The Contribution of Oral and Written Literature to Present Day Christmas Celebrations in Africa A Case Study of Selected Authors Part 1: Washington Irving
Keywords:
Oral literature, written literature, Christmas traditions
Abstract
Literature as a change agent touches hearts, souls, and minds and makes changes from the inside-out. Good literary writers have influenced world politics, cultures and social behaviour. Using the preceding theory, this study analysed the literary works of Washington Irving including: The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and A Knickerbocker’s History of New York, together with oral literatures like The Poetic Edda and Norse traditions related to Christmas. Events in these texts were juxtaposed with present day Christmas celebrations – a new celebration that was not part of the old African society yet has taken over most if not all of Africa. This study confirms the theory that literature writers are the propagators of present day Christmas celebrations including the Christmas trees, Santa Claus and the reindeers. It confirms that literature subtly or with an upheaval depending on the tone the author sets in his writing impacts and changes cultures, traditions, social norms and practices of civilizations.
References
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2. Bowen, E. W. (1906, Apr). Washington Irving's Place in American Literature. The Sewanee Review, The John Hopkins university Press , pp. 171-183.
3. Cooper, J. (2000). whychristmas. Retrieved from whychristmas.com: https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/25th.shtml
4. Durant Will, Durant Ariel. (1975). The Story of Civilisation. New York: Simon & Schuster.
5. Durston, C. (1985). The Puritan War on Christmas. History Today , Volume 35.
6. Elizabeth.C.Hirschman and Priscilla.A.LaBarbera. (1989). The Meaning of Christmas. Association for Consumer Research , 136-147.
7. Heitman, D. (2016, Fall). How Washington Irving shaped Christmas in America. Humanities , pp. Vol 37, no.4.
8. Hillerbrand, H. J. (1998, July 20). Christmas holiday. Retrieved February 05, 2020, from Britannica: https;//www.britannica.com/topic/Christmas
9. History.com, E. (2009, October 27). History.com. Retrieved from History.com: https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas#section-6
10. History.com, E. (2019, December 17). History.com. Retrieved from History.com: https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas
11. Hurlbut, J. L. (1967). The Story of the Christian Church. Chicago: Zondervan.
12. Irving, W. (2004, July 29). A knickerbocker's History of New York. Retrieved from Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13042/13042-h/13042-h.htm
13. Irving, W. (2005). telelib. Retrieved from telelib: https://www.telelib.com/authors/I/IrvingWashington/prose/geoffreycrayon/christmasday.html
14. Jennadestined. (2013). wordpress.com. Retrieved from wordpress.com: https://sanchezjennifer926.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/the-true-reason-for-the-season/
15. Kachele, E. (2019, June 9). forms of written literature. Retrieved February 2021, from kacheleonline: http:/www.kacheleonline.co.tz/2019/06/forms-of-written-literature.html?m=1
16. Lotman, Y. M. (1990). Universe of the Mind, a semiotic theory of culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
17. Mambrol, N. (2020, April 23). Analysis of Washington Irving’s Stories. Literary Theory and Criticism .
18. Merriam-Webster. (2020, September 07). Literature. Retrieved September 16, 2020, from Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literature
19. Miller, D. (2017). Christmas, An anthropological lens. Journal of Ethnographic Theory , 409-442.
20. Richard Hayes, Brittany Kyer, Emily Weber. (2015, December). The Case Study Cookbook. Retrieved 2020, from https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs: https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-121615-164731/unrestricted/USPTO_CookbookFinal.pdf
21. Salusbury, M. (2009, December 12). historytoday. Retrieved from historytoday.com: https://www.historytoday.com/achive/did-romans-invent-christmas
22. Scraba, J. (2020, October). Washington Irving. Retrieved February 2021, from Oxford Bibliographies: https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199827251/obo-9780199827251-0214.xml
23. Sturluson, S. (2005). Edda Prologue and Gylfaginning. London: Viking Society for Northern Research .
24. Travis, L. (2018, December 14). thecandletree. Retrieved from thecandletree.uk: https://www.thecandletree.uk/blog/a-christmas-past?format=amp
25. Vigfusson, Gudbrand,Powell,F.York, eds. (1883). The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
26. Washington, I. (1820). The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. New York: Kindle Books.
27. Weller. (1956). The Bible as History. New York: William Morrw and Company.
28. Wikipedia. (2020, January). Christmas Traditions. Retrieved January 2020, from Wikipedia: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/christmas_traditions
29. Wikipedia. (2021, January). oral gospel tradition. Retrieved February 2021, from wikipedia: http://www.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/oral_gopspel_traditions
30. Wingington, P. (2018, December 07). Learn Religions. Retrieved from Learn Religions: https://www.learnreligions.com/norse-eddas-and-sagas-2561561
31. Wyman, S. (2010). Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle: A Dangerous Critique of a New Nation. ANQ, A Quaterly Journal for Short Articles, Notes and Reviews , 216-222.
Published
2021-10-21
How to Cite
Tendo, D. S. N. (2021). The Contribution of Oral and Written Literature to Present Day Christmas Celebrations in Africa A Case Study of Selected Authors Part 1: Washington Irving. Central Asian Journal of Social Sciences and History, 2(10), 66-75. Retrieved from https://cajssh.centralasianstudies.org/index.php/CAJSSH/article/view/183
Section
Articles
