What are the 5 characteristics in poetry?

5 Key Characteristics of Poetry
  • Figures of Speech. Figures of speech, or figurative language, are ways of describing or explaining things in a non-literal or non-traditional way. …
  • Descriptive Imagery. Imagery is something concrete, like a sight, smell or taste. …
  • Punctuation and Format. …
  • Sound and Tone. …
  • Choice of Meter.

What makes African poetry African?

Modern African Poetry was birthed from the experience of slavery and colonialism. Poets shifted from the influences of colonialism, nature, lyricism and used their voices to create an awareness of the prevailing conditions of the masses who suffered neglect at the hands of the ruling government in the continent.

What is the meaning of African poetry?

African poetry encompasses the wide variety of traditions arising from Africa’s 55 countries and from evolving trends within different literary genres.

What are the main themes of African poetry?

A functional art, African poetry in its oral and written forms has addressed a variety of themes, including worldview, mysticism, values, religion, nature, negritude, personal relationships, anticolonialism, pan-Africanism, neocolonialism, urbanism, migration, exile, the African diaspora, and patriarchy, as well as …

What are the characteristics of modern African poetry?

“Modern African poetic aesthetics are unique in possessing a repertory of authentic African features. This authenticity manifests itself in the use of concrete images derived from the fauna and flora, proverbs, indigenous rhythms, verbal tropes, and concepts of space and time to establish a poetic form.

What are the phases of African poetry?

Modern African poetry is divided into three period: The pioneer/pre-independence. The transitional phase/naturalist/negritude. Post-independence /cotemporary.

What is African literature and its characteristics?

Characteristics of African literature include slave narratives, protests against colonization, calls for independence, African pride, hope for the future, and dissent.

What are the five major themes of African literature?

THEMES OF COLONIALISM, LIBERATION, NATIONALISM, TRADITION, DISPLACEMENT AND ROOTLESSNESS IN AFRICAN LITERATURE This paper deals with some of the themes in African literature such as colonialism, liberation, nationalism, tradition, displacement and rootlessness.

What are the African literary types?

There are 4 different types of African Literature: Oral Literature, Precolonial African Literature, Colonial African Literature, and Postcolonial Literature.

What is the origin of African poetry?

Poetry could be said to be the oldest genre in Africa. It began with themes, rhythms, histories, rituals and ideas which grew from cultures of different regions within the continent.

What are the five major themes of African literature?

THEMES OF COLONIALISM, LIBERATION, NATIONALISM, TRADITION, DISPLACEMENT AND ROOTLESSNESS IN AFRICAN LITERATURE This paper deals with some of the themes in African literature such as colonialism, liberation, nationalism, tradition, displacement and rootlessness.

What is African written fiction?

Although storytelling is a universal human activity, the term “African fiction” refers to a European genre of storytelling—comprised of secular novels and short stories—that Africans have adopted and adapted to represent continental African realities in the wake of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European colonialism …

What is the meaning of modern African literature?

Modern African literature is written in indigenous African languages and in European languages used in Africa. Written African literature is very new compared to the indigenous oral tradition of literature which has been there and is still very much alive.

What is the characteristics of African literature?

Characteristics of African literature include slave narratives, protests against colonization, calls for independence, African pride, hope for the future, and dissent.

What are the four types of African literature?

There are 4 different types of African Literature: Oral Literature, Precolonial African Literature, Colonial African Literature, and Postcolonial Literature.

What are the characteristics of African oral literature?

African oral literature is often told using “call-and-response” techniques, where the storyteller would engage the audience through interaction with them. Another integral part of Oral tradition is the integrating of music. Music plays an important role in African societies.

Who is the father of African literature?

Chinua Achebe
When Chinua Achebe died in March, he was mourned around the world, proclaimed as the “Father of African Literature,” as the author of contemporary classics such as Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease, and as a perennial Nobel Prize candidate.

What influenced African literature?

To be sure, the Arabic, English, French, and Portuguese literary traditions along with Christianity and Islam and other effects of colonialism in Africa also had a dynamic impact on African literature, but African writers adapted those alien traditions and made them their own by placing them into these African …

Why is African literature unique?

Oral literature presentation involves artistic use of language. The other prevailing aspect which makes African oral literature unique is rhythm. This is a characterizing element of songs, musical instruments and dance which are characteristics of African literature.

What are the basic characteristics of African drama?

Some elements of traditional African drama which have been adapted to literature and film include, songs and dances, mask and masquerades, proverbs, idioms and other aspects of language, history and myth, festivals and several others that we shall discuss here.

What are the three phases of African literature?

The African literature thrived in three periods, namely: the pre-colonial era, the colonial-era and the post-colonial era.