Luminescing Discourse of Poet-Prophetic Nation-Building: Soyinka’s and Clark’s ‘Abiku’ Narratology Exemplified

Abstract

Poetry, believed to be an expressive vehicle for certain human experiences – be it political, social, economic, cultural, has been object of global scholarship in recent past. Extant studies have concentrated on the literariness of, predominantly, prosaic and dramatic forms with sparse considerations for worthwhile linguistic criticism of early poetic traditions. This study, therefore, explored Wole Soyinka’s and J. P. Clark’s ‘Abiku’ with a view to examining the technicality of their discursive and linguistic manipulations to convey their intended messages for nation-building purpose. With critical discourse-stylistic analysis, interactional sociolinguistics theory was used, providing groundwork for how words, structures and other language resources become prophetic tools. Title and thematic crafting, graphological and syntactic structural layout, lexical choices, intonational and narrative voicing and their discursive manipulation are comparatively surveyed to expose the poets’ individual deep-seated ideologies and political agenda. Structurally, Soyinka’s is composed of stanzas, resembling persuasive speech, while Clark’s is a continuous free verse, reflecting the cyclical nature of Abiku’s reincarnation. Lexical choices, Pronominal referencing, distinguishing die-hard pessimism from a more optimistic outlook, coalesced with cultural and biblical allusions to enrich the poems, reinforcing the poets’ ideological critiques of the nation’s constitution. Convergent and divergent views exist as the poets, through their professional penmanship, respond to the same social-political situation prevalent in the nation’s constitution through their literary works, howbeit from different ideological perspectives. Soyinka and Clark, exemplifying first generation of Nigerian poets, with their artistry of Abiku narratology, craftily execute their social conscience business that qualify them as literary prophets.