Performance, Oral Poetics and Ideo-Aesthetic Heritages in the ‘Search for the Soul’ of a Poet-Cantor

Abstract

This paper examines Eυe oral literature in the context of a poetic search for a departed poet-cantor in order to ascertain how dramaturgy and embodiment and oral poetics engage with knowledge production and dissemination. The paper makes a case that beneath the rhetoric surrounding major works pursued in African oral literature, there is still situated a broad topic concerning Eυe poetic funeral songs that has rather not received much attention. This study has been carried out by employing a combination of two methods of obtaining information: a collection of ethnographic data from Ʋeta-Gbɔta in the Ketu-North District of the Volta Region of Ghana, and relevant critical published works. These data have been textually and qualitatively examined. This approach is convenient and appropriate as it enabled me to describe, analyse and critique adequately data collected, and the subject matter as a whole. The analysis is based on the hypothesis that a ‘poetic search for the soul’ of a departed poet-cantor creates a platform for some understanding of culture: values, practices, and aesthetic qualities. This study is significant as it has demonstrated and ascribed meaning to this aspect of Eυe oral tradition