1.1 Introduction
The Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare examines nature from a variety of perspectives. What will be offered here is an analysis of the ways in which his insights into the natural order have shaped his notions of the social order in his country. The paper will first try to establish a basis for the analysis of nature and nation in poetry and then undertake a close analysis of some of the representative poems in the author’s literary corpus, with a bias for those in “The Eye of the Earth”. It is perhaps best to start by offering a clear distinction between the terms “nature” and “environment” which, though closely related, are not synonymous. “Nature” has been defined as “the physical world of trees, plants, animals, rivers … or a physical object in its original form”.1 It has also been defined as “the outer world of sense perception which is not man nor the immediate work of man”.2 “Environment”, for its part, has been defined as “the sum total of the biological, chemical and physical factors in some circumscribed area, usually associated with a particular living organism”.3 The major distinction offered by these definitions appears to be that “nature” detaches humans from ecological surroundings, making the latter epistemologically distinct from the former, while “environment” situates humans within nature as a constituent part of the Earth.4
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Aim/Purpose and Objectives of Study
The purpose of the study is to scrutinize the Poetry and Nationhood using Niyi Osunsare's Text as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To explore the Poetry and Nationhood of Niyi Osunsare's Text
- To examine and analyse the Niyi Osunsare's Text using the appropriate discourse elements in the analysis
This research is basically on stylistics, to engage stylistics as a branch of linguistics and to study and analyze the characteristics of situational distinctive use of language with referent to Niyi Osundare‘s selected socio political poems, also to show the functional significance and the interpretation of the poems.
1.3 Justification of the Study
In an attempt to study stylistics and use it as a linguistic tool of analysis, many writers have embarked no stylistics. Example is “A stylistic analysis of Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu’s coup speech 1996” by Moses Alo and Igbwebuka Ebuka ; rhetorical concise, Syntactic features, Declarative mood and acts Referring expressions and lexico-semantic features were all used in analyzing the coup speech. In this research, the importance of writers cannot be over-emphasized because through their literary piece, many socio-political ills in our society have been discussed and possible solutions have been proffered to them. In view of these, there exists a great need to examine the use of language by these writers whose literary works have done a lot in shaping our society.
1.4 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the Poetry and Nationhood using Niyi Osunsare's Text as a case study.
1.5 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.6 The Biography of the Poet Niyi Osundare
Niyi Osundare was born in 1947 in Ikere Ekiti, Ekiti State. Nigeria. He is a prolific poet, dramatist and literary critic. He gained his degree at the University of Ibadan (B.A), his masters degree in the university of Leeds and his PhD in York university, Canada in 1997. Niyi Osundare has always been a vehement champion of right to freedom of speech and he has a strong believe in the power of words saying “to alter is to utter”. Osundare is renowned for his commitment to socially relevant art and artistic activism .He has written several letters to former president of Nigeria (Olusegun Obasanjo) whom Osundare had often publicly criticized. He believes that there is no choice for Africa poets but to be political. He is a holder of numerous awards for his poetry as well as the Falcons Nichol award for excellence in poetry, creativity combined with significant contributions of human right in Africa. So far, Niyi Osundare has been a very successful playwright, columnist, literary critics and Emergent writer whose pieces are socio-politically inclined.
1.7 Research Methodology
Data used in this work is derived primary from secondary sources. The methodology therefore, is basically documentary in nature. This involves learning new facts and principles through the study of documents and records. The documents and records include journals, textbooks, newspapers, magazines, official publications etc. By putting together logically evidence derived from documents and records. Conclusion which either established facts hitherto unknown or sound generalization can be obtained.
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