Defiant Maids and Stubborn Farmers

Tradition and Invention in Mende Story Performance

Datos Bibliográficos

ID19908693
AutoresDonald J Cosentino (autor de correspondencia)
Año1982
Fecha de publicación1982-06-03
Open AccessSí
TipoBOOK
RevistaDefiant Maids and Stubborn Farmers (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditorialCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9780511753053
OpenAlexW1965275909
Open LibraryOL34420149M
ISBN9780511753053
GOOGLE_BOOK_IDK_nAPQAACAAJ
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas17

The domei is a popular narrative art form among the Mende people of Sierra Leone. Although it is a traditional form, the narratives are not remembered or retold, but on each occasion the performers recreate out of a common stock of characters and plots domeisia, which are singular and sometimes brilliant expressions of a singular, and often brilliant, culture. In this book Donald Cosentino presents a large selection of these narratives, as he collected them in dramatic performance on the verandahs and around the cooking fires of a Mende village. The domei is told to please, and Dr Cosentino details the various elements that constitute the pleasure of an oral performance. But beneath the surface glitter of these ironic, horrifying, bawdy and haunting narrative performances, there is an intellectual hardness of argument and debate which shines through the domeisia included here. Dominating these performances, and emblematic of the entire artistic tradition, are the 'everywoman' figure of the Defiant Maid, Yombo, and the 'everyman' Stubborn Farmer, Kpana

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis · Art · Ethnology · Literature · Narrative · Pleasure · Sierra leone · African history and culture studies · History · Psychology · Africa · Folklore · History and criticism · Mende (african people) · Oral tradition · Storytelling · Tales · Tales, history and criticism