoruba language....
is a popular novelist (beginning with O Le Ku, Heart-Rending Incidents, in 1974), playwright, screenwriter, film producer, and professor of Yoruba language. His works include historical dramas and analyses of modern Yoruba novels.
Sources
- African literature Encyclopædia Britannica article
- African literature: Yoruba literature Britannica Student Encyclopedia article
- Adejeji, Joel. 1969. "Traditional Yoruba Theatre." African Arts 3.1 (Spring): 60-63.
- Banham, Martin, Errol Hill, and George Woodyard, eds. 2005. The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ISBN 978-0521612074.
- Noret, Joël. 2008. "Between Authenticity and Nostalgia: The Making of a Yoruba Tradition in Southern Benin." African Arts 41.4 (Winter): 26-31.
- Soyinka, WoleWole SoyinkaAkinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and...
. 1973. "The Fourth Stage: Through the Mysteries of Ogun to the Origin of Yoruba Tragedy." In The Morality of Art: Essays Presented to G. Wilson Knight by his Colleagues and Friends. Ed. Douglas William Jefferson. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 119-134. ISBN 978-0710062802.