Text and Inter-Textuality in Contemporary Yorùbá Literary Works

Abstract

The interface between oral and written forms of literature is predominant in Yoruba textual creativities. The inclusion of oral genres in the written form of Yoruba creative writings is purposive because it lends color to its rhythm, plot, characterization, setting, and aesthetic values. In this paper, the border-crossing between the oral and written genre is examined in select Yoruba literary texts. A purposive selection of some Yoruba literary texts is taken, and the texts are subjected to content analyses, using the theoretical framework of satire which derives from African cosmology and oral tradition. The select texts are Akin Is o la’s Bellow in My Belly, Debo Awe ’s Olo unlugo, and Gbemisoye Ayano’s Ayedaade, Findings of the paper include the fact that Yoruba oral poetry is contemporaneous. That is, it serves as a thematic and stylistic source for modern writers. It is also established in the paper that the artists, in a bid to pontificate their themes and ideological views, make use of oral genres like myths, incantatory poems, songs, proverbs, and E se - Ifa. The paper concludes that the ethical and aesthetic values of Yoruba literary texts are conceptualized in the use of oral poetics and, at times, oral narratives.