Proverbs and the Thematic Thrust of Selected Poetry of Wole Soyinka

Abstract

Readers and critics of Wole Soyinka’s poetry have always grappled with the issue of inaccessibility. The polarity of discourse lies between those who strictly abhor Soyinka’s poetry on account of obscurity and others whose acceptance of the claim has engendered suggestions that proffer access to the poet’s work. In this paper, the writer compliments the latter polemic by articulating the usefulness of proverbs to the intentions of meanings in selected poems of Soyinka. By isolating the sparse but amorphous proverbs deployed by the poet, the writer recognizes the poet’s ingenious uses of proverbs and demonstrates how their contextual applications could assuage the phobia that many have towards the poetry of Wole Soyinka.