Teach and Delight: European Literary Traditions from the Classical Age to the Enlightenment, Compared with African Oral Traditions – Human Ambitions and Moral Choices (Senior 6 English (Languages)) | Ganzaa

Human Ambitions and Moral Choices

Lessons

Senior 6 · English (Languages)

Human Ambitions and Moral Choices

4 lessons

Lesson 4 of 4

Teach and Delight: European Literary Traditions from the Classical Age to the Enlightenment, Compared with African Oral Traditions

35 min

Let's begin

Every literature answers the same old question: how should a person live? This lesson sets two very different answers side by side. One is the written European tradition from the theatres of ancient Greece to the satirists of the eighteenth century. The other is the oral tradition of Africa, performed rather than printed, and in Rwanda as old as the hills on which it was recited. You will read a short extract from each side, compare their methods, and see why both kept returning to moral choice.

The European line: five periods

European literature did not develop in a straight line, but each period answered the one before it. The timeline gives the main landmarks.

Classical Greece. Homer's epics were composed for oral performance before they were written down. In tragedy, a person of high standing falls through a fatal error (hamartia), often linked to pride. Aristotle's Poetics argued that tragedy, by arousing pity and fear, produces a catharsis, a purging of those emotions.
Rome. Horace wrote in his Art of Poetry that poets aim either to benefit or to delight, and that the best do both. "Teach and delight" became the motto of European literature for nearly two thousand years.
The Middle Ages. Literature served the Church. In allegory, characters stand for abstract qualities: in the morality play Everyman, the hero is called to judgement by Death and deserted by Fellowship and Goods.
The Renaissance. Humanism put the individual at the centre. Shakespeare's characters struggle with choices that are their own, not the Church's.
Neoclassicism and the Enlightenment. Writers valued reason, order and the rules of the ancients, and used satire to expose superstition and folly.

Two extracts

A. From Everyman (English morality play, late fifteenth century, author unknown). God has sent Death to summon Everyman.

Death. Everyman, stand still; whither art thou going
Thus gaily? Hast thou thy Maker forget?
Everyman. Why askst thou?
Wouldest thou wete?
Death. Yea, sir, I will show you;
In great haste I am sent to thee
From God out of his majesty.
…
Everyman. What desireth God of me?
Death. That shall I show thee;
A reckoning he will needs have
Without any longer respite.

Glosses: whither = where to; forget = forgotten; wete = know; reckoning = an account of one's deeds; respite = delay.

B. From Candide (Voltaire, 1759; anonymous English translation). After years of disasters, Candide meets an old farmer who lives contentedly on a small plot.

"I have only twenty acres," replied the old man; "I and my children cultivate them; our labour preserves us from three great evils—weariness, vice, and want."
…
"I know also," said Candide, "that we must cultivate our garden."

Definition

Key terms

hamartia (n): in Greek tragedy, the error or flaw that causes the hero's fall.
catharsis (n): the release of pity and fear that, in Aristotle's account, tragedy produces in its audience.
allegory (n): a story in which characters and events stand for abstract ideas, such as Death, Good Deeds or Fellowship.
satire (n): writing that uses irony, exaggeration and ridicule to expose foolishness or vice.
oral tradition (n): literature composed and passed on by word of mouth, which changes a little with each performance.
dilemma tale (n): an African oral form that ends with an unresolved moral question for the audience to debate.

The African line: literature as performance

Africa has well over a thousand languages and many literary traditions, so the features below are common rather than universal. In Rwanda, the oral tradition includes imigani (tales and proverbs), ibitekerezo (historical narratives), ibisigo (dynastic poetry once recited at the royal court) and ibyivugo (heroic self-praise recitations). Across the continent there are epics such as Sundiata of the Mali empire, still performed by griots, and the praise poetry of southern Africa.

Performance: a text exists when it is performed. Voice, gesture, song and the audience's replies are part of it.
Participation: call-and-response, choruses and questions draw the audience in.
Community: stories belong to the community; a good performer is praised for skill in retelling, not for inventing.
Wisdom in small forms: a proverb compresses a moral argument into one line, ready for use in real disputes.
Open moral questions: the dilemma tale hands the judgement to the listeners.

A dilemma tale: The Three Gifts (Ganzaa's retelling of a pattern told in many African communities and beyond)

Three brothers went out to seek their fortunes. The first came home with a mirror in which he could see any place in the land. The second brought sandals that crossed a day's journey in a single step. The third brought a gourd of medicine that could cure any sickness. One evening the first looked into his mirror and saw that the chief's only daughter, far away, was dying. The brothers held hands, the second put on his sandals, and in one step they stood at her door. The third poured his medicine between her lips, and she sat up and asked for water. The chief had promised a herd of cattle to whoever saved her, and each brother claimed it.

Now you who are listening, tell me: which brother deserves the cattle?

Comparing the traditions

Feature	European tradition (classical to Enlightenment)	African oral tradition
Medium	Mostly written, and printed from about 1450; drama performed from a fixed script	Spoken, sung and performed; no fixed text
Author	Usually a named individual (Sophocles, Voltaire); Everyman is an exception	The community; the performer is a skilled re-teller
Audience	Readers, or a theatre audience that watches	Listeners who answer, sing and judge
Moral method	Tragedy warns, allegory instructs, satire mocks	Proverbs advise, fables warn, dilemma tales ask
Central figure	The tragic or epic hero; later, the reasoning individual	The culture hero, the trickster (often an animal), the ancestor
Structure	Unity of action (Aristotle); acts and scenes	Episodes, repetition, songs inside the story, formulaic openings

Similarities matter as much as differences. Homer's epics began as oral performance, like Sundiata. Aesop's animal fables from Greece do the same work as African trickster tales. A Greek chorus commenting on the action is not far from a storyteller's chorus of listeners. And Horace's "teach and delight" describes a good evening of imigani as well as it describes a Roman poem.

Worked example

Comparing the extracts: how each one teaches

Everyman: the moral is given. Death speaks with God's authority, and Everyman's role is to obey. The allegory leaves no room for debate: "A reckoning he will needs have."
Candide: the moral is discovered. After satirising grand theories, Voltaire ends with a modest practical rule, learnt from a farmer, not a philosopher: work keeps away "weariness, vice, and want".
The Three Gifts: the moral is debated. The tale stops at the point of decision, and the listeners must argue it out, weighing knowledge (the mirror), speed (the sandals) and healing (the medicine).

Conclusion for an essay: all three treat literature as moral training, but they move the authority from God (Everyman), to experience and reason (Candide), to the community of listeners (the dilemma tale).

Tip

Writing a comparison. Organise by point, not by text. Instead of one paragraph on Europe and one on Africa, write one paragraph on audience, one on moral method, one on the hero, comparing both traditions in each. Use linkers of comparison: similarly, likewise, by contrast, whereas, while, unlike.

Warning

Do not call oral literature "primitive" or "simple". Performance traditions are highly skilled and have their own rules of form.
"European literature" is not one thing either: a Greek tragedy and an Enlightenment satire differ as much as a proverb and an epic.
Write the play's title in italics (Everyman) and the character's name in plain type (Everyman).

The battle of the Greek tragedies, a TED-Ed lesson by Melanie Sirof (about 5 minutes). Presented as a sports commentary, it shows how Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides changed Greek drama. Note one innovation by each playwright.

✦

Practice

Put the periods in order and give one work from each: Renaissance, Rome, Enlightenment, Classical Greece, Middle Ages.
Explain allegory using the Everyman extract. What does the character Death stand for, and what is the "reckoning"?
What three evils does the old farmer in Candide say that work keeps away? Why might Voltaire give this wisdom to a farmer rather than to a philosopher?
Give three features of African oral literature that a printed play does not have.
Which brother in The Three Gifts deserves the cattle? Prepare a two-minute argument for one of them, then answer the strongest point for another brother.
Write a paragraph (about 150 words) comparing how Everyman and a dilemma tale treat their audience. Organise it by point and use at least two comparison linkers.
"Horace's motto 'teach and delight' fits African oral literature better than it fits European tragedy." Discuss in about 250 words.

Show answersHide answers

Classical Greece (Homer's Odyssey, a tragedy by Sophocles); Rome (Virgil's Aeneid); Middle Ages (Everyman, Dante, Chaucer); Renaissance (Shakespeare, Petrarch); Enlightenment (Candide, Gulliver's Travels).
In an allegory, characters stand for ideas. Death is death itself, sent by God; Everyman stands for every human being. The "reckoning" is an account of his good and bad deeds, to be judged by God.
Weariness, vice and want. Voltaire satirises philosophers who explain the world with grand theories; giving the wisdom to a farmer suggests that practical experience is wiser than abstract reasoning.
Any three: performance by voice and gesture; audience participation (call-and-response, answering the storyteller); songs inside the story; no fixed text, so it varies each time; community ownership; formulaic openings and closings.
Answers will vary. Strong answers weigh necessity: without the mirror nobody would have known, without the sandals they would have arrived too late, and without the medicine she would have died.
Sample: "Everyman tells its audience what to believe, whereas a dilemma tale asks its listeners to decide. Death speaks with God's authority, and the audience watches Everyman submit. By contrast, the storyteller of The Three Gifts stops at the moment of judgement …"
Answers will vary. A good answer defines both halves of the motto, notes that tragedy delights through pity and fear rather than pleasure, and that proverbs and fables teach openly, and reaches a qualified conclusion.

1The European line: five periods

2Two extracts

3The African line: literature as performance

4Comparing the traditions

The European line: five periods

Two extracts

The African line: literature as performance

Comparing the traditions