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HTTP://DOI.ORG/10.33234/SSR.20.4
A Cultural Semiotic Reading of Protest Motif in Tanure Ojaide’s Ecopoetry
Adeyemi ADEGOJU
Department of English
Obafemi Awolowo University
Ile-Ife, Nigeria
and
Smart O. OLUGBEKO
Department of Curriculum Studies
Federal College of Education (T)
Akoka, Lagos
Abstract
Tanure Ojaide’s commitment to resisting the alarming environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria is evidenced in the protest motif that runs through his ecopoetry. Thus, this article examines the polemics of ecoactivism in Tanure Ojaide’s Songs of Myself: Quartet and The Tale of the Harmattan. It purposively sampled some poems from the poetry collections, considering their representation of the magnitude of the environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region and its devastating consequences on the natural world inhabited by both human and non-human beings. The article adopts Juri Lotman’s cultural semiotics theory, drawing insights from its concept of semiosphere and the principle of dialogism. The analysis reveals that the semiotic resources in the ecopoetry largely reflect the unique cultural-cum-historical continuum of the interconnectivity of nature and culture in the Niger Delta world. The study concludes that the polemics of ecoactivism in the poems typifies the confrontational tone and combative spirit associated with protest literature.
Keywords: Cultural semiotics, ecoactivism, nature, Niger Delta, protest motif 