Sociological and Therapeutic Significance of Poetic Performance in Yoruba Contemporary Society

Abstract

Poetry, as an oral literary genre, is an age-long tradition, the performance of which serves as a traditional medium of communication exchange. Its modality, aesthetics, entertainment and performance-styles are titillating narratives that give its audience nostalgic feelings of the socio-cultural past and contemporary socio-political realities. However, more scholarly attentions have not been adequately given to oral literary poetry in the area of its therapeutic significance and social criticism. This paper, therefore, discussed its therapeutic significance and social criticism of oral literary poetry by examining the Yorùbá contemporary oral literary poetry and other devices deployed by the poet with a view to determining the role of an oral artist as a social critic and therapist. Schechner’s Performance, Freudian and Jungian psychoanalytic theories were used to analyse poetic orature of the selected oral performer, OláńrewajuAdép̀oj̀u. Three digital audio discs of live performance recordings of Oláńrewaju Adép̀oj̀u that were purposively selected were: Ewi´ Special and Mo Fẹsùn Kan O. The selected live recordings were based on the informing sociological realities, choice of satiric mode and performative styles. They were critically subjected to performance and literary analyses after being translated from Yorùbá to English.