THE TRAJECTORY OF PAN-AFRICANISM IN AFRICAN LITERATURE: AN APPRAISAL OF FOLKTALES AND OTHER TALES IN AFRICAN ORAL LITERATURE

Abstract

Pan-Africanism is a tenacious concept for a unified nation that has existed as a political movement 
until the 21st century where there has been a conspicuous artistic variation of which African oral 
literary artists have creatively used African oral literature to foster African solidarity. Hitherto, a 
dearth still remains in critical researches on the significance of the Pan-African tradition in African 
literature and how its manifestation are striving to implement the objectives of Pan-Africanism through 
this literary cannon. For this research, formalism is adopted as theoretical framework for the 
appraisal of African folktales. The folktale genre in African oral literature is purposively chosen 
because of its canonical example as a tangible evidence of the collaborative energies of contemporary 
artists and audience across Africa and its diaspora. The methods of analysis were critical and 
analytical. The trickster character in African folktales is chosen for its Pan-African coverage. Each 
trickster in many African communities is intertwined to its scene so that it can function in its meaning 
beyond the character roles ascribed to it as the protagonist of the text in order to teach morals 
embedded in the tale. Conversely, the tale emerges as a cultural material that projects the ideas of 
Pan-Africanism and authenticates the African sense of struggle, unity, survival and triumph. This 
paper therefore recommends the use of African folktales to teach morals and foster the idea of 
Africanism in African communities.