African Oral and Written Traditions

It is the task of the storyteller, in both the oral and written traditions of Africa, to forge the fantasy images of the past into masks of the realistic images of the present, enabling the performer to pitch the present to the past, to visualize the present within a context of and therefore in terms of the past. Flowing through this potent emotional grid is a variety of ideas that have the look of antiquity and ancestral sanction. Story occurs under the mesmerizing influence of performance, the body of the performer, the music of her voice, the complex relationship between her and her...

It is the task of the storyteller, in both the oral and written traditions of Africa, to forge the fantasy images of the past into masks of the realistic images of the present, enabling the performer to pitch the present to the past, to visualize the present within a context of and therefore in terms of the past. Flowing through this potent emotional grid is a variety of ideas that have the look of antiquity and ancestral sanction. Story occurs under the mesmerizing influence of performance, the body of the performer, the music of her voice, the complex relationship between her and her...