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Poetry and Society: Aspects of Shona, Old English and Old Norse Literature

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Poetry and Society: Aspects of Shona, Old English and Old Norse Literature The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/ Available through a partnership with Scroll down to read the article. Poetry and Society: Aspects of Shona, Old English and Old Norse Literature Hazel Carter School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 4 One of the most interesting and stimulating the themes, and especially in the use made of developments of recent years in African studies certain poetic techniques common to both. has been the discovery and rescue of the tradi- Compare, for instance, the following extracts, tional poetry of the Shona peoples, as reported the first from the clan praises of the Zebra 1 in a previous issue of this journal. In particular, (Tembo), the second from Beowulf, the great to anyone acquainted with Old English (Anglo- Old English epic, composed probably in the Saxon) poetry, the reading of the Shona poetry seventh century. The Zebra praises are com- strikes familiar chords, notably in the case of plimentary and the description of the dragon the nheternbo and madetembedzo praise poetry. from Beowulf quite the reverse, but the expres- The resemblances are not so much in the sion and handling of the imagery is strikingly content of the poetry as in the treatment of similar: Zvaitwa, Chivara, It has been done, Striped One, Njunta yerenje. Hornless beast of the desert. Heko.ni vaTemho, Thanks, honoured Tembo, Mashongera, Adorned One, Chinakira-matondo, Bush-beautifier, yakashonga mikonde Savakadzu decked with bead-girdles like women, Mhuka inoti, kana yomhanya Beast which, when it runs amid the mumalombo, rocks, Kuatsika, unoona mwoto kuti cheru And steps on them, you see fire drawn cfreru.2 forth. Hoard-joy (treasure) Hord-wynne fond, he found, eald uht-sceadha, opene standan, the ancient dawn- se dhe byrnende biorgas secedh, ravager, standing open, nacod nidh-draca, nihtes fieogedh, he that burning seeketh caves, fyre befangen; hyne fold-buend the naked dragon-foe, by night he flieth, swidhe ondraedadh. He geseacan sceall compassed with fire; him the fold-dweller hord on hrusan, thaer he haedhen gold greatly dreadeth. He must needs seek waradh wintrum frod; ne bydh him wihte the hoard in the dhy sel. earth, where he heathen gold guardeth, old in years; nor is he one whit the better for it. -I Beowulf, 11. 2270-6.3 II 11 Both languages make much use of imagery and Old Norse are related Germanic languages, expressed descriptively, frequently in the form and the cultures similar, including religious of compounds: chinakira-matondo (bush-beauti- development and to some extent political fier for zebra) and uht-sceadha (dawn-ravager organization. Both flourished in about the same for dragon). Both forms of poetry employ the period of time: Old English from about 650 technique of variation, repeating the same or A.D. to the Norman Conquest of the eleventh similar information in different words, and century, and Old Norse skaldic verse from often with structural parallelism of various the eighth or ninth century to the fourteenth. kinds: biorgas secedh . nihtes fleogedh is an Moreover, the two cultures were for a time instance from the excerpt above, with which juxtaposed and even intermingled, through the one should compare the examples given by Viking invasions of Britain, so that much Fortune for the Shona nhetembo of the Hera, mutual influence might be expected. The fact and madetetnbedzo (okupfimbana, courtship remains that the differences between the two praises).4 poetries are deep and significant, and it is possible to find parallels in Shona literature There is a further point which strikes the for the points at which Old English differs reader when he comes to consider literatures from her sister poetry. One such feature is that which are generally classed as related to that of variation, described and exemplified above; of Old English, in particular that of the there is no trace of this in skaldic poetry. Scandinavian countries. Old Norse literature Another is in the nature of the descriptive flourished at about the same time as Old terms used, and this will be more fully dealt English, was composed in a closely related with in the sketch of Norse verse below. language or group of languages, and by peoples Since literature is the product of a society, sharing a considerable common heritage of this seems an obvious place to look for the traditional material and poetic techniques. Yet variables. In seeking to discover a correlation despite all this, Old Norse Poetry, and especi- between certain aspects of the society, and ally the large body of skaldic poetry, is in certain characteristics of the literature, one many ways less like Old English poetry than does not of course look so much at the rela- is Shona. tively trivial features of content and allusion The divergence of the two Germanic poetries which are clearly culture-based or dependent has been noted before, as for instance by upon the environment. The mention of frost Gordon: in Beowulf and of salt-gathering expeditions In general style the Old Norse poems in the nhetembo are of this kind. What is at are very different from the Anglo-Saxon. issue here is less obviously 'cultural' features, They ... set forth their matter with a which are generally classed as literary charac- lyrical conciseness and abruptness which teristics, such as the use of devices like is nearer to the medieval ballad than to imagery, in its various forms of expression. the splendid epic fullness of Beowulf . Equally, one must leave out of account The Norse poems have not the epic poetic devices so dependent on language struc- dignity or the fine scenic effects of ture that they can only occur in languages of Beowulf, but ... are vivid and dramatic 3 a particular structural type. For instance, . [with a] fierce power. although one does not minimise the features The further perception that Shona poetry common to English and Norse poetry as against resembles Old English, in ways in which neither Shona, it is found that most such features have their origin in the exploitation of linguistic re- resembles Old Norse, prompts one to ask the 6 question, what factors can be called upon to sources at fairly low levels. The two Germanic account for the curious agreement between languages have a clear strong/weak stress Shona and Old English? distinction, whereas Shona has not, apart from the pre-pausal stress and lengthening (in normal For at first sight it certainly does seem speech) on the penultimate syllable. Thus the curious. Shona is divided from Old English stress-based metre of Old Germanic poetry is by many hundreds of years and thousands of not available to Shona. Similarly alliteration in miles; the cultures are vastly different, and the Shona is intimately bound up with the gramma- languages unrelated. Conversely, Old English tical structure, whereas with Germanic langu- 12 ages this is not so; alliteration makes an An acquaintance is assumed with Shona aesthetic impact in English and Norse, and can traditional poetry, as described in the articles be used in a metrical scheme, in a way which (already cited) by Fortune, but a short account does not hold good for Shona. These differences is given of Old English and Norse poetry in spring from the different phonological and mor- general, as well as of the genres selected for phological systems of Bantu and Germanic study. respectively, and it is not suggested that langu- age structure and society are related in the OLD ENGLISH POETRY manner implied here. Very little of the poetry composed before Conversely, all three languages allow com- the Norman Conquest of 1066 has come down pound nominals — however much the speci- to us. We possess in all some 30 000 lines, of fic constructional patterns may vary — and which by far the greater part is preserved in one may then compare the use made of this four manuscripts, all written about 1 000 A.D.7 feature in their literatures. The literature had to run the gauntlet, first Ideally for such an investigation we require of the censorship of monkish scribes, who knowledge of the whole literature of each would not have wasted precious writing society, and the place of particular genres with- materials on, say, drinking or love songs — in it; of the circumstances under which the though they did include some rather pagan genre was composed and recited, by whom and charms, and riddles of doubtful morality. for whom; the relationship of the composer Secondly there were the chances of time, as (and performer, if different) to the audience, of war and natural disaster, particularly fire. the relationships of both to the rest of the A great deal was lost in the fire at the Cottonian society. A similar body of knowledge is needed Library in 1731, and in the 1807 bombard- for other cultural phenomena, the relationship ment of Copenhagen. Much of what had been of the community to others neighbouring, the written down before 1066 had already been physical environment and its effect on ease of destroyed during the Viking raids, when communication, and indeed, countless other monastic libraries were ravaged. What does aspects of human life and what affects it. remain of the poetry composed from about the seventh to the tenth centuries shows strongly Set out in this fashion, the task appears marked characteristics, which we may suppose formidable, if not impossible. Such information to have developed during the period when regarding the traditional society of the Shona English poetry was still truly oral literature.
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