The African Verbal Genre as Literature and Performance

Abstract

There is a view that the African verbal genre is not literature and its nature does not include bodily performance; it belongs to sociology and not literature because literature is the art that is written while African verbal genre is presented orally. Thus, the present study aims to demonstrate that, despite its oral nature, the African verbal genre is both literature and oral performance that includes bodily performance and that its literary and performative constituents synergize to achieve the purpose of the genre.