SATIRICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ELEMENTS IN SOME SELECTED POEMS IN IJE ỤWA

Abstract

A poet is a person who is usually more sensitive to sights, sounds and sensation of the world around him, behaviour of people, their follies, their sufferings, concerns such that they seek for wisdom, ask questions and examine issues about life. Poetry as one of the three genre of literature is the reflection of life and human experience. It serves as a watchdog of the society. It offers people opportunity to express themselves on social, political and moral issues affecting the society. A literary artist (poet) does this, by satirizing the weakness of character or vices in a given geographical setting. It teaches moral lesson, inculcates discipline, good moral values in individuals as well as instructs people to conform to the acceptable moral standards maintenance of law and order in the society. People apply their knowledge of literature in their day to day experience in life. According to Egwudu (1979: 1) literature "as a mode of expression, not just subject that expresses something but rather, it is the way, manner, or method in which something is said or written". A number of poems have been examined with the idea of finding out the satirical and philosophical elements in those poems. The poems are unpretentious, persuasive and full of grace and tenderness. The selected poems in Ije Ụwa are compose with fastidious, melodic and meticulous choice of words. The study aims at exposing the extent to which the writer of the selected text through her works have gone to mirror the events of life, portraying the cultural value and explore varieties of human experience in Igbo community. It aims at portraying man in his society, examining and interpreting human behaviours in societies of past and present while projecting into the future. The reader will find it easy to understand what the poet has said in his mind. Based on this assertion one can deduce that a poet is a person who is naturally sensitive to his environment. It can also be seen that the anthologies in Ije Ụwa are all about man and his society. They examined man as a social being. The look at human virtues vices as products of varying circumstances. It studies man's success and failures, his strengths and weakness and how these are affected by time and environment. The poems arouse pity, sympathy and tenderness.