Expanding Frontiers of Inter-Disciplinary Methodology: Literature as a Source of African History

Abstract

Scholars of literature have often recognized the fact that the understanding of the literature of a people at a given period is tremendously enhanced by a thorough grip of the historical dynamics of the era as well as society. Literary scholars can thus be exculpated if they also tend to believe that historical verisimilitude may be given some weight through a careful sifting of the historical evidence immutably present in literary works. Put differently, there may be some validity in the reconnaissance that certain aspects of literature may be inherently relevant to the verification as well as interpretation of historical data. The writer intends to draw attention of scholars to these sections of relevance as well as highlight how literary evidence can support, enhance as well as broaden the very base of historical evidence and therefore contribute to other areas of profitable academic enquiry.