Le jeu et le sérieux

Essai d’anthropologie littéraire sur la poésie épique des chasseurs du Mande (Afrique de l’Ouest)

Author: Karim Traoré. With a preface by: Sory Camara †. Series edited by: Beatrix Heintze, Karl-Heinz Kohl.

Series: SzK Studien zur Kulturkunde Volume 113

2000
294 pp.
indices of subjects and persons
Text language(s): French
Format: 170 x 240 mm
570 g
Paperback
€ 59.80

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This work of literary anthropology considers the epic poetry of Mande hunters in the Mande region of West Africa. The author defines the term Mande region as the geographic area in West Africa shaped by the effects of imperialism on the Gana, Mali and Segu empires from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, an area which roughly corresponds to parts of today’s Mali, Senegal, and Burkina Faso. The study is divided into two parts.

The first part provides a socio-anthropological analysis of the Mande linguistic area, society, and hunters. Chapter 1 is a sociolinguistic sketch of contemporary Mali focussing on Manding (Bamana/Bambara and Maninka) as both the lingua franca and the language of Mande culture and literature. Chapter 2 presents a socio-anthropological analysis of the society’s awareness of history, while Chapter 3 considers the dynamics of hunters in Mande society.

The second part starts with the presentation of the different types of literature based on Occidental conditions (Chapter 4). In the following (Chapter 5) “Kuma” – defined in Mande society as anything concerning language – is investigated whether the formerly explained labels are transferable to the situation in the culture in question. In chapter 6, a narrative model is introduced in which both the entertainment aspects of literature as well as the acquisition of wisdom in Mande society is combined. The double nature of Mande epic poetry is also reflected in the book’s title, Le jeu et le sérieux, an opposition that foregrounds the author’s problematization of traditional literary binaries, such as the historic occidental categorization of oral versus written literature.

Under these links you will find further descriptions and text collections of African oral literature:

Accompanying material:

• Advances in Kanuri Scholarship (ISBN 978-3-89645-104-0)
• Aspects of the Aesthetics of Hausa Verbal Art (ISBN 978-3-89645-264-1)
• Bongo Media Worlds (ISBN 978-3-89645-834-6)
• Dialoge, Prosa und Liedtexte aus dem Lehrbuch der Hausa-Sprache (Audio-CD) (ISBN 978-3-89645-007-4)
• Finding Female Voice (ISBN 978-3-89645-282-5)
• Heinrich Barth et l’Afrique (ISBN 978-3-89645-220-7)
• L’empire du verbe et l’éloquence du silence (ISBN 978-3-89645-215-3)
• Mandinka Spoken Art (ISBN 978-3-927620-63-6)
• Nyagalen Mugan Tarawele (ISBN 978-3-89645-263-4)
• Perpetuating the Politics of Praise (ISBN 978-3-89645-213-9)

Cross-reference:

• 50 Jahre Unabhängigkeit in Afrika (ISBN 978-3-89645-829-2)
• African Media Cultures – Cultures de médias en Afrique (ISBN 978-3-89645-246-7)
• Aktuelle Forschungen zu afrikanischen Sprachen (ISBN 978-3-89645-401-0)
• Chanter l’existence (ISBN 978-3-89645-287-0)
• From the Tana River to Lake Chad – Research in African Oratures and Literatures (ISBN 978-3-89645-836-0)
• Language, Identity, and Conceptualization among the Khoisan (ISBN 978-3-89645-143-9)
• Liedtexte der Dama, Südwestafrika/Namibia (ISBN 978-3-89645-354-9)
• Multidisciplinary Views on the Horn of Africa (ISBN 978-3-89645-683-0)
• Poetic Meter and Musical Form in Tashlhiyt Berber Songs (ISBN 978-3-89645-398-3)
• Sprache und Musik in Mandinka-Erzählungen (ISBN 978-3-89645-265-8)
• The Form and Meaning of Otjiherero Praises (ISBN 978-3-89645-269-6)

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