GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT

The study examines the form and structure of oral funeral poetry of Elugwu Ezike Igbo. Oral literature has been used as an instrument through which society passes down its rich experiences of life from one generation to another. Dirge performance is common to all cultures in the world. In particular, dirge has been a means of expressing people’s innermost and most intense beings, beliefs, and reactions to the cut of death in a community. Dirge chanters freely express their emotional sense of loss, praise the deceased expansively and bring their own personality into the poetry. A lot of images are used to showcase events and objects. A descriptive survey approach was adopted for this study. Primary and secondary sources of information were consulted. The study revealed, among other things, that the solo-and-response form is the basic structural feature in most Elugwu Ezike dirges. There is constant repetition of words and sentences in the dirges. The funeral artists make use of linguistic and paralinguistic features at their disposal to realize the aim of their performance.

KEYWORDS:  Form and Structure of Oral Funeral Poetry and Elugwu Ezike Jgbo