Abstract
This paper examines Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s poetry anthology The Voice of the Night Masquerade as a conversation turn, applying Grice’s cooperative principle to analyse the stylistic features of the text. The paper demonstrates that although The Voice appears to be a monologue, it is actually a turn in the conversation between the persona and his audience. The presentation of only the masquerade’s turn is intended to stress the importance of the masquerade’s message. The paper also investigates how the maxims of quality and manner are flouted in the text, and how these floutings contribute to the aesthetic quality and message of the poetry.
Keywords: cooperative principle, conversation, poetic monologue, Ezenwa-Ohaeto, The Voice of the Night Masquerade, stylistics, Grice
Introduction
One of the motivations for this paper comes from the nature of literature. Literature itself has been defined as ‘artistic creation through language and its product’. Another motivation for this paper is the recent trend in the poetics of Nigerian poetry. Literary scholars like Ojaide, Jegede, and Ezenwa-Ohaeto are all agreed that Nigerian poetry now tilts towards a poetry of orality. This brand of poetry is composed deliberately with an ear for performance. Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s The Voice of the Night Masquerade is written in this style.
This paper posits that Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s The Voice is not just a one-way flow of information from the poet (or his persona) to the audience. Rather, it is a turn in the conversation between the poet’s persona and the audience.
A Brief Review of The Voice
African literature is essentially functional and Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s The Voice is no exception. The anthology is born out of the poet’s desire to make society better. Written essentially for the Nigerian audience, the anthology was published when Nigeria was steeped deep in military dictatorship and the attendant high level of brazen corruption, sycophancy, murder, prostitution fear and massive migration of Nigerians to countries abroad for fear of their lives or in search of better means of livelihood.
The Voice as a Conversation Turn
Conversation is defined as ‘what happens among people; when we use language together (as in “con-versation”), our speech acting only makes sense in our common context’. It involves the exchange of utterances between two or more persons for the purpose of communication. Our text is peculiar: it presents the utterances of only one of the participants — the persona of the anthology invariably the night masquerade.
The masquerade in Igboland is generally known as mmonwu, morphologically a blend of mmuo (spirit) and onwu (death). Literally, mmonwu means spirit of death. The masquerade is the supreme legislative authority in traditional Igbo society. Thus his authority is rarely challenged. His judgements are final.
The Co-operative Principle in The Voice
Communication is the goal of every act of conversation and occurs ‘when hearers are able to accurately identify the intended meaning of the speaker’s utterance and respond to it’. Grice’s cooperative principle posits that a kind of tacit agreement exists between speakers and listeners while conversing. He supports the principle with four maxims: The Maxim of Quality, The Maxim of Quantity, The Maxim of Relevance (Relation), and The Maxim of Manner.
In The Voice, only the maxims of quality and manner are flouted. The masquerade indeed adheres to the maxims of quantity by being neither under or over-informative. ‘Raising a Chant’ flouts the maxim of quality. Here the masquerade tells blatant lies by declaring “I am the tree / I cannot be climbed / I am the earth / I cannot be carried.”
Obviously, the most flouted maxim is that of manner. The masquerade’s manner of presenting his messages does not seem to be cooperative. For instance, he masks many things in metaphors and imagery thereby taking his audience to task. Interpreting his message then seems an exclusive preserve of a select few. The masquerade performs his duties stealthily. But his message is not lost. In fact, his resort to proverbs and other graphic allusions increases the audience’s chances of retaining the information and acting on same even long after the message is sent.
Conclusion
This paper has demonstrated that although Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s The Voice appears to be a monologue, it is actually a turn in the conversation between the persona and his audience. The presentation of only the turn of the masquerade is apparently intended to stress the importance of the masquerade’s message. Besides, the text might also have featured floutings of the maxims of quantity and relevance as well. This paper then calls on linguists and critics to be more vigorous in applying pragmatics — a branch of linguistics — to the study of poetry.
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