The Oral Epic of Ngombi Nliga Ngwan: Between Literariness and Pragmatics
- Romuald-Achille Mahop Ma Mahop
Abstract
This essay studies an oral epic from the Basaa of Cameroon, transcribed, translated into French and annotated recently for the first time (2019). Resorting to an interdisciplinary methodology that combines contributions from anthropology, stylistics and literary pragmatics, the reflection attempts to underline the literary nature of of the peak story, which not only brings together the fundamental traits commonly accepted as literary ones of the peak genre, but also lends itself to the theories developed in recent decades within the framework of the aesthetics of the reception. Thus, the text is inserted in its enunciative context and certain sociological and axiological values typical of the Cameroonian Basaa socioculture are emphasized.
Keywords
oral epic, literariness, Cameroonian traditional literature, pragmatics, Basaa people
Author Biography
Romuald-Achille Mahop Ma Mahop
Université de Yaoundé I (Camerún). Doctor en Literatura Hispanoamericana por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2012). Ha sido profesor suplente de la Escuela Normal Superior de Yaoundé y, desde 2015, es docente e investigador del Departamento de Estudios Ibéricos e Iberoamericanos de la Universidad de Yaoundé I.
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