Linguistic and Literary (Artistic) Devises in the Composition, Performance and Aesthetics of Ogba Funeral Songs

Abstract

Composition and performance are interwoven in Ogba funeral song. This means that there is performance when the funeral songs are composed. Composition can be oral production while performance is a reproduction and dissemination. The artistic productivity of the artist is exposed at the pre-performance and insitu composition (new creation) stages. Scholars such as Malinowski and Bascom pursue the interest in social context with regard to the physical and cultural circumstances in which tales and songs are performed. Through the composition and performance of Ogba funeral songs, aesthetics – the common and peculiar qualities of the songs which make them beautiful are harnessed. The paper explores and describes composition, performance and aesthetics of Ogba funeral songs. A total of seven (7) songs were used to explicate this topic, and it was discovered that composition of Ogba funeral songs is in three phases of; pre-gestation, gestation and post gestation. Performance has the pre-performance or rehearsal stages: performance stage comprises of opening and closing formula. All of these lead to aesthetics of how art in the performance conveys the Ogba cosmology, rites of transition and worldview, as vehicles for the principle and philosophy, especially in the songs. The paper adopts the quantitative/descriptive design method of analysis pinned down on Dell Hymes’ Ethnopoetics and Schiegel’s historicism propounded in 1850 as theories because they exhume the cultural aspects of the Ogba funeral songs. The paper concludes that Ogba people have a process of composition, performance of their funeral songs and they also enjoy the beauty of the composition and performance. The paper recommends an improvement in the composition and performance of these songs in order to x-ray the beauty embedded in them.