Decrying shifting norms: towards a codification of societal ethos in Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo's Heart Songs

Vol.39,No.1(2013)

Niyi Akingbe

https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2013-1-8

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/129156

PDF
Abstract
Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo's literary forte in the last ten years has undoubtedly been fiction, but Heart Songs is her first collection of poems. In this collection, she takes on the roles of social commentator and crusader through the conduit of orature, to criticize the devaluation of cultural and societal norms. The Poetics of Heart Songs is imbued with: the lamentation of the dearth of moral and social values in Nigerian society; the actual but often unspoken degradation of Nigerian immigrants in Europe and America, and the frequency with which corrupt practices have undermined the nation's development. This paper examines how Heart Songs canvasses for a re-examination of societal ethos, which demands that Nigeria's present must settle with the past by recovering social, moral and cultural codes for the restoration of human dignity.

Keywords:
decrying shifting norms; codification; societal ethos; cultural codes; Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo

Pages:
149–165
References

Achebe, Chinua (1987) Anthills of the Savannah. London: Heinemann.

Achebe, Chinua (1966) A Man of the People. London: Heinemann.

Adimora-Ezeigbo, Akachi (2009) Heart Songs. Ibadan: Kraft Books Limited.

Acholonu, Catherine (1991) " From Rhetoric to Occultism: The Word as Music & Drama in Okigbo's Labyrinths". African Literature Today 17 (1), 138.

Apparadurai, Arjun (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

Apparadurai, Arjun (1999) " Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy". In: Featherstone, Mike (ed.) Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalisation and Modernity. London: Sage, 295–310.

Chinweizu Onwuchekwa, Jemie and Ihechukwu Madubuike (eds.) (1983) Toward the Decolonization of African Literature. Washington D.C: Howard University Press.

Christensen, Matthew (2005) " Cannibals in the Postcolony: Sierra Leone's Intersecting Hegemonies in Charlie Haffner's Slave Revolt Drama Amistad Kata-Kata". Research in African Literatures 36 (1), 3.

Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol.11. (1972) Ed. David L. Sills. New York: Macmillan.

Ekwensi, Cyprian (1979) Jagua Nana. Ibadan: Heinemann.

Enekwe, Ossie (1986) Broken Pots. Nsukka: Afa Press.

Fatoba, Femi (1984) Petals of Thought. London:New Beacon Books.

Griffith, Gareth (2000) African Literature in English: East and West. Harlow: Pearson.

Hearth, Roy (1972) " The Function of Myth". In: Salkey, Andrew (ed.) Caribbean Essays. London: Evans, 86–94.

Jeyifo, Biodun (2003) " New Perspectives on the Postcolonial Literatures of the Developing World". In: Ogundele, Wole and Gbemisola Adeoti (eds.) IBA: Essays On African Literature in Honour of Oyin Ogunba. Ile-Ife: Obafemi Awolowo University Press Ltd.

Kubayanda, Josaphat (1997) " Unfinished Business: Dictatorial Literature of Post-Independence Latin America and Africa". Research in African Literatures 28 (4), 38.

Lewis, David (1969) Convention: A Philosophical Study. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

Ndu, Pol (1974) Songs for Seers. New York: Nok Publishers.

Ngcobo, Lauretta (1988) " African Motherhood- Myth and Reality". In: Holst Petersen, Kirstein (ed.) Criticism and Ideology: Second African Writers’ Conference Stockholm 1986. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 150.

Nwachukwu-Agbada, J.O.J. (1991) " The Language of Post-war Nigerian Poetry of English Expression". African Literature Today 17, 166.

Nwapa, Flora (1966) Efuru. London: Heinemann.

Ofeimun, Odia (1980) The Poet Lied. London: Longman.

Ogede, Ode (1996) " Poetry & Repression in Contemporary Nigeria: Tanure Ojaide's Labyrinths of the Delta". African Literature Today 20, 65.

Ohaeto, Ezenwa (1994) " Pidgin Literature, Criticism & Communication". African Literature Today 19, 49.

Ohaeto, Ezenwa (1986) Songs of a Traveller. Awka: Towncrier Publications.

Okigbo, Christopher (1971) Labyrinths. London: Heinemann.

Onwueme, Tess (2003) Personal Interview. Eau Claire, Wisconsin. June 8.

Osundare, Niyi (1984) Village Voices. Ibadan: Evans.

Osundare, Niyi (1990) Waiting Laughters. Lagos:Malthouse.

Wallerstein, Immanuel (1968) Social Change: The Colonial Situation. New York: John Wiley.

Metrics

2

Crossref logo

4

2

Views

0

PDF views

PDF