ABSTRACT
This work looks into the themes and central ideas of emergent tradition and the African poetry. It aims at examining the message of Ojaide’s as on emergent writer and his opinion about political themes and cultural themes in relation to literary tradition in African poetry. Used in this research work is the writer’s realist ideas, background, experience and the themes preoccupying the emergent tradition and African poetry in relation to literary tradition as represented in this work by Tanure Ojaide.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Certification …………………………………………………………………. 2
Dedication …………………………………………………………………. 3
Acknowledgement …………………………………………………………… 4
Table of Content ……………………………………………………………… 5
Abstract ………………………………………………………………………. 7
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction …………………………………………………………………. 8
Purpose of study ……………………………………………………………... 11
Scope of the study …………………………………………………………… 11
Justification of the study …………………………………………………….. 12
Methodology ………………………………………………………………… 12
Structure of Thesis …………………………………………………………… 13
CHAPTER TWO
Literature Review …………………………………………………………….. 15
CHAPTER THREE
Emergent writers and social issues, examples from Ojaide’s “The Fate of Vultures” and “The music of pain”. …………………………. 23
CHAPTER FOUR
Emergent writers and the Question of tradition, A study of “The Endless song” in Ojaide’s poetry. ……………………………………. 32
CHAPTER FIVE
Summary …………………………………………………………………… 38
CONSLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………. 41
INTRODUCTION
The word ‘emergent’, means something new and still developing, while ‘tradition’ is a belief custom or way of doing something that has been in existence for a long time among a particular group of people. Therefore, emergent tradition is a new development in literary works. Also some certain writers have come up with new traditions and these writers can be referred to as emergent writers in which the havereinuented the aesthetics traditions they inherited from old writers (dominant writers) and came out with some new forms of writings Oyeniyi Okunoye (2004) said that “The term ‘emergent’ is very much misunderstood. He said that we must not confuse what is historically and materially emergent from the loose sense of emerging or the new”. Therefore, an emergent aesthetic tradition is that which departs from the old in terms of authorial ideology mode of literary ‘Production and aesthetic’ ideology.
The writers in Africa are moved to write because they are constrained to respond to the call of their inner selves to express their though feelings and ideas about their environments, societies and cultures. The African writers therefore, captures their existential experiences through their literary creativities through their innermost feelings. Emergent tradition and African poetry is therefore a product of the modern poets and poetry as a tool for social change
and it marks an important development of political consciousness and also, there is a common ideology uniting poets like Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide and Kofi Anyidoho of Chana. All these poets share the idea that literature can be employed to mediate in socio-political formation.
Apart from this they deploy literary language pattern that communicates to an average reader because most of their works are not entangled with the kind of syntactic obstacles and abstractors found in the so called dominant poets or writer like Wole Soyinka and early Christoper Ohigbo.
For instance some of these emergent poets even find popular language variety like pidgin to be a useful means of aesthetic communication. There is the light-hearted impact of Ojaide’s pidgin rendition of the Image “Mami Wata” (sea goddess). The mere fact that foreign languages are used could occasionally create disagreement, but modern African poetry attempts to reflects indigenous rhythms. They believed that black poetic imagination must be differentiated from the western tradition of poetry as long as the artistic philosophy of African writers is rooted in literary tradition. The artistic practices and principles shared by various Black African Societies provide the common bases for modern African poets in African descents.
Literary tradition and its legitimizing claims cultural or historical affinities. They are at best efforts of black intellectuals committed to making a claim to a unifying black literary heritage. Femi Ojo Ade’s sustained scholarly preoccupation with constructing a black literary tradition as evident in Colour and Culture in literature (1984).
Young black intellectuals followed these tradition and read the principal works of their exponents which gave a powerful to criticise western society and culture to reappraise political and social frame work of the colonial relationship and the moral and spiritual value of the culture of their colonial masters.
The efforts of the emergent tradition is remarkable in the sense that it generated the enduring problematic in African critical practice, all of which is associated with the task of clarifying the African literary identity. Literary tradition in African writing was first empowered by the anxiety of writers like Toban lo Liyong who detected discrepancies in literary productivity in various parts of the continent it was flowed by the arbitrariness of the criteria adopted. For instance, West African poetic tradition, considering the diversity of her people and the forms of colonialism experienced in the region. Each of the two sub traditions in West African poetry, the Anglophone and the Francophone is a product of a unique colonial experience. This is largely responsible for reinforcing received assumptions with regard to the Canon of African poetry, as representative poets are often identified in each case, especially when such studies are incorporated into comprehensive surveys of the literature of the region concerned because such works are significant both for the writers they recognised and that which is excluded because the pattern accounts for the recognition of certain poets as representing the literary achievement of a region.
This research work of emergent tradition and the African poetry, will be represented by using Tanure Ojaide’s selected poems of “The Fate of Vultures” and “The endless song” and other poems” like “The music of pain” and “For my Love”.
In Ojaide’s poetry is writings or works are based on his experience during his period or his time, which is part of one of the importance of emergent tradition and African poetry. It also implies that the poet takes the responsibility of using his work to create awareness of socio political crisis. It also goes beyond this to provide alternative political practice that allows for equality, justice and protection for all. In his poem The music of pain he talked about the
military class for its coercion, corruption, lawlessness, injustice and class segregation. These key problems are revealed through his specific poetic devices. Ojaide’s pattern of literary writings portrays him as a poet of African poetry whose works are based on what is happening in his environment.