AN EVALUATION OF FIGURES OF SPEECH IN ONYEDIBIA’S ORIE IN THE
CONTEXT AND AESTHETICS OF ORAL LITERATURE

ISAAC, Messiah Ahiakwo Ph.D
Department of English Education,
School of Languages,
Federal College of Education (Technical) Omoku, Rivers State,Nigeria
Corresponding Email: isaacmessiah2018@gmail.com

Abstract
Aesthetics is the study of beauty, especially beauty in art. This work focuses on oral poetry, with a special emphasis on an evaluation of figures of speech in Onyedibia’s Orie in the context and aesthetics of Oral literature. The research methodology adopted for this paper was
descriptive survey design deriving date essentially from two sources: the primary and secondary sources. The primary source is the text book ‘Orie’ which is used for analysis. The secondary source include materials of Oral literature textbooks, journals and online materials.
The paper adopted ethnopoetics as its theoretical framework to discuss the principle of bipartite structure as one of the features of oral literature, citing copious examples from the text to buttress assertions identifying such poetic qualities, as contrast, ideophones, repletion, metaphors among others through which beauty is created. Paper also showcased that the book, Orie, as a source of historical information of the Omoku people in Ogba /Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers state Nigeria . The paper concluded while recommending that both lecturers and students should collect, collate, transcribe, translate and conserve oral literature
products for posterity.