Faculty of Arts

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Browsing Faculty of Arts by Author "Alaba, Isaac. Olugboyega."

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    A Soci-Stylistic Analysis of Orin Agbe: A Multimodal Genre of Yoruba Oral Poetry.
    (University of Lagos, 1985-02) Alaba, Isaac. Olugboyega.
    This study attempts a detailed description and analysis of Yorùbá agbé art - a verbal poetic song and art from that belongs to the Yoruba oral literacy genre. The study contextualizes agbé verbal art in a socio-historical perspective showing its religious and secular dimensions. It discusses in detail both its entertainment and oral–poetic aspects, and how it resembles and/or differs from other genres. The communicative functions, the aesthetic functions, and the ritual functions of the genre study are shown as being intertwined; and the socio-stylistic approach adopted in the study reveals the essence of inter-personal relationships in Yoruba traditional society. An aspect of the message of agbé art form is that the poor masses are exploited by the minority elite class but the former ‘’must realize that that is how God has made the world.’’ Ironically, even though the agbé artists know they belong to the exploited poor in the society, their art form is often performed for the delight of the traditional elite class. This partly responsible for why there is very little evidence of protest songs in their performance. Although they may be aware of certain inequalities in their immediate environment, their art form cannot be said to consciously address the controversial socio – political issues of our contemporary society.