This study assesses the creative value of African oral literature through theoretical consideration of genres and literariness based on the origin of oral literature in sub-Saharan francophone Africa. We first identify the point at which the oral culture tradition evolved into the genres of oral literature and examine the characteristics of these literary genres. In addition, we address the problem of literariness lost in the process of oral literature to literal literature and suggest a theoretical approach to explore it. We next study paratextual materials such as object language, sound language, and body language, as the main literary elements organically connected to African’s lyricism and daily life. Then we take a typological approach to oral literature, analyzing the literariness of “space” and “style” in the performance process. Finally, we explore the unique literariness of African oral literature by examining the relationship between the narrator, such as “Griot” and the auditor from the perspective of Jauss and Iser's receptive aesthetics. This study demonstrates that the oral literature, rooted in the oral cultural tradition of sub-Saharan Africa, is an art of a priori and stereoscopic expression equal to that of any other written literature.

African oral literature, sub-Saharan francophone Africa, genres, literariness, paratextual, typological, receptive aesthetic