POETIC STYLE AND SOCIAL COMMITMENT IN NIYI OSUNDARE’S SONGS OF THE MARKETPLACE

ABSTRACT

This essay studies how oral performance constitutes the core poetic style employed by Niyi Osundare to project social commitment and vision in Songs of the Marketplace.  It discusses how the poet’s deployment of oral performance makes his poetry more accessible to a larger audience than those of his predecessors. The pervasive theme of moral degeneration remains a serious concern in the selected poems. Like the oral traditional performance, Osundare employs rich Yoruba oral literary devices in a way that is unique. His poetic style has a clearly defined concept and role of concentizing the masses toward revolutionary consciousness. The poem is  central to the depiction of the polemics of governance and politics in Nigerian society. In a way, the poem raises hope of redemption from the decadent situation that has eaten deep into the fabric of social existence.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Theoretical Framework

Osundare’s Style and Social Vision

Conclusion

References

INTRODUCTION

The emergent poets are the second generation of Nigerian writers namely Tanure Ojaide, Niyi Osundare, Odia Ofeimun whose poetry immersed in the Marxist critical tradition.  Marxist insurrection in Nigerian creative practice emerged from the late 1970s.  The Marxist-oriented poetry is preoccupied with the criticism of the oppressive systems, the identification of the people responsible for the failure of nation building as well as the promotion of an alternative system perceived to be liberating. Emmanuel (2007, p.85) posits that:

There is that type of literature by which the writer rebels against societal values.  He is the one that is sensitive to what is going on around him; one who wants a better deal for everybody.  This is the kind of literature that becomes an instrument for social transformation.  Its basic aim is to awaken the revolutionary consciousness in the majority of group of the society who are oppressed, exploited and deprived of good social living condition.

  Several critics have attempted to give emergent revolutionary writers a brand name. For instance, Aliyu-Ibrahim(2012,p.125) posits that Akinwale (1993) refers to it as ‘protest’.  Gbilekaa (1997) calls it ‘radical’ while Ododo (2004) adopts the term “re-creative”.  The high point of difference between the works of the earlier and emergent poets is the adoption of a new poetic style and revolutionary ideology.  Ojaide cited in Okunoye 2004, p.3) states clearly that:

Modern African poetic aesthetics are unique in possessing a repertory of authentic African features.  This authenticity manifests itself in the use of concrete images derived from the fauna and flora, proverbs, indigenous rhythms, verbal tropes and concepts of space and time to establish a poetic form.  The mere fact that foreign languages are used could occasionally create discord in discourse but modern African poetry attempts to reflect indigenous rhythms.  In fact, an authentic African world forms the backdrop of modern African poetry.

           This paper studies the poetic style and vision of nation-building in Niyi  Osundare’s Song of the Marketplace.  The essay focuses on the specific way in which cultural production like poetry has contributed to the understanding of the problem of governance in the post-independent Nigerian nation.  In the field of African literature, interrogation of this nexus has come to be known as radical aesthetics.   Songs of the Marketplace addresses a wide range of issues bothering on corruption, poverty and administrative ineptitude. Osundare’s poetic style is ideologically infused with the materialistic perspective of society as argued by Karl Marx. The social relevance of Songs of the Marketplace to the society as a mirror of political and economic sterility and the call for social redemption cannot be over- emphasized.  This is why Osundare (2009, p.115) affirms that:

Literature is part of the structure of the society; it may simply record the kind of society the writer knows- its values, problems, structure, events, e.t.c or it may attack this very society and its present evils.  Literature more often embodies the writer’s evaluation of his work or illuminates its possibilities.

Osundare’s postulation shows how sensitive literature is to the society, not only in employing poetry for depicting happenings but also as an advocate of social change and nation building. The emergence of modern African poets with a new poetic revolution presents a dramatic departure from the Euro-Modernist Nigerian poetry of the first generation.  The emergent African poetry champions a poetic innovation within the framework of what has been described as alternative poetic tradition. Stylistically, the adaptation of local language and traditional speech pattern are distinguishing characteristics of the poetry.  Niyi Osundare in particular strives for an effective way of projecting African poetic visions and African realities.  Ojaide affirms this when he posits that “unlike in the 1960s when the poets were culturally obsessed, nature-oriented and universal, today, old and young poets are addressing their national issues more aggressively than before.  In their desire to effect changes, they use the nation state as their starting point. (Okunoye, 2008 P.4) 

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