A Paradigm of Lamentation in Three African Poems

Abstract

The search, what constitutes the pure identity of African Literature, continues among historians and literary scholars. In this paper, we try to unmask a silent literary weapon which is at the disposal of many conscious African writers perhaps unconsciously anyway. The purpose is to make understanding of literature especially African literature easier. Our emphasis is on the common themes expressed in the selected poems. The new historicism, which upholds that writing history is a matter of interpretations, not entirely facts, is the theoretical approach on which this paper is premised. The paper ends with a conclusion that lamentation is a literary weapon through which many African writers create or enact the required consciousness on their readers because the device is a constant decimal in African literary creations across generations: from its inception (pre-colonial period) through the colonial and the post-colonial era (till date).