UNIT ONE

Survey of Ethiopian Literature

Introduction

1.1. Literature in African Languages

Literatures in African languages have received little scholarly attention, in part because of a
Western bias in favor of literature in European languages. Another barrier is that few scholars of
African culture know any African languages, and few Africans know an African language other
than their own. The best-known literatures in African languages include those in Yoruba and Hausa
in West Africa; Sotho, Xhosa, and Zulu in southern Africa; and Amharic, Somali, and Swahili in
East Africa.

In West Africa, Yoruba writing emerged after Bishop Ajayi Crowther, a former slave, developed
a script for the language and in 1900 published the first Yoruba translation of the Bible. Isaac
Babalola Thomas published the first work of fiction in Yoruba in 1929. Writing emerged in the
Hausa language earlier than in the Yoruba language, with such works as Wakar Muhammad u
(Song of Muhammad, 1845).

In southern Africa as well, writing was introduced by missionaries who established themselves in
the 1820s at Lovedale, near Alice (now in Eastern Cape Province). In addition to the Bible, one of
the texts the missionaries translated for instruction was The Pilgrim’s Progress. This work
provided the model for the first South African work of fiction.

In East Africa, a system of writing for the Somali language was not developed until the early 20th
century, long after writing in Arabic had become widespread among Somali-speaking peoples.
Literature in Somali is predominantly in verse, and its greatest figure is Sayyid Maxamed Cabdulle
Xasan, who was born in the mid-19th century and died in 1921. He criticized the European
colonizers and their native collaborators.

Literature in Swahili dates back to the 17th century. Early writings, by Muslim scholars and clerics,
consist largely of celebrations in verse of religious figures. Modern Swahili literature, in prose and
in verse, dates from 1925, when the countries then forming British East Africa (now Kenya,

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Tanzania, and Uganda) adopted Swahili as the only African language for use in their schools. The
first important modern Swahili writer was Tanzania’s Shaaban Robert, who wrote in prose and
verse, praising his traditional culture.

Writing began in Ethiopia as early as the 4th century B.C., the time Christianity was believed to
be introduced. Writing in Ethiopia began in Geez by translating the Bible and other holly books.
Ethiopian literature is eminently national and African in orientation, although the country was
rather cut off from much of the rest of Africa for centuries due to its early adoption of Christianity,
its isolating landscape, and its heroic resistance to colonial encroachment. Swahili literature has
also developed a truly national African literature, but foreign influences are stronger in this
tradition, and due to colonialism literature in English has had higher prestige in Swahili-speak ing
areas of East Africa. This has made Ethiopian literature unique, and in volume and quality it
surpasses any other literature written in a purely African language.

Note: - It is simple enough to conclude from the discussion above that writing, almost in all early
languages, in Africa began in religious centers by translating holly books.

1.2. Ethiopian literature

Ethiopian literature began with inscriptions in stone over two thousand years ago. The language
developed into Ethiopic (also called Geez), which later became a very important literary tool when
Christianity was adopted in the region in the fourth century. Stone inscriptions refer to the Axumite
period. This is the period from the 4th to the 12th centuries. This period was the reign of King Izana.

1. Pentesion is thought to have been written from the 4th to the 5th century. It is named after
Pentesion, a mountain east of Axum. The text was written in Greek. It is written in two lines and
is said to be about winning a war, even though it is difficult to understand why it is written.

2. Abba Pentesion II: He was found there and is said to be a merciful God, although difficult to
understand.

3. Mehari - Written from 2nd to 3rd century. The language is Greek, and it is said that the king
visited the temple and wrote a letter of thanks.

4. Axum IV: Written by King Izana, it is an indestructible lineage in memory of the God who
helped him.

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5. Axum Five - Three lines that are very confusing and the idea is unrealistic. It was written in
Greek.

6. Axum Six - written in the Sabaean language. It is similar to Axum IV, in which the one who
touches it is sentenced to death and the one who honors it is blessed.

7. Axum Seven - It is written in Geez. It has a warning that it does not exist. Used to distinguis h
word from word (/). Outside of the vowel, it was originally written. (Izn) / Ngs/ Aksm).

8. Axum Eight - Written by Saba. It shows that the merciful child is a victorious king, that no one
can defeat him.

9. Axum nine - Written in Geez and used a distinctive vowel.

10. Axum ten - Written in Geez and vowel extensions are clearly visible. The difference is that he
prayed to his God for victory.

11. Axum Eleven - Written in Geez and found in Axum Zion Church. The difference is that he
embraces the Christian faith. He concluded that this is also the power of God in heaven.

12. Axum Twelve - It is thought to have been written between the 7th and 12th centuries. It was
written in Geez and is known not by the king but by the writer. He used a word to describe
something special.

1.3. Ethiopic (or Geez) literature

This had its beginning when immigrants from the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula (present
day Yemen) in the millennium before Christ left inscriptions in stone in northern Ethiopia. Several
tribes from southern Arabia mixed to form a specific Ethiopian language and a characteristic script,
Ethiopic or Geez, at first consisting only of consonants, later with vowel signs added to the
consonantal stems. This development of a new language and a new script would prove to be of
tremendous importance for Ethiopia.

When Ethiopia adopted Christianity in the fourth century, there began a fruitful work of translating
the Bible, including apocrypha books. Some of these books, for example the book of Enoch, exist
complete only in Ethiopic and in modern translations made from it. These works were soon
followed by other religious and theological literature. Much of the latter has been collected in

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Haymanote Abew (The Faith of the Fathers). Ethiopia also has a unique collection of liturgies,
lives of saints (mostly foreign, but also a few Ethiopian), and prayer books, the use of which is a
salient feature of Ethiopian Christianity. At the same time, the Church started schools to educate
the laity as well as to train clergy, and this education system has supplied Ethiopia with a great
number of literate people over many centuries, from all classes of society. Education in church
institutions made it possible for Ethiopians from almost any background to advance to the highest
positions in society.

Genuine Ethiopian modern critical philosophy may have started in Ethiopia at the same time as in
Europe. There were also texts in law: Fitha Negest (The Royal Law) was the basic Ethiopian law
until well into the second half of the twentieth century. In history, a series of royal chronicles were
produced. Finally, a typical (so-called classical) Ethiopian form of poetry (qiné), was composed
both in Geez and Amharic.

A fictional work from the fourteenth century, Kibre Negest (The Glory of Kings), has had a special
place in Ethiopian tradition, pretending to tell the true story of King Solomon of Israel and the
Ethiopian Queen of Sheba and their son Minilik I, who is said to have founded the Solomonic
dynasty which ruled Ethiopia from 1270 to 1974, but which according to this legend goes back to

around 1000 BC. It was a royal charter that gave considerable stability to the royal line, and the
story inspired a great amount of pictorial art.

The Kebra Nagast (Glory of the Kings), dating to the early fourteenth century, is a
characteristically original text that traces the origin of the Solomonic dynasty in Ethiopia as part
of the elaboration of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The text can be read as a legitimation of the
dynasty, a justification of its right to rule based on the divine rights of kings. In marvelous poetic
analytic language, it describes the amorous relationship between Sheba, the beautiful and shrewd
Ethiopian queen, and the wise Solomon (Bezold 1909). Another section of the work describes the
military genius of Alexander the Great. Kebra Nagast is simultaneously mythical, allegorical, and
more fundamentally apocalyptic.

Ethiopian literature falls into three broad categories: classical literature, including historica l
narratives, heroic poetry, and works of philosophical reflection cast in an imaginative mode;

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romantic and political literature in Amharic, and, since the Second World War, the new literature
in English.

Classical literature

The classical literature is expressed in Ge’ez, a Semitic language that is also the oldest written
language in Africa, with its unique orthography going back nearly two thousand years. The Holy
Bible and all other Christian texts have been translated into Ge’ez, which survives today as the
language of the Ethiopian clergy; in this respect, it has a status similar to Latin in the western
world. Ordinary Ethiopians neither spoke nor wrote in Ge’ez. Therefore, the texts written in that
language did not seep into the soul of the people, and did not produce a national literary culture.
The classical literary texts, hymns, and songs circulate today only among the priestly class and
highly specialized students and teachers of Ge’ez. This is part of the reason that the modern
Ethiopian state which emerged in the late nineteenth century had to forge a new language aimed
at producing a popular national culture through the medium of Amharic.

This category comprises a substantial number of devotional books, many of them works translated
from foreign sources.

It is widely believed that the translation of the Bible into Ge’ez began in the fifth century, one
hundred years after the conversion of the Aksumite kingdom to Christianity, and that it was
completed by the seventh century (Knibb 1999: 2). This translation, based on a Greek text, was
revised in light of Arabic and Hebrew texts during the literary revival that marked the reign of
Amda Tseyon (1314–44) in the fourteenth century. Literary activity, which had stopped with the
decline of the Aksumite kingdom in the seventh century, was revived with the establishment of
the Solomonic dynasty (1268–1975). Ge’ez versions of many sacred books have disappeared
(Haile 1995: 43), but some have survived. The main religious books of this period are the Book of
Enoch; the Book of Jubilee (on the Sabbath), and the Book of Joseph and Asenath. These books
were unknown to the authors of the Old Testament but were apparently well known by the authors
of the New Testament. They have now become fully incorporated into the body of Ethiopian sacred
books; thus, they form the Bible, which for Ethiopians consists not of sixty-six but of eighty- one
books. In the Ethiopian Christian community, all the texts grapple with distinctly Ethiopia n
problems, out of which develops a distinct Christian literature by Ethiopians and for Ethiopia ns.
This was the first exercise in the indigenization and localization of Christianity in the African

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experience. A broader view of this interpretive literature must include these texts as contributio ns
to global Christian literature.

Classical Ethiopian literature also includes a large body of philosophical writings in literary
language, in genres such as fables and poetry, deriving from different external and internal sources.
Classical Ethiopian philosophy itself results from a confluence of Greek, Egyptian, Aramaic, and
Arab sources.

This story gives Ethiopia the first legendary king, Menelik, who became the first self-conscio us
founder of the Ethiopian dynasty. He is purportedly the son of Solomon and Sheba. A long line of
kings traces their genealogy to this legendary story. Different books of this period also describe
the deeds of heroes, such as during the wars of the Ethiopian emperor Amda Tseyon (1314–44),
celebrated in The Glorious Victories of ’Amda Tseyon, king of Ethiopia (Hunting ford 1965).
These texts are one source from which Ethiopian historians chronicle Ethiopian history; they
represent one of the two fountains from which Ethiopian history flows. The other source is Gedlat
(Acts of Saints). Getatchew Haile finds the Gedlat exceptionally useful, the simplicity of the Ge’ez
in which they are written being one its attractions; while the rich tapestry of the Ethiopian setting
that grounds the texts is another (Haile 1995: 50). This period also gave Ethiopia one of its finest
emperors, Zara Yacob, who was also an accomplished literary figure.

Hymns and poetry

The emperor Zara Yacob (1434–68) is remembered for his vivid hymns and his devotion to the
cult of Mary. He pleaded that the “goddess” should be revered by the faithful; painters heeded to
his demands and personified her in breathtaking paintings. According to Haile, “The king ordered
thirty-three feasts to be observed in Mary’s honor, some monthly and some annually” (1995: 50).
Zara Yacob’s literary texts are filled with hymns to Mary. A foundational hymnody called
Igziabher Negse, is considered his main literary output. The following passage from Zara Yacob’s
Book of Hours is representative of its style and atmosphere of devotional piety:

What should we call you, O full of grace;

You are the gate of Salvation;

You are the portal of light;

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You are the daughter of the palace

Should we call you a golden basket?

Your son is the bread of life;

His apostles are your stewards,

The sacrifices of the body of your First-born.

(Haile 1995: 52)

One of the genres of Ge’ez poetry is that associated with Qine. These poems are employed as
panegyrics and eulogies of political and religious personalities, to honor the saints and as hymns
to celebrate particular religious’ ceremonies. The poems are rhymed and rhythmical, and are
performed by trained singers. The composers must follow strict rules of composition as regards

the length of the lines, rhythm, and grammatical structure. The singers are expected to display
exceptional powers of expression. Students are carefully instructed in the mastery of the genre,
before they can aspire to compose these ntricately woven Qine poems. One such book of rhymes
is Diggua, a book of hymns attributed to a sixth-century Aksumite priest (Haile 1995: 51). Aksum
Tsion, a famous church, uses Qine to celebrate “the conception of Mary” as a special religio us
event; this church prohibits the use of Qine for any other purpose. The most famous poem in this
genre is Mezmure Dawit, which closely follows “Psalms of Dawit,” written by an anonymous poet
who lived probably in the sixteenth century.

The fifteenth century witnessed ferocious conflicts between Orthodox Christians and other
denominations. Islam was also seeking to penetrate Ethiopia by force, and Ethiopian Christianity
was asserting its autonomy and repelling foreign intrusion. The great religious books of the century
are literary documentations of these conflicts. Among them can be mentioned Egiazhar Ngse (The
God King); Kisaitan Herdet (Satan’s Dance); and finally the Gedlat, a book that narrates the “deeds
and miracles” of the saints. The fifteenth century was also a century of king worship. Divinized
Ethiopian kings are praised in literary homilies. The most powerful literary figure of the time was
Enbakom, a Muslim merchant who converted to Christianity and became prior of the monastery
of Debre Libanos. He is the author of Anqas’a amin (Gate of Faith); Fetha Nagast (Justice of the
Kings); and Hawi Mesthafe, a theological encyclopedia translated by Salik of Debre Libanos.

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Unfortunately, the fifteenth century also witnessed the destruction of books consequent upon the
Muslim incursion (1527–43). As Islamization spread, the destruction of Christian books increased,
crippling Ethiopian literary life. All this resulted in mitigating the verve and imagination of those
who wrote in Ge’ez, which lost its expressive vigor and presence. It became reduced to a
“liturgical” language of the Church. Except among Ethiopian Falashas, Ethiopian Jews who
continued to use Ge’ez, the language has been replaced in all the secular sectors of Ethiopia n
national life by Amharic.

Geez literature had a great flowering in the middle ages, when Amharic had largely replaced Geez
as a spoken language. From the early fourteenth century until well into the twentieth century, there
was an almost unbroken chain of histories of Ethiopia in the form of royal chronicles, many of
immense importance for the understanding of Ethiopia’s past and present, although they are often
biased in favor of the rulers at the time.

1.4. Amharic Literature

Geez remained practically the only literary language of Ethiopia until the middle of the nineteenth
century, when the Emperor Téwodros II (1855–68) had chronicles from his reign recorded in
Amharic, the present national language of Ethiopia. After that time, the volume of writing in
Amharic increased steadily, especially from the early twentieth century, but it became a flood in
the last quarter of that century. Although the country has over eighty languages, little is written in
languages other than Amharic. However, Geez is still used in the Church and in some historica l
works, and so-called classical—that is, traditional, church-inspired —poetry, dealing with all kinds
of topics (far from only religious ones) is still composed in Geez. As scholarship has largely been
transmitted orally in Ethiopia, much is still being recorded from dictation by traditional scholars
in Geez.

In order to show the main effects and characteristics of Amharic literature, the presentation is
presented in two sub-sections based on the historical events of the country.

1. From the 14th century to the middle of the 16th century in Amharic

The written material of this period is also poetic. His poems were written in praise of the various
emperors who ruled the country from 1303 to 1550: Emperor Amdetsion, Emperor David,

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Emperor Isaac, Emperor Zeraiakob, and Emperor Gelawdewos. The anonymity of the authors of
the poems is a characteristic of all poems.

Amharic had its beginning as an important written language in historical works, apart from the
oral literature, which is still being collected. But in 1900 came the first Amharic novel, written in
Naples and published in Rome because Italian scholars wanted texts for the study of the language.
The fall of imperial Ethiopia and the rise of socialism brought new hope to Ethiopia, and in spite
of censorship and restrictions of many kinds the two decades after the 1966 revolution saw an
unprecedented outpouring of fictional literature in Ethiopia. With low prices, books reached a wide
audience for the first time. In the last years of the twentieth century, however, there was an
education in literary output due to higher prices and other economic restrictions. As in other parts
of Africa, Ethiopian literature has been geared toward utilitarian value, to influence people and
shape a better society.

It took several centuries before Amharic replaced Ge’ez as the language of writing. Amharic had
emerged by the fourteenth century as an independent language, replacing classical Ge’ez as the
spoken language of the royal court under the Solomonic dynasty (Molvaer 1997: xiii). The oldest
writings in Amharic are poems and songs in praise of Emperors Amda Tseyon and Emperor
Ghelawdewos; these writings appeared in the fourteenth century.

The second half of the 19th century, two events that are believed to have contributed significa ntly
to the development of Amharic literature.

1. The missionaries wrote a religious text in Amharic and

2. The King made Amharic the working language and his historians wrote the King's story in
Amharic

Amharic achieved official status as the literary language of Ethiopia during the reign of Emperor
Menilik (1881–1913); Menilik’s own extensive chronicle was written in Amharic (Demoz 1995:
17). EmperorTewodros (1855–68) introduced the idea that the unification of Ethiopia required the
use of a national language. Amharic thus gained prominence in the late nineteenth century, opening
the way to the flowering of a new national literary culture. Amharic became the official language
of Ethiopia in 1955, as promulgated in the country’s revised constitution.

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 2. From Menelik II's reign to the Battle of Adwa

There are five socio-cultural factors that directly contribute to the birth and growth of modern
Amharic literature.

1. Amharic is the official language of government

2. Laying the foundation for a modern education system
3. Creation of salaried and educated government employees
4. The introduction of modern printing presses into Ethiopia and the launch of newspaper
printing and distribution and
5. Young Ethiopians go abroad and get educated and return home.

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