Use this table as your complete Literature checklist. It includes every official topic group, the named forms and techniques, and all prescribed works in the current IBASS PDF.
Download the official JAMB Literature in English syllabus PDF
Complete JAMB Literature topics at a glance
| Official topic | Everything to cover |
|---|---|
| 1. Drama | Types: tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, melodrama, farce and opera. Techniques: characterisation, dialogue, flashback, mime, costume, music/dance, decor/scenery, acts/scenes, soliloquy/aside and figures of speech. Text interpretation: theme, plot, socio-political context and setting. |
| 2. Prose | Types: novel, novella/novelette, short story, biography, autobiography, memoir and faction. Narrative devices: omniscient, first-, second- and third-person viewpoints, stream of consciousness, epiphany, characterisation, round/flat/foil/hero/antihero/villain/heroine and language. Analysis: theme, plot, temporal/spatial setting and socio-political context. |
| 3. Poetry | Types: sonnet, ode, lyric, elegy, ballad, panegyric, epic and blank verse. Devices: imagery, rhyme, rhythm, repetition, pun, onomatopoeia, diction, persona and figures of speech. Appreciation: thematic preoccupation, socio-political relevance and style. |
| 4. General literary terms and principles | Foreshadowing, suspense, theatre, monologue, dialogue, soliloquy, symbolism, protagonist, antagonist, figures of speech, satire, stream of consciousness, synecdoche, metonymy and genre overlap. |
| 5. Literary appreciation | Unseen drama, prose and poetry extracts: identify devices, interpret passages and relate them to life. |
Current prescribed texts and poems in the IBASS PDF
| Category | Prescribed works |
|---|---|
| Drama | African: Efua Sutherland, Marriage of Anansewa. Non-African: William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra. |
| Prose | African: Pede Hollist, So the Path Does Not Die; Elma Shaw, Redemption Road. Non-African: Susanne Bellefeuille, Path of Lucas: The Journey He Endured. |
| African poetry | Gabriel Okara, Once Upon a Time; Elizabeth L. A. Kamara, New Tongue; Wole Soyinka, Night; Niyi Osundare, Not My Business; S. O. H. Afriyie-Vidza, Hearty Garlands; Syl Cheney-Coker, The Breast of the Sea. |
| Non-African poetry | Lord Byron, She Walks in Beauty; Geoffrey Chaucer, The Nun’s Priest’s Tale (shortened); Fleur Adcock, The Telephone Call; Wilfred Wilson Gibson, The Stone. |
How to study Literature
Read every prescribed text itself. Summaries cannot teach tone, structure, diction or how evidence works. After each act or chapter, record plot movement, character change, conflict, setting, quotations, techniques and social context. For every poem, identify persona, situation, tone, structure, imagery, sound and central idea.
Practise unseen appreciation
Read the extract once for meaning and again for technique. Name a device only when you can point to the words that create it and explain its effect. Practise short unseen passages every week because this skill cannot be crammed.
Six-week plan
- Drama forms, techniques and the African play.
- Non-African drama and comparative revision.
- Prose forms, devices and African novels.
- Non-African prose and unseen prose.
- All prescribed poems, poetic forms and devices.
- Literary terms, unseen appreciation and timed tests.
Prescribed works can change, so verify the PDF before buying books. Return to the complete JAMB syllabus library for other subjects.
Official source
Topics and the reading list follow the current JAMB IBASS e-syllabus portal.
